Alberto Ascari Crash Newspaper Photos

Ascari was thrown from the Ferrari when it skidded and flipped during a test session. According to the book about him, "Post mortem later revelaed that he had died of multiple injuries, including a smashed skull, a fractured jaw, completely fractured left shoulder, completely fractured pelvis, and so on. He had virtually been crushed to death."

I know I have seen images of the aftermath of the Portago accident, taken from newpapers of the day, and they are pretty horrific. The recent book on Portago includes no such pictures. I suppose to some extent you have to remember that Ascari died only 10 years after the end of World War II, and Italians were used to violent death in their homeland. If the newspaper publishers had access to Ascari's pictures, they probably didn't think too hard on whether or not to print them.

 

How is it that this thread has over 230 views and only one comment (mine)?

This is the car, a 750 Monza, apparently 0542M, after the accident. I don't see a photo credit, the picture appears in "The Man With Two Shadows".

What became of 0542M ? Converted to 0562MD ? Later?
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Thanks for posting Jeff.

Most people in the sanitized politically correct world we live in would be understandably disturbed by such photos but they are history nevertheless. What actually happened in the accident seems open to conjecture: man crossing the track in front of him, puncture, failure of some sort...I seem to recall that some had a pretty strong case for one of the above.

What is surprising with todas perspective is how little attention and how few words a reacing fatality elicited in a race report up to the sixties and even early 70's, while in the fifties it often was about one short sentence...

 

Probably because death of racing drivers in these eras were a common thing... Safety regulations were not a priority those days...

 

The sad and clear truth...

 

With modern restraints, it's almost impossible to be thrown out of any kind of racing car these days, but it used to be common, and not necessarily fatal. Even a really violent accident with an ejected driver, like Martin Donnelly's in Spain several years ago, can be survivable. There were pictures of his "body" printed in the magazines, but he hadn't been crushed like Ascari, and of course he was wearing a proper helmet.

If you were to imagine a scenario like Danica Patrick being killed by a flying wheel, I doubt if even the tabloids would publish graphic pictures. I know that there are very gruesome pictures of Zanardi's accident, but I don't know where they were published. Not in any magazine that I saw.

 

I would have to say that the US is probably the most restrictive when it comes to what goes to print, be it a photo or text. The Europeans seem to be more direct.

IMHO

Brian

 

The horrific images from Le Mans 1955 got wide coverage in the US. Even a "family" magazine like Life ran some pretty grim photos from that event.

 

www.flickr.com
www.***************.com
www.**************

How can you say that, yet censor some of the leading sites on the internet?

 

American editors don't want anybody to be "uncomfortable." Tough to look at a smashed and burned corpse on one page and then sell lipstick on the next....


Jack

 

In Panama the mainline newspapers did not do this. The daily tabloids did though. Mexico is the same way. None of that in El Norte (Monterrey) or El Financiero (Mex DF). The Mexican daily tabloid El Alarma used to have all the graphic photos.

 

I think this discussion is a bit off trying to figure out what was going on in different parts of the world. In the free world editor in chief decides what kind of a paper is put out and that's it.

Where there were tabloids, almost anything was put out to boost the sales. An important incident, like the fatal accident of a loved champion, could also make an exception - especially as high quality images were available by several photographers, it seems. People making decisions also make mistakes; in Helsinki we recently had local newspaper Helsingin Sanomat (only ads, no news on the front page usually) put out a full portrait of a school shooter on their front cover. No money could buy such an add to promote terrorism!

FWIW, cencoring other sites is pretty funny. I have a chuckle everytime I see that.

Best wishes, Kare

 

Rob

I do think you should unblock:

beautifulveryrichyoungvirginswhowanttomeetguyswithferraris.com

 

The press photos of Ascari's body were as nothing compared with some of the far more gruesome shots published, for example, of the victims of the Le Mans disaster strewn around the spectator area in front of the Sarthe grandstand or indeed - especially sickening - those of poor Tommy Spychiger's Filipinetti Ferrari accident in the Monza 1,000Kms, in which he was decapitated...not great breakfast viewing. For many years the UK press absolutely avoided publication of any such shots, even moreso British TV news. The dam burst where TV was concerned after the so-called 'Black Friday' IRA bombings in which so many died across Ulster. TV news footage was then broadcast showing the immediate effect, and the clean-up. A naive general public had never before realised - it would appear - (or had forgotten since the wartime bombings) that blast and shrapnel will actually fragment the human body.

The footage of pieces being shovelled into plastic bags not merely shocked but polarised the public. My late great photographer mate Geoff Goddard became totally Francophobic largely because two hours after the Le Mans disaster there were still scraps of human flesh stuck to the pedestrian tunnel wall - yet the frites stall adjacent had resumed serving food...while the unit next door to it was serving as a temporary mortuary.

In contrast to what had been strict self-censorship by the British media, the Continental (European) media had never set such limits. We regarded them as brutalist. They regarded us as paternalistic, hiding the reality, the truth, precious. Media rule of thumb here now is that if the picture makes an especially telling point, but is not gratuitously sickening, use it. Thankfully, as far as I am aware, detail pictures taken at the time of Francois Cevert or Helmuth Koinigg after their deaths at Watkins Glen were not publicly circulated. If they were, I for one do not wish to be made aware of it.

DCN

 

The Koinigg crash was witnessed by and deeply shocked a certain future automotive publisher who tried hard to get rid of the track portion of his event decades later for fear of a fatality and law suit....he's never been out on track himself as far as I know.

Photos I would rather not have seen were those of the direct aftermath of the Bandini crash and fire which a vendor had at the Parma swap meet two years ago...

One thing that should be considerd is that in Europe post war people were used to seeing gruesome photos or actual corpses so the press did not think twice about showing them whereas inside the US there hasn't been a war for well over a century so Joe public is blissfully unfamiliar with such sights.

 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Getting my DL in summer school classes in the early 80s, I recall one of those movies shown on the projector was called "Red Asphalt".

 

Being a little simple is just great, isn't it; you can chuckle at lot of things! Best wishes, Kare