I-ALFA  Cant-22                                    (c/n 230)

                               

                                  I-ALFA was one of five (at least) Cant-22s operated by Societa Italiana Servizi Aerei (SISA) in the
                                  late 1920s / early 1930s.       All were named, this one being 'San Sergio'. The airline flew this, plus
                                  several other flying boat types on routes from Rome to Malta, Tripoli, Genoa, Marseilles, Barcelona,
                                  Palermo and Tunis, as well as to several cities along the Dalmatia coast.    In August 1934 the airline
                                  merged with Aero Expresso Itialiana (AEI) to form the national airline Ala Littoria.     This post-card
                                  shot, via Valter Battistoni, shows I-ALFA in the harbor of the Dalmatian city of Zadar (in what is now
                                  Croatia) probably in the late 1920s.  On 20 February 1936 the aircraft hit the statue of S.Eufemia on
                                  the top of the church bell-tower at Rovigno (now Rovinj, Croatia)      The Captain and one passenger 
                                  died, whilst the other four crew members were seriously injured.