Superga air disaster
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Superga air disaster happened on Wednesday, May 4, 1949, when a plane carrying almost the entire Grande Torino squad (18 players), plus management, journalists and crew, crashed into the Superga hills near Turin, killing everyone on board. In all, 31 people died.
The team was returning from José Ferreira's farewell match in Lisbon at the time of the crash. The crash was the biggest tragedy in Italian sports history since it claimed the lives of a legendary team that had won the Serie A title for the previous four years in a row (plus the last title before the outbreak of war). After the crash Torino F.C. did not win the title again until the 1975/76 season. Of the entire squad, only one player survived, Sauro Tomà who did not make the trip because he was injured. Ladislao Kubala was due to fly out to play in the match, but at the last minute didn't do it because of his son's ill health.
[edit] Victims
[edit] Players
- Valerio Bacigalupo
- Aldo Ballarin
- Dino Ballarin
- Milo Bongiorni
- Eusebio Castigliano
- Rubens Fadini
- Guglielmo Gabetto
- Ruggero Grava
- Giuseppe Grezar
- Ezio Loik
- Virgilio Maroso
- Danilo Martelli
- Valentino Mazzola
- Romeo Menti
- Piero Operto
- Franco Ossola
- Mario Rigamonti
- Giulio Schubert
[edit] Club Officials
- Arnaldo Agnisetta, manager
- Ippolito Civalleri, manager
- Egri Erbstein, trainer
- Leslie Lievesley, coach
- Ottavio Corina, masseur
[edit] Journalists
- Renato Casalbore, (founder of Tuttosport)
- Luigi Cavallero, (La Stampa)
- Renato Tosatti, (Gazzetta del Popolo)
[edit] Crew
- Pierluigi Meroni, captain
- Antonio Pangrazi
- Celestino D'Inca
- Cesare Biancardi
[edit] Others
- Andrea Bonaiuti, organiser
[edit] See also
- Munich air disaster, 1958, which killed many in the then Manchester United F.C. team.
- The Zambia national football team was also killed in an airline crash in 1993
- Surinam Airways Flight PY764, in which a representative team of Surinamese players (the colorful 11), that played professional football in the Netherlands, was killed in 1989.
