Home » News » Massacre of Ustica, on Tgcom24 the memory of Anna Maria Calia: “I had to be on that plane, my daughter and I live by a miracle”

Massacre of Ustica, on Tgcom24 the memory of Anna Maria Calia: “I had to be on that plane, my daughter and I live by a miracle”

You and your second child were supposed to be on that cursed flight. Fate wanted otherwise.
“Yes, but only the closest relatives who had to come to pick me up at Palermo airport knew about the change of plans. All the other family members and neighbors, here in Bologna and there in Castelvetrano, when they heard of the plane they fell into the sea and immediately thought that I too was among the victims with my last child and my husband, while the oldest daughter, 8 years old, was already in Sicily with her grandparents and was waiting for us. She would have been the only survivor of all my family”.

Did a fatality save you?
“We had thought of buying the ticket for that Friday. My husband, however, who worked at Fiat, a few days before departure, had decided that it was not worth going out of work earlier for a period of holidays which, however, would have been long and preferred take the train trip. But I had a 40-day-old baby girl, and although it would have been my baptism of the air, I would not have faced such a long journey in a bunk from Bologna to Trapani. So, I thought: ‘I have to travel alone , I leave calmly on Saturday, nothing changes for me half a day more or less and I am comfortably accompanied to the airport .. ‘. This change of plans saved our lives “.

She saved her life, but mourning hit her anyway.
“No unforeseen events, unfortunately, stopped my friend and neighbor, also from Castelvetrano, daughter of a friend of my mother’s. She left that evening with her three children and her sister who had come to Bologna from Sicily to to celebrate the school promotion. The third child of 9 months was the youngest victim. I remember that his little body was recovered intact, with the pacifier hanging on his neck and was immediately returned to the family who celebrated the funeral in Castelvetrano. From the grandmother’s house the church was a very long procession, I too participated, a torment, a village in mourning for an entire destroyed family. And every year the memory is celebrated “.

But the day after the tragedy did he leave for Sicily anyway?
“I heard the news in the morning as I got ready to go to the airport. At that point I panicked. I didn’t understand anything anymore. I was incredulous. I knew that on my plane was my friend with her family. I didn’t know more than doing, whether to leave or to give up. My father and brother persuaded me to fly anyway. With the Magone and my daughter in my arms I climbed on the DC9 of the next day. It was the first flight after the massacre “.

What do you think of if you think of Ustica?
“An open wound. Nobody knows what happened.”

And how do you feel remembering those facts?
“Then I was really impressed, very shaken. Fortunately then the bad thoughts slowly fade away when you get away with it. Because in the end nothing happened and luckily time passed by. But we also risked our lives on our return”:

Even on the way back?
“Yes. We stayed in Sicily for a long time, celebrated my birthday on July 17 and baptized Manuela, as we had planned; my husband joined us by train and we returned together to Bologna, always by train, at the end of those holidays, on August 1st A few hours before the massacre at the Bologna station on August 2. It went well that time too, but that year was really terrible. If I think that my family and I are still here just for a matter of one day … one once the next, once the first “.

But did he stop traveling in fear?
“No, every year I go back to Sicily and this time only Covid-19 has postponed my departure. Last year I went to visit Manuela who has been living in Australia with her family for five years”.

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