Gardel's farewell

This part of the tragic death was transcribed literally from Nicolas Diaz's book:"La verdad sobre la muerte de Gardel" ("The true story about Gardel's death"); it is the best informed that describes this terrible day when Tango lost one of his most important son.  

"Gardel; his guitars and some of his friends were travelling in the F-31, a plane that belonged to SACO company (Colombian Air Society) which was in charge of doing the Bogota-Cali travel, making a stop in Medellin, which was the second most important city in Colombia...
There was, also a German company SCADTA, which did the passangers and mail transport. The colombian company, less strong economically and recently founded by Ernesto Samper Mendoza, tried to be on the level of the German company offering good and dinamic service every day because it wanted the concession for making the mail transport . Although the rivalry, the work, the flights were cordially done; so, it was imposible that the accident was caused by the German pilot who was waiting with the Manizales engines started. The event happened like this: in Medellin people knew that the plane where Gardel was travelling would land there. Ernesto Samper Mendoza was waiting for the  F-31 to arrived to take it to its place. In all the social circles there was a special excitement and a lot of people went to the airport Enrique 0layes Herrera by car or on foot to wait for the plane where the "Star" was travelling. They knew him because he had acted there before. At a quarter to three, the F-31 appeared and  landed right in front of the hangars. All the people gathered there gave an ovation to the artist, who replied with a smile. The passengers of the plane took a rest for 15 minutes, during which they were talking very friendly: Swartz, Garde, Stamper, etc . At that time the plane made a turn to full the dippers at the filling  station . The Manizales plane, a Ford with three engineers, (SCADTA) was waiting for the F-31 to leave the runway in order to took off to Bogota. When the dippers were full, the engines turned on and the passagers fasted their safety belts. The people who was there began to wave their handkerchieves saying goodbye to the passangers.The  F-31 went through the runway from south to north in perfect conditions. When the plane reached  the end of the runway it made a turn to start the flight to Cali, where Gardel had to sing that night in  the Jorge Isaacs Theatre. The engines roared, the plane started to move slowly, the wheels did not touch the floor when the F-31 passed in front of the Manizales. What happened then was so sudden, so unexpected, that the people who were there did  not have time to react. A strong wind pushed the F-31 into the Manizales. The planes crashed with a big din of iron broken, both planes, like monsters, did a mortal jump and then they stayed quiet. The people who were there listened to the pain moans from the people who were in both planes. After some minutes, a man ran towards the planes, and other people began running too, but when they were near the planes a fire explosion prevented him to help the survivors. Some women fainted and men could not take a decision about what to do. In the airdrome the alarm siren sounded and the airport firemen arrived  with fire extinguishers to fight the fire produced by 20000 litres of gasoline. Both planes had the fuel  chamber in the wings, and when they bursted into flames, fire columms coming out of the wings made impossible to go nearer than 40 metres. The Medellin firemen arrived 7 minures later and tried to fight the fire using water, sand,water and gas..." "Gardel's corpse was easily recognised. There was full evidence about the authenticity of his body...when he departed from Bogota he was wearing: a dark suit, a grey hat, a brown coat and a silk scarf. As a waistcoat he was wearing a sweater, lined in silk with feathers in it. The position in which he was found, inclined over his left arm protected his chest and the inner side of that arm, that was only slightly burnt... It caused admiration among the doctors and the people who saw him in the morgue, the whiteness and beauty of his teeth, which was enough proof for his identification. His shirt and his handkerchief had his initials on. On the right arm he had a gold chain which fire could not melt with an inscription on  "Carlos Gardel, J. Jaures 735. Buenos Aires". The passport was a bit burnt, but all of their details could still be seen. Around the corpse some sterlin pound were found, which fell from the belt  that he used to wear. His body was found near the machines because he was sitting behind the pilot.
In the evening, the corpses were taken to the morgue to finish with the identification and proceed to the closure of the coffins. At midnight the bodies were taken to the priest Enrique Uribe's house, who had been giving the last spiritual assistance to the victims. During the night the bodies were leived and in the following day at 9 0'clock they were taken to the "Catedral de la Candelaria". Gardel's coffin was taken by Marina Ughetti company, that was in Colombia at that time.  Thousands of people and more than 300 cars with flower crowns went with them to Gardel´s  last residence, San Pedro cemetery... When the