Sinnai: seventy years ago the Lai plane crashed on the hills of the country. No one was saved

Seventy years ago. That tragedy of January 26, 1953 over the skies of Sinnai made history and news, with the memory that then faded over time. An LAI plane, which had just taken off from Elmas, crashed in the hills of Sinnai: no one was saved: 19 victims.

That plane had lost a wing near the pine forest, then crashed shortly after. Today marks the 70th anniversary. It all happened between 11.47 and 11.49: the aircraft crashed into the Mediterranean scrub, also causing a huge fire. Of the 19 passengers, only shreds remained.

Recognition is also impossible. A few moments before the crash - say the chronicles of the Sardinian Union, written by Vittorino Fiori - the pilot Giacomo Solaini had contacted the control tower of Elmas. He had decided to return the plane immediately to the runway. A perhaps desperate communication. The aircraft ended up on the Mediterranean maquis a few moments later.

Cristoforo Murrocco of Rome, Angela Fossati of Modena, Aldo Costantini of Turin, Antonio Manunza lost their lives. And again Marco Baroni of Lodi, Renato Gianni, Alfonso Mauro of Rome (son of the then prefect of Cagliari), Ernesto Scola of Milan, Luigi Lotto of Lanusei, Maria Tesori of Frosinone, the sisters Cecilia and Annamaria Coen of Naples, Carlo Dragoni of Rome, Cristoforo Magnasco, Roman. Ermanno Silvano, the Turin referee who had directed the Serie B match between Cagliari and Fanfulla the day before, also died. The continental team had left on another flight.

The crew also died; the commander Giacomo Solaini, the second pilot Carlo Schimdt, the radio operator Emerico Rosselli and the hostess Lina Lustrati.

The removal of human remains went on for several days. They were moved to the cemetery. The few remains of the aircraft were also brought to the village with some carts pulled by oxen. It was the morning of January 26, 1953. The referee Silvano's whistle was also recovered. A cobbler who was also involved in football, Antonino Palmas, contacted the family in Turin and founded a youth team in his honor with some friends and boys, the Pro Silvano which for years has marked the football history of Sinnai. In the following years, a memorial stone was also erected with blessing and mass in the presence of the administrators of the time. There are still those who, occasionally, especially by bike, get there and stop. For the rest, only pale memories of a story that seems ever more distant.