DOGGED BY FATE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 236, 6 October 1930, Page 7

DOGGED BY FATE.

Britain's Airship Ventures' Trail of Disaster. THREE FAMOUS WRECKS. This latest catastrophe in the field of airship development ranks as the greatest both from the point of view of loss of life and misfortune to an experiment. Almost as great is the disaster to the R3B at Hull on August 24, 1921. At that time the world's largest airship, the R3B was built in Britain to the order of the United States. She was to make an epic non-stop flight across the Atlantic to Lakehurst, where she was to have been rechristened the ZR2. Leaving Howden, Yorkshire, on a preparatory trial trip, with a mixed complement of British and American passengers . and crew on iboard, the vessel had remained aloft for 35 hours when she made a full turn and her 'back broke, two loud explosions being heard. She spurted suddenly forward, then fell, just clearing the city of Hull, and crashed in flames into the Humfber. She carried 49 persons, and 45 were killed. But for the fact that he had missed a train, Rear-Admiral Bvrd would have travelled with the ship, for which purpose he had made a special trip across the Atlantic. The British vessel R34, which crossed the Atlantic and back in 1919, was wrecked at Howden early in 1921 without any loss of life. While she was cruising in difficult weather over the Yorkshire coast in the early morning she struck some high ground and was carried in a disabled condition out to sea by the strong wind. Finally, however, she was put under control and was taken safely back to Howden, where she anchored in the open, there being no mooring mast and the wind making it impossible to put her in her shed. The wind next day became stronger, and the 834 was eventually knocked to pieces, becoming a total wreck. The United States dirigible Shenandoah in 1925 was destroyed in a storm, fourteen lives being lost. She was sailing at a height of 3000 feet when a series of squalls lifted her to 5000 feet. Suddenly under the immense strains her back broke in three parts, the pieces being distributed over a distance of ten miles. She had carried 42 officers and men, most of the casualties occurring in the control cabin.