The accident of American Airlines flight 55342, which collided with a military helicopter and crashed into the Potomac River in Washington D.C., is one of several air tragedies that have shaken the sport. The death of several figure skaters, both current and retired and now coaches, of Russian origin but for many years linked to skating in the United States is reminiscent of what happened in 1961
That year, a plane crash claimed the lives of the US figure skating team as they were on their way to the World Championships. Ice sports have also been tragically linked to other aviation accidents such as the one suffered by the Russian Army ice hockey team in 1950, the Czechoslovak national team or more recently Lokomotiv Yaroslavl
In football, the events of Torino, Manchester United and Chapecoense are remembered
1961: a plane crash in which the US figure skating team died
On February 15, 1961, Sabena Flight 548 crashed near Brussels airport. On board was the United States figure skating team, consisting of 18 members, on their way to the World Championships in Prague. Of the total of 72 passengers, in addition to the skaters, six coaches and four judges also lost their lives, as well as six relatives of the athletes
Among the deceased skaters were young promising skaters who had already shone in the United States, such as Lawrence Owen, sixth in the 1960 Olympic Games at only 15 years of age, Dudley Richards, US champion, Ila Ray Hadley, already an Olympian at 17 years of age or the brothers Laurie and William Hickox, national champions. Tim Brown was saved by being a last-minute casualty on medical advice and staying in the United States. His place was taken by Douglas Ramsay.
The exact cause of the accident was never reported, but according to the US Federal Aviation Administration, the most likely cause was the malfunction of the stabilizer trim mechanism.
The International Skating Union decided to cancel the World Championships and Prague was designated as the venue for the following year
Six players from the world champion Czechoslovak hockey team die
On November 8, 1948, six players from the Czechoslovak national ice hockey team, world champions in 1947, died in a crash of a charter flight from Paris to London in 1948, when they were on their way to play a series of friendly matches in Britain
The plane crashed over the English Channel. Bad weather had grounded all international flights out of Paris, but to get to the game in London, the players convinced Rene de Narbonne, a former war pilot, to take them in a twin-engine Beechcraft 18. On board were forwards Ladislav Trojak and Karel Stibor, defensemen Zdenek Svarc, Vilibald Stovik, Miloslav Pokorny and goaltender Zdenek Jarkovsky. Fog, rain and temperatures near freezing caused the plane to disappear while flying over the English Channel.
As the bodies did not appear, the communist regime in Czechoslovakia spread the word that the missing players had not died but had gone into exile. Two bodies were found later, one of them the pilot.
The list of air tragedies in the world of sports is long, but Chapecoense’s is one of the most recent. On November 29, 2016, a plane carrying Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense before playing the final of the Copa Sudamericana suffered an accident when approaching the Jose Maria Cordova airport in the Colombian city of Medellin
The crash claimed the lives of 71 people and there were six survivors, including footballers Alan Ruschel, Jakson Follman and Helio Neto, who was found under the fuselage when it seemed that no more survivors would be found. The other three people who survived were a journalist and two crew members of the crashed plane. Goalkeeper Danilo survived the crash but later died in hospital.
Torino’s plane crashes into a Basilica
The most devastating accident in Italian football history took place on May 4, 1949. The plane in which Torino was returning from playing a tribute match in Lisbon to Portuguese footballer Xico Ferreira crashed into the bell tower of the Basilica of Superga, near Turin. Forty-two people died, including almost the entire Torino squad.
Weather conditions and a navigational error were the causes of the accident, according to investigations by the Italian authorities.
Manchester United’s Munich air disaster
On 6 February 1958, the Manchester United air disaster in Munich took place, cutting short the progress of the promising team known as the ‘Busby Babes’. The British European Airways flight carrying the squad crashed while attempting to take off from the German airport in the midst of a storm. United were returning from Belgrade, where they had played a European Cup quarter-final against Red Star and had qualified for the semi-finals.
23 people died, including eight footballers, the coach and two directors. Among the survivors was Bobby Charlton, who would become one of the best players in English football and was a World Cup winner in 1966.
The Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, a Fairchild Hiller with 40 passengers, the Old Christians rugby team and their companions, and five crew members, was on its way to Santiago, Chile, to play a match. Weather conditions over the Andes advised them to make a stopover in Mendoza, Argentina. The next day the conditions did not improve but the plane took off when the weather improved slightly. However, a deterioration caused the plane to crash into a peak in the Andes, at 3,600 meters. Thirteen people died in the accident and five others died afterwards. Eight more would die days later in an avalanche.
The group organised themselves, led by team captain Marcelo Perez, to survive while they waited for rescue, but they were not located as the positions given by the aircraft during the flight were incorrect. Roberto Canessa and Fernando ‘Nando’ Parrado travelled for 10 days through the Andes looking for help, once they were able to hear through a radio that they kept that the search had been abandoned. Due to the lack of food, they had to feed on the bodies of their dead comrades.
Canessa and Parrado managed to get help and were rescued after 72 days in extreme conditions. There were 16 survivors. The survival feat has been recounted in books – such as ‘I Had to Survive’, by Canessa himself (2016) – and several films, such as ‘Alive’.
On September 7, 2011, the Yak-42 plane carrying the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team crashed, killing 45 people, mostly members of the team. The Yak-42 crashed just after takeoff as it was heading to Minsk for the season-opening game against Dinamo Minsk. The official report of the investigation conducted by the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) concluded that it was due to pilot error.
“The decision on the take-off speed made by the pilot, 190 kilometers per hour, was 20 kilometers less than necessary for the take-off weight of 54 tons and the nominal power rating of the engines,” explained the chairman of the MAK technical commission, Alexei Morozov.
The snowstorm and the accident of the Russian army ice hockey team
On January 7, 1950, a plane crash in Sverdlovsk killed 11 players, the doctor and a masseur of VVS Moscow, the Soviet Air Force ice hockey team
Bad weather forced the flight to be diverted to Sverdlovsk. After four attempts to land at Koltsovo airport, on the fifth attempt the plane crashed in the middle of a snowstorm and strong winds.
Only one player from the Puerto Rican women’s national team survived
On February 15, 1970, the Dominicana de Aviacion DC-9 flight departed from the Dominican Republic for Puerto Rico. It fell into the waters of the Caribbean Sea. 102 people died, including 12 of the 13 members of the Puerto Rican women’s national team.
Carmen Rosa Sabater, 24, and captain, returned to Puerto Rico a day earlier accompanied by FPV president Jose Nicolas Palmer to participate in an event.
A plane carrying four footballers and the president of a Brazilian team crashes
On January 24, 2021, the plane carrying four players and the president of the fourth division Campeonato Brasileiro team Palmas Futebol e Regatas crashed on its way toGoiania, where they would face Vila Nova in the Copa Verde..
The private plane, chartered by the club, crashed shortly after taking off from Palmas, the capital of the Amazonian state of Tocantins. Goalkeeper Ranule Gomes dos Reis, 27, left-back Lucas Praxedes, 23, defender Guilherme Noe, 28, winger Marcus Molinari, 23, pilot Wagner Machado Junior and the team’s manager and president Lucas Meira, 32, were killed.
Football was in mourning with the Alianza de Lima accident
On December 8, 1987, all the members of Club Alianza Lima, players and coaching staff, died in a plane crash after a match against Deportivo Pucallpa. The plane crashed into the sea when it was just a few kilometers from Jorge Chavez International Airport
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