1958 Plane crash on Malta remembered as relatives of victims searched
Families of the victims of a fatal plane crash are reuniting to commemorate their memory more than six decades after the horrific accident.
They are relatives of 31 passengers and crew who were on a British European Airways flight from London to Malta on October 22, 1958.
Minutes before landing in Naples, where he was scheduled for a stopover, the Vickers Viscount plane was involved in a mid-plane crash with an Italian air force jet, crashing into a small Italian fishing village and killed everyone on board.
Three of the passengers were Maltese nationals, returning home from England, while most of the others were traveling to Naples or Malta on business or holiday.
Rory O ‘Grady, brother of one of the cabin crew, managed to find and establish contact with relatives of 27 of the 31 victims.
O’Grady went on to publish a book, The Flight of the Arctic Fox, which details the lives of the victims and each family’s story of the tragedy. The families of the three remaining victims, however, have yet to be found.
One of these victims was the Maltese Mary Vassallo La Rosa, believed to be from Ħamrun.
Another is Sheila Lane, a nursing sister at the time who was serving at Bighi Hospital, and who is buried in Kalkara Naval Cemetery.
On that fateful day, 63 years ago, shortly before noon, flight BE142 took off from a small Italian town called Nettuno, when an Italian F-86E jet, carrying only the pilot, landed just above the ground. aircraft, and sent. falling to the ground in a fatal crash.
In a miraculous survival story, the force of the impact caused the ejection mechanism to catapult Giovanni Savorelli, the Italian pilot, out of the wreckage.
His emergency parachute somehow opened up, and he fell to the ground to land in a tree near the main wreckage.
He was seriously injured and spent many months in hospital, not remembering the catastrophic crash.
Savorelli never flew again.
Those were really hard and tragic times
A newspaper at the time reported that among the wreckage were a number of baby chickens “who were unharmed and rushed around through the litter of luggage, burst mail bags, piles of letters addressed to Malta, newspapers, airline tickets, shoes, baby toys, and a red sash of the kind worn by bishops. ”
“The chicks had fallen into a container from a height of 23,500 feet, the altitude at which the collision is believed to have occurred,” the report said.
All the bodies were recovered and identified, and British Airways authorities called on the families of the victims to give them the news one by one.
The youngest victim was 19-year-old soldier and athlete Robert Chalmers.
He was serving with the Black Watch Regiment in Pertshire, Scotland at the time and was on his way to spend a few days with his family living in Malta, before joining the regiment in Cyprus.
His parents, Ian and Margaret Chalmers, picked him up from Luqa Airport that afternoon.
They waited for hours with family and other friends of the passengers on board the flight, fully aware of the tragedy unfolding in Italy, until British European Airways staff called them into a private room to inform them that their son he had died in the terrible accident. .
They returned to the house in shock, where Roderick, the 11-year-old son, was eagerly awaiting his brother’s return.
“My big brother was my hero. I hadn’t seen him in a long time, and I was looking forward to having him back home for a short visit, “said Roderick. Times of Malta.
Robert Chalmers was buried in Braxia Cemetery with full military honors.
Dakinhar, Times of Malta it was reported that seven more passengers were scheduled to board the plane from Naples to Malta.
They were lucky to have just lost the tragedy.
As for the Chalmers family, worse days were yet to come.
Just three months after the death of his son, Ian Chalmers was diagnosed with acute leukemia and died shortly afterwards.
“These were very difficult and tragic times,” Roderick Chalmers said.
“My dear mother in particular, my two brothers and I and my whole family have lost a lot in such a short time. It was very, very difficult for all of us. “
Roderick Chalmers went on to become a successful chartered accountant and is a former chairman of the Bank of Valletta.
He recently collaborated with the author of the book in the search for the relatives of the victims.
The author hopes that the publication of the book will result in more information coming out.
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