With this note of 17 February 1958, the newspaper Il Mattino di Napoli informed its readers of the death of a U.S. aircraft that, after refueling on the runway of the airport of Capodichino military was broken at 22:22 and then direct the first in Athens go to Istanbul.
After an initial radio contact with the control tower, the pilot did not provide any more news. At first there was no particular concern on the part of air traffic controllers, and later, however, the hours passed and the complete radio silence, it was feared the worst: at dawn searches were started immediately hampered by bad weather. Since
that the U.S. plane was required to follow a precise route, ie along the Campania and Calabria, before heading for Athens, reconnaissance parties from Tripoli, Malta, Catania, Athens and from the aircraft carrier "Saratoga" in those days stood Naples, unnecessarily concentrated in areas that the plane had to cross. The searches continued for four days and despite the adverse weather conditions. The plane, however, had not fallen into the sea but had crashed on Mount Somma.
on "The Morning" for the next 20 February, in fact, states that it is due to Raffaele Mercogliano, a municipal guard of the City of Pollena Trocchia, the first sighting of aircraft wreckage. From the newspaper we read that Mercogliano " was discussing yesterday morning in an area of \u200b\u200bhigh Pollena with some neighbors about the weather. He raised his eyes to the mountains, and at that moment a ray of sunshine has something glittering on the ridge northwest of Cognoli. At first glance the Mercogliano, without giving excessive weight to the thing, also considered it necessary to inform the Mayor of Pollena Trocchia . And the mayor, in turn, shall notify by telephone the police barracks near the town of St. Anastasia.
From "The Morning" we learn that - at about 12.20 - an American reconnaissance plane "B-26" sighted the wreckage of the "Dakota" disappeared, and rescue teams arrived in the afternoon on the point located: a grove of acacia trees at 1065 meters high (1). At 16:09 is the discovery that the chronicler describes as "A show is horrible then lodged in the eyes of those who have first approached the wreck. Ten black spots on the snow: Ten bodies horribly mutilated and semicarbonizzati. Five and possibly six, with the only wing apparently remained intact, piled like a desperate embrace, three at the shattered fuselage and the tenth bites from a few meters from the plane, his head still covered by a charred helmet semiaffondato in the bare earth. The wristwatch of one of the victims had stopped at 22.30. Maybe a faulty altimeter must have misled the pilot took the view that it has already bypassed the Vesuvius, the impact here. "
According to a journalist of "Il Mattino" the sixteen Americans would have all died instantly, the newspaper "Rome," however, offers another version of reporting the statements of the then Mayor of Pollena Trocchia, Chambers. Antonio Di Tuoro , who, along with vigilant Mercogliano, an alderman and a city councilman, was among the first on the scene of the accident. "The plane - Said of Tuoro - lay reclining on a hill with the wings detached, almost lying on the side of a nacelle, the other thrown about seventy yards away. The front of the fuselage had literally exploded. One of the corpses had hands clasped around the temples. It compresses even as the ears not to hear more ... in one of the pockets of his tattered jacket We found a wallet, it was contained in a military document which establishes his itinerary: Belgium, Germany, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Spain and Great Britain. E 'come up here to die instead. If it's been alive, as I think, his agony must have been terrible. And to think that if there had been a lot of haze in recent days, the wreckage had been spotted immediately. Everything has conspired relief because they have arrived in time .
Beyond the accident of February 16, 1958, Mount Somma was the scene of another air disaster: the night before Easter in 1964 another plane crashed on the side that falls within the territory of the Municipality of Pollena Trocchia (2 ). Even at that time, a high number of victims and, unfortunately, there were also incidents of looting. Three months after the disaster of 1964 Pollena a person - I have heard - found himself on the spot of the disaster other human remains and, in that place, erected a wooden cross, which, however, stood for a few years. ( by Carlo Silvano )
________________ (1) It is most likely to check the place where the disaster took place, since it seems unlikely to have occurred at 1065 meters, as reported by the newspaper. In this connection it is recalled that Mount Somma has a height of 1,132 meters in Punta Naso.
(2) The plane crashed on a chestnut owned by the parish of St. James Pollena. In the fall of 1988, in the company of several people, including the parish priest Don Giuseppe Cozzolino, so I had to visit the place of the accident: there were still some wreckage.
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