The Members of the JAHP Board of Directors are grieving as we announce that our dear friend and colleague Vittorio Assandria passed away on 24 April 2023 at his home in Caracas, Venezuela. May his spirit forever soar in the skies that he loved.

A resident of Caracas, Venezuela, Vittorio “Mowgly” Adriano Assandria was born in Caracas in 1955. He is married to Maria Grazia Roiatti and proud father of two grown sons Marco and Matteo.

Vittorio had a great love of wild animal and adventures from childhood with Jimmie Angel a lifelong hero. His great ambition was to be a veterinarian and work in a wild animal park in Africa. He also dreamed of becoming a bush pilot like Jimmie Angel and travelling to remote places in Venezuela. When he was twenty years old, he started working for Air France from which he recently retired after thirty-seven years and when he retired from their employment he was in charge of their Caracas flights.

Vittorio’s passion for flight is due to his great friend, almost a brother, Pino Turco, with whom he flew to countless places until he earned his own pilot’s license.

He built with two partners his own airplane over a period of five and one half years and as a private pilot he donates his time to assisting several non profit organizations which are active in the Kamarata Valley which is at the foot of Auyántepui in Canaima National Park where Angel Falls is located.

Starting in 1998, Vittorio has made a philanthropic flight almost on a monthly basis with his Cessna 206 to the Kamarata Valley with food and medicine for the Pemón people.

Due to his profound interest in the legacy of Jimmie Angel, in 2008, Vittorio organized an expedition to replicate the same route used by Jimmie and Marie Angel, Gustavo Heny and Miguel Delgado to descend Auyántepui following Jimmie’s 1937 landing of his airplane El Rio Caroni on the tepui. “El camino del Angel” by Vittorio Assandria commemorates his 2008 Expedition.

In 2010, Vittorio became a founding member of a group of pilots and medics who formed a non-profit association called Aviación para la Salud, (ALAS) Aviation for Health. They assist the doctor’s “Operativas” that fly to Kamarata Valley to help the indigenous folks there.

Vittorio has many Pemón friends, including Karen Angel’s family there, the Ugarte Family. Santos Ugarte and Vittorio are proud members of Fundacion Etnika with founder Paul Stanley who is also a member of the JAHP Board. Vittorio was elected to the Jimmie Angel Historical Projects Board of Directors in 2014.