Lisbon – Barcelona – Turin

On May 4, 1949 at 05:04 PM, Lisbon – Barcelona – Turin experienced a crash involving Fiat G.212, operated by Avio Linee Italiane - ALI, with the event recorded near Torino Piedmont.

The flight was categorized as charter/taxi (non scheduled revenue flight) and the reported phase was landing (descent or approach) at a mountains crash site.

31 people were known to be on board, 31 fatalities were recorded, 0 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 100.0%.

Crew on board: 4, crew fatalities: 4, passengers on board: 27, passenger fatalities: 27, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is human factor. The three engine aircraft was completing a charter flight from Lisbon to Torino with an intermediate stop in Barcelona, carrying the Torino AC soccer team and its staff back to Torino after a friendly match in Portugal. The airplane left Lisbon at 0952LT and Barcelona Airport at 1315LT. After an uneventful flight, the crew started the descent to Torino-Aeritalia Airport in poor weather conditions with clouds down to 400 meters and an horizontal visibility estimated at 1,200 meters. Due to the poor visibility, the pilot did not realize he was flying to low when the aircraft hit the Mt Superga (675 meters high) and crashed on the east wall of the basilica, about 12 km from the runway 28 threshold. The aircraft was destroyed by impact forces and all 31 occupants were killed. Crew: Pierluigi Meroni, pilot, Antonio Pangrazi, Celestino D'Inca, Cesare Biancardi. Passengers: Valerio Bacigalupo, player, Aldo Ballarin, player, Dino Ballarin, player, Émile Bongiorni, player, Eusebio Castigliano, player, Rubens Fadini, player, Guglielmo Gabetto, player, Roger Grava, player, Giuseppe Grezar, player, Ezio Loik, player, Virgilio Maroso, player, Danilo Martelli, player, Valentino Mazzola, player, Romeo Menti, player, Piero Operto, player, Franco Ossola, player, Mario Rigamonti, player, Giulio Schubert, player, Arnaldo Agnisetta, director, Ippolito Civalleri, director, Egri Erbstein, coach, Leslie Lievesley, coach, Ottavio Corina, masseur, Renato Casalbore, journalist at Tuttosport, Luigi Cavallero, journalist at La Stampa, Renato Tosatti, journalist at Gazzetta del Popolo, Andrea Bonaiuti, organizer.

Aircraft reference details include registration I-ELCE, MSN 05, year of manufacture 1947.

Geospatial coordinates for this crash are approximately 45.0250°, 7.6718°.