The Superga air disaster of May 4, 1949, is recalled by the title of the “compelling and convincing novel-truth” (as Walter Pedullà defines it) “The commander remained on the hill” by Luigi Troiani (Morrone Editore, 272 pp., 18 , 00 euros). There is still no clarity on the causes of the accident today: Troiani reconstructs the dynamics and recalls that the aircraft manufacturing company under whose command was a highly decorated war pilot, blind flight instructor in the Air Force, attributed the accident to “human error”, but the following year canceled the production of the aircraft. In just three years, six of the 12 Fiat G.212s sold had crashed to the ground.
Introducing the novel, General Mario Arpino, former Chief of Staff of the Air Force and Chief of Staff of Defense, underlines how “the description of the tragedy is postponed, from hint to hint, until the last part of the work. It appears a far-sighted choice by the author, which will allow readers of all ages to be taken by the hand and accompanied at the moment of the accident through a reasoned journey lasting seventy years ”.
Of Pierluigi Meroni, the young pilot of the plane that crashed on the hill of Turin, “with a cheerful brigade of footballers on board”, no one has ever written before, condemning to oblivion the key character of a story that still today moves the Italy and sportsmen from all over the world. The child who tragically lost his father at the age of seven, now an elderly man immersed in memories, thanks the author in the afterword for his courageous investigation, and for having “managed to immerse himself so well in the events experienced by me and my family because of the tragic fact of Superga “. In the book, the great Turin is in the background, as well as the cities of Milan and Turin during the years of fascism, the war, and the immediate post-war period; together with Sicily, in whose war airfields Meroni. began his career as a pilot. In the foreground, the life of the character, his friendships, the heroisms of him and his fellow soldiers, together with the dialogue of the son with his lifelong friend and with his missing father.