Turin, my beautiful city, is well known in the world for many nice things: Gianduiotti, the Mole Antonelliana, the Egyptian Museum, his ancient and fascinating history, stunning heritage sites. Unfortunately, it is also well known for a tragic incident dated back to May the 4th 1949, which shocked the whole population and caused a huge loss in Turin’s soccer world. At 17:03 p.m., the plane Fiat G.212 of the ALI air company, with the entire “Grande Torino” team aboard, crashed while coming back from Lisbona on the wall behind the Superga Basilica, which rises on one of the most famous hills in Turin.
31 victims were counted in the incident.
In 2015, in memory of this sad event, the day of May the 4th has been named world day of soccer.
In the incident the whole team of Torino loss its life, winner of four consecutive soccer badges from the 1942-1943 season to the 1948-1949 season, which constituted almost the total of Italian National Team. Between the fallen, also the team leaders, the carers, the crew members and three famous sport journalists were counted: Renato Casalbore (Tuttosport founder) Renato Tosatti (from the Gazzetta del Popolo) and Luigi Cavallero (La Stampa).
The Torino team was nominated winner of the championship. The day of the funerals almost one million people were in Turin square to give the last goodbye to the players. The shock was so heavy that the next year the national team went to the World Soccer Games in Brazil by ship.
Nowadays some rests of the plane are conserved in a museum in Grugliasco, a town near Turin. There, the “Museum of Grande Torino and the grenade legend” take place in the prestigious Villa Claretta Alessandri of Grugliasco since 2008.
In memory of the tragedy, if you go to visit the Superga Basilica, you will certainly see a monument in the back of the hills with a picture of the team, an explanation of the event, all the names of the victims and places to leave flowers or thoughts for them. As you can deduct from all these memorials and commemoration, this is an incident that will remain in the heart of Turin history forever, sculpted in the remembrance of every future generation of people.
Images credits to https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedia_di_Superga