Footballers Aviation Accidents and Incidents

Eighteen players of the Grande Torino and five club officials were killed when the plane crashed on its landing approach to the Turin airport. The Superga air disaster occurred on 4 May 1949, when a Fiat G.212 of Avio Linee Italiane (Italian Airlines), carrying the entire Torino football team (popularly known as the Grande Torino), crashed into the retaining wall at the back of the Basilica of Superga, which stands on a hill on the outskirts of Turin. All thirty-one people on the flight died. The Avio Linee Italiane Fiat G.212CP was carrying the team home from Lisbon, where they had played a friendly match with S.L. Benfica in honour of the Portuguese captain, Francisco Ferreira. In the incident, the whole active Torino team (almost all of the Italy national football team) lost their lives. Club officials including the manager, Ernő Egri Erbstein, a Hungarian refugee from the Nazis, and the coach, Englishman Leslie Lievesley, also perished in the accident, as well as the crew and three well-known Italian sports journalists: Renato Casalbore (founder of Tuttosport); Renato Tosatti (the Gazzetta del Popolo, father of Giorgio Tosatti), and Luigi Cavallero (La Stampa).