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Airplane travel is a routine part of athletes’ lives. In the regular season of major sports leagues in the United States, there are thousands of uneventful flights every year. But when something goes awry, sports fans and the families of those lost never forget.
The crash of a jet as it carried members of Chapecoense Real to Colombia for a soccer match this week is the latest tragedy intruding on the seemingly safe world of sports. Here are other crashes that have taken the lives of athletes, coaches and others.
Five members of the Czech national hockey team, including International Ice Hockey Hall of Famer Ladislav Trojak, died when their plane vanished into the English Channel en route from Paris to London. The team, which had won the World Championships and competed in the Olympics, had split into two groups, with other players flying to England for a couple of exhibition games a day earlier.
Torino, an Italian soccer club that was a five-time league champion during the ’40s, lost 22 members, including 18 players, when its plane crashed into a retaining wall at Turin’s Basilica of Superga.
Eleven members of the Moscow VVS ice hockey team perished when their plane crashed while attempting to land in a snowstorm at Koltsovo airport in Yekaterinburg.
In an incident known as the “Munich air disaster,” eight Manchester United players died when their plane crashed while attempting to take off after stopping to refuel. The team was returning to Manchester from a European Cup match against Red Star Belgrade, and two attempts at takeoff were aborted before the third fatal try.
The Egyptian fencing team lost six members when its KLM flight crashed into the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of Ireland. The flight, which originated in Amsterdam and had just departed Shannon, was headed for a stop in Newfoundland before its final destination of New York City.
Adams
