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Superga Air Disaster

 
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The Superga air disaster took place on Wednesday, 4 May 1949, when a plane carrying almost the entire Torino A.C.
Torino F.C.

Torino Football Club 1906, commonly referred to as simply Torino, is an Italy professional association football club based in Turin, Piedmont, that was founded in 1906....
 football
Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of eleven players, and is widely considered to be the most popular sport in the world....
 squad, popularly known as Il Grande Torino, crashed into the hill of Superga
Superga

Superga is a hill situated on the south bank of the Po River to the east of Turin in north-west Italy. At 672 metres above sea level, it is one of the most prominent of the hills which form an amphitheatre around the city....
 near Turin
Turín

Tur?n is a municipality in the Ahuachap?n Department Departments of El Salvador of El Salvador....
 killing all 31 aboard including 18 players, club officials, journalists accompanying the team, and the plane's crew. The team was returning from a farewell match for Xico Ferreira against Benfica in Lisbon
Lisbon

Lisbon is the Capital and largest city of Portugal. It is also the seat of the Lisbon and capital of the Lisbon region. Its municipalities of Portugal, which matches the city proper excluding the larger continuous conurbation, has a municipal population of 564,477 in , while the Lisbon Metropolitan Area in total has around 2.8 million inha...
.

Crash
The Avio Linee Italiane (Italian Airlines) Fiat G212CP
Fiat G.212

The Fiat G.212 was an Italy three engined airliner of the 1940s. An enlarged development of Fiat's earlier Fiat G.12 transport, it was used in small numbers in commercial service and by the Italian Air Force....
 carrying the team flew into a thunderstorm on the approach to Turin and encountered conditions of low cloud and poor visibility.






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The Superga air disaster took place on Wednesday, 4 May 1949, when a plane carrying almost the entire Torino A.C.
Torino F.C.

Torino Football Club 1906, commonly referred to as simply Torino, is an Italy professional association football club based in Turin, Piedmont, that was founded in 1906....
 football
Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of eleven players, and is widely considered to be the most popular sport in the world....
 squad, popularly known as Il Grande Torino, crashed into the hill of Superga
Superga

Superga is a hill situated on the south bank of the Po River to the east of Turin in north-west Italy. At 672 metres above sea level, it is one of the most prominent of the hills which form an amphitheatre around the city....
 near Turin
Turín

Tur?n is a municipality in the Ahuachap?n Department Departments of El Salvador of El Salvador....
 killing all 31 aboard including 18 players, club officials, journalists accompanying the team, and the plane's crew. The team was returning from a farewell match for Xico Ferreira against Benfica in Lisbon
Lisbon

Lisbon is the Capital and largest city of Portugal. It is also the seat of the Lisbon and capital of the Lisbon region. Its municipalities of Portugal, which matches the city proper excluding the larger continuous conurbation, has a municipal population of 564,477 in , while the Lisbon Metropolitan Area in total has around 2.8 million inha...
.

Crash


The Avio Linee Italiane (Italian Airlines) Fiat G212CP
Fiat G.212

The Fiat G.212 was an Italy three engined airliner of the 1940s. An enlarged development of Fiat's earlier Fiat G.12 transport, it was used in small numbers in commercial service and by the Italian Air Force....
 carrying the team flew into a thunderstorm on the approach to Turin and encountered conditions of low cloud and poor visibility. After descending to be able to fly visually the plane clipped a wall close to the Basilica of Superga
Basilica of Superga

The Basilica of Superga is a church in the vicinity of Turin.It was built from 1717 to 1731 for Victor Amadeus II of Savoy by Filippo Juvarra, at the top of the hill of Superga, to fulfill a vow the duke had made during the Battle of Turin....
 and crashed. Italian authorities cited low cloud, poor radio aids and an error in navigation as factors contributing to the accident.

The emotional impact the crash made on Italian sports fans was profound, as it claimed the lives of the players of a legendary team which had won the last Serie A
Serie A

Serie A is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top echelon of the Italian football league system. It is widely regarded as one of the elite leagues of the footballing world....
 title before the league play was interrupted in 1944 by World War II
World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
 and had then returned after the conflict to win four consecutive titles (1946–1949).

At the time of the crash Torino A.C. was leading Serie A with four games left to play in the season. The club carried on by fielding its youth team (Primavera) and in a sign of respect their opponents in each of these matches (Genoa, Palermo, Sampdoria, and Fiorentina) also fielded their youth sides. Primavera won each of their matches. The disaster seriously weakened the country's national side which had included up to 10 Torino players. Torino itself would not claim another title until 1976.

Of the entire squad only one player remained: Sauro Tomŕ missed the trip to Portugal due to injury. The Hungarian star Ladislao Kubala
Ladislao Kubala

L?szl? Kubala Stecz , also referred to as Kubala St?cz L?szl?, was a Hungary footballer and manager who played as a forward with various European clubs including Ferencv?rosi Torna Club, ?K Slovan Bratislava, Vasas SC, FC Barcelona and RCD Espanyol....
, who was to give a guest performance in Lisbon, had just been re-united with his wife and son. The boy was ill and Kubala stayed back to help care for him, missing the fatal trip.

The son of captain Valentino Mazzola
Valentino Mazzola

Valentino Mazzola was an Italian List of football players and captain of the legendary Grande Torino side killed in the Superga air disaster. He is considered one of the best association football players of all time and perhaps the first modern all-around footballer, as he was an attacking midfielder who could score, tackle, defend and lea...
, Sandro
Sandro Mazzola

Alessandro Mazzola is an Italian former football player. He is the son of Valentino Mazzola, who was killed in the Superga air disaster in 1949, and one of the most renowned Italian football players of 1960s....
, became a player of international fame in his own right in the 1960s playing with Inter Milan. Both father and son wore the number 10.

Victims


Players
  • Valerio Bacigalupo
    Valerio Bacigalupo

    Valerio Bacigalupo was an Italy football goalkeeper from Vado Ligure, Province of Savona. He started his career off with home province side Savona 1907 F.B.C.....
  • Aldo Ballarin
  • Dino Ballarin
  • Milo Bongiorni
  • Eusebio Castigliano
  • Rubens Fadini
  • Guglielmo Gabetto
    Guglielmo Gabetto

    Guglielmo Gabetto was an Italy former football player. He played as a striker. Aside from goalkeeper Alfredo Bodoira he is the only player to win the Italian championship with both Torino Football Club and Juventus FC....
  • Ruggero Grava
  • Giuseppe Grezar
  • Ezio Loik
  • Virgilio Maroso
  • Danilo Martelli
  • Valentino Mazzola
    Valentino Mazzola

    Valentino Mazzola was an Italian List of football players and captain of the legendary Grande Torino side killed in the Superga air disaster. He is considered one of the best association football players of all time and perhaps the first modern all-around footballer, as he was an attacking midfielder who could score, tackle, defend and lea...
  • Romeo Menti
    Romeo Menti

    Romeo Menti was an Italian people football player.Born at Vicenza, Menti debuted in his city's Serie C club in 1935, in the same Stadio Romeo Menti that was to be dedicated to him a few years later....
  • Piero Operto
  • Franco Ossola
  • Mario Rigamonti
  • Julius Schubert


Club officials
  • Arnaldo Agnisetta, manager
  • Ippolito Civalleri, manager
  • Egri Erbstein
    Ernest Erbstein

    Ernest Erbstein commonly known as Egri Erbstein was a Hungary football player and later manager from Nagyv?rad; now known as Oradea in Romania....
    , trainer
  • Leslie Lievesley
    Leslie Lievesley

    Leslie Lievesley was an England association footballer. His regular position was at Defender #Full back. He was born in Staveley, Derbyshire. He played for Manchester United F.C., Doncaster Rovers F.C....
    , coach
  • Ottavio Corina, masseur


Journalists
  • Renato Casalbore, (founder of Tuttosport
    Tuttosport

    Tuttosport is an Italy national sports newspaper based in Turin which has been published since 30 July 1945.Renato Casalbore founded the newspaper as a bi-weekly....
    )
  • Luigi Cavallero, (La Stampa
    La Stampa

    La Stampa is one of the best-known and most widely sold Italy daily newspapers. Published in Turin, it is distributed in Italy and other European nations....
    )
  • Renato Tosatti, (Gazzetta del Popolo)


Crew
  • Pierluigi Meroni, captain
  • Antonio Pangrazi
  • Celestino D'Inca
  • Cesare Biancardi


Others
  • Andrea Bonaiuti, organiser


Lapide Superga


See also

  • Controlled flight into terrain
    Controlled flight into terrain

    Controlled flight into terrain describes a collision whereby an airworthy aircraft, under Aviator control, inadvertently flies into terrain, an obstacle, or water....
  • The Munich air disaster
    Munich air disaster

    The Munich air disaster took place on 6 February 1958, when British European Airways Flight 609 crashed on its third attempt to take off from a slush-covered runway at Munich-Riem Airport in Munich, West Germany....
     killed several members of English side
    Football in England

    Association football is the national sport in England and plays a significant role in English culture....
     Manchester United
    Manchester United F.C.

    Manchester United Football Club is an English association football club, based at Old Trafford in Trafford, Greater Manchester, and is one of the most popular football clubs in the world, with over 330 million supporters worldwide ? almost 5% of the world's population....
     in 1958.
  • The entire 1961 United States figure skating team died in the crash of Sabena Flight 548
    Sabena Flight 548

    Sabena Flight 548, registration OO-SJB, was a Boeing 707 aircraft en route from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Brussels, Belgium's Brussels Airport on February 15, 1961....
     on their way to the World Championships.
  • The 1970 crash of Southern Airways Flight 932 killed nearly all of the Marshall University
    Marshall University

    Marshall University is a coeducational public university research university in Huntington, West Virginia, founded in 1837 as a private secondary school by several residents of Guyandotte and the surrounding area, on the site once known as Maple Grove ....
     football
    American football

    American football, known in the United States and Canada simply as football, is a competitive team sport known for mixing strategy with physical play....
     team, almost wiping out the university's football program.
  • The 1989 crash of Surinam Airways Flight PY764
    Surinam Airways Flight PY764

    Surinam Airways Flight PY764 was an international scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands to Paramaribo-Zanderij International Airport in Suriname on a Surinam Airways DC-8....
     killed a group of Surinamese players known as "The Colorful 11", whose members played professional football in the Netherlands.
  • Nearly the entire Zambia national football team
    Zambia national football team

    The Zambia national football team represents the country of Zambia and is governed by the Football Association of Zambia. The side is nicknamed Chipolopolo as copper is one of the southcentral African nation's main exports....
     was killed in a 1993 crash.


External links

  • (in Italian)