The football fraternity was recently thrown into mourning when the news broke that the plane conveying Argentine striker, Emiliano Sala to his new club Cardiff City has gone missing.
Though, there are reports that wreckages of the plane have been found there are slim hope of either that the footballer nor the pilot will survive the crash.
As our hearts go out to their families, we remember similar incidents that have thrown the soccer fraternity into mourning. Here are three of such incidents.
In the evening of November 28, 2016, LaMia Flight 2933, which has 77 people on board, including 21 journalists and almost the entire first team and managerial staff of Chapecoence, a Brazilian football club crashed as it approached Medellin, Colombia.
The plane ran out of fuel after the pilot skipped refueling stop. When they approached a Bolivian airport, the pilot informed air traffic controllers that they needed to be granted priority landing because they have ran out of fuel.
Unfortunately, another plane with fuel leakage problen had already been granted prority landing. So the plane carrying the football club were asked to wait for seven minutes.
Sadly, the plane went down some minutes later.
According to a reliable report, there were six survivors. They include Alan Ruschel, a defender; back up goalkeeper, Jackson Follman, who had one of his legs amputated and a Centre back, Neto.
Sadly, goalkeeper, Damilo was found alive, but died on his way to hospital.
It was on the evening of April 27, 1993, the Zambian National Team known as the Chipolopolo or Copper Bullets were on their way to Dakar, Senegal to take on the Teranga Lions of Senegal in a U. S. A. 94 World Cup qualifiers.
The plane was a DHC-5 Buffalo of the Zambian Air Force. There were 25 passengers and five crew members. They were scheduled to make three refueling stopovers before they hit Dakar.
After the first stop in Brazzaville, Congo, some engine problems were noted. Yet, the flight continued to Libraville, Gabon for the second refueling. The third refueling was to be done in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, but it never happened.
As soon as they took off from Libraville the left engine caught fire. The pilot wanted to shut down the engine on fire, but rather shut down the right engine. The plane having lost all powers during the climb from the Libraville Airport fell into the Atlantic Ocean.
Some reports have it that the pilot’s error was due to fatigue while others claim that it was possible that the dashboard did not signaled the right engine that was on fire. There was no survivors.
