Today marks the 71st year since the tragedy of January 26, 1953: the Sinnai plane crash cost the lives of 19 people, including crew and passengers who had left Elmas airport a few minutes earlier. Nobody was saved. That plane had lost a wing near the pine forest, crashing shortly after. It all happened between 11.47 and 11.49: the LAI aircraft crashed into the Mediterranean scrub, also causing a huge fire.
Only shreds remained of the victims. Recognition is also impossible. A few moments before the crash - say the news of the Sardinian Union, written by Vittorino Fiori - the pilot Giacomo Solaini had contacted the Elmas control tower. He had decided to bring the plane back to the runway immediately . A perhaps desperate communication. The aircraft first lost a wing. Then the crash among the Mediterranean scrub that went to ashes.
Cristoforo Murrocco of Rome, Angela Fossati of Modena, Aldo Costantini of Turin and 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, a Turin referee who the day before had refereed the Serie B match between Cagliari and Fanfulla, 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 continued for several days. They were moved to the cemetery. The few remains of the aircraft were also brought to the town with some ox carts. Referee Silvano's whistle was also recovered. A cobbler who was also involved in football, Antonino Palmas, contacted the family in Turin and founded with some friends and boys a youth team in his honour, the Pro Silvano which for years 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. For the rest, only pale memories of a history that appears increasingly distant.
