MONTEVIDEO — The 1972 Andes plane crash involving
Uruguay’s Old Christians rugby team,
made famous by the fact that some of the survivors ate the remains of other
victims, is just one of several aviation disasters to hit the sporting world
since the dawn of air travel.
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Here are 10 others:
1949: Italy’s Grande Torino
A plane carrying famed Italian football club Grande Torino crashed on its
way back from
Portugal on May 4, 1949, killing all 31 passengers and crew. A
reported one million people poured into the streets of Turin to bid farewell to
their heroes. Grande Torino were named Italian champions for the fifth time in
a row. The crash had a devastating impact on the Italian national squad, which
was dominated by Torino players.
1958: England’s Manchester United
Eight members of Manchester United’s celebrated “Busby Babes” team were
among 23 people who died when their plane crashed after attempting to take off
in poor conditions in Munich on February 6, 1958.
England superstar
Duncan Edwards was among those killed, while Sir Bobby Charlton — who went on
to win the World Cup with
England — was hurt. Manager Matt Busby recovered from
serious injuries and rebuilt United into a force that would win the European
Cup a decade later, in 1968.
1961: US figure skating team
The entire 18-member team died when their plane crashed in Belgium on
February 15, 1961, on their way to compete at the World Championships in the
former
Czechoslovakia. Three members of a skating family were among the
victims: US ladies champion Laurence Owens, 16, her sister Maribel, 20, and
their mother and coach Maribel Vinson-Owen, an Olympic bronze medalist.
1969: Rocky Marciano
American boxing legend Rocky Marciano was killed when his jet crashed into
a tree as it was coming in to land in the US state of Iowa, on August 31, 1969.
Marciano, 45 when he died, was world heavyweight champion between 1952 and 1956
and retired undefeated with a 49–0 record.
1987: Peru’s oldest football team
A Peruvian navy plane carrying 43 people, including players and staff from
Alianza Lima, the country’s oldest football team, plunged into the ocean off
Lima on December 8, 1987.
The airliner was
returning to the capital from the jungle city of Pucallpa when the pilot
reported problems with the landing gear. He survived and was recovered after
floating for hours in choppy seas.
1993: Zambian football team
On April 27, 1993, an aircraft carrying Zambia’s national football team
crashed into the sea shortly after take off from Gabon, en route to play
Senegal in a World Cup qualifier, killing all 25 people on board. The team was
recognized as one of the strongest ever fielded by the African nation, having
thrashed Italy 4–0 at the 1988
Olympic Games. A report into the crash, issued a
decade later, blamed pilot error and an engine problem.
2011: Russian ice hockey team
A plane carrying top-tier Russian ice hockey team Lokomotiv Yaroslavl
crashed due to pilot error after taking off for their first game of the season
in the Belarus capital, Minsk on September 7, 2011. All of the players were
killed.
2016: Brazilian footballers
A plane carrying Brazil’s Chapecoense football team ran out of fuel and
crashed in the Andes near Medellin, Colombia, on November 28, 2016.
Seventy-one of the
77 people on board were killed, including 16 of the 19 players. Chapecoense
were en route to play the first leg of the Copa Sudamericana final against
Colombia’s Atletico Nacional.
2019: Emiliano Sala
Premier League team Cardiff City’s record new signing, Argentina-born
striker Emiliano Sala, died when a light aircraft he was travelling in crashed
over the English Channel in January 2019.
2020: Kobe Bryant
Basketball legend Kobe Bryant was killed along with his 13-year-old
daughter Gianna and seven other people when their helicopter crashed in foggy
conditions on a hill outside Los Angeles on January 26, 2020.
Five-time NBA
champion Bryant, 41, became the face of basketball during a glittering two
decades with the Los Angeles Lakers. He is considered one of the greatest
players ever.
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