Airship Disaster

Book excerpt: On a stormy September morning in 1925, the giant Navy airship Shenandoah tumbled out of a turbulent sky and crashed into aviation history. Fourteen of the ship's 43 crewmen died in the crash. The Shenandoah was America's first rigid dirigible. It was longer than two football fields and powered by five 300-horsepower Packard engines.Ripped apart by strong winds over rural Ohio, the buoyant nose of the ship circled helplessly in the storm for nearly an hour, finally coming to rest 12 miles away where six crewmen staggered out dazed but alive.Thousands of curiosity-seekers swarmed the crash sites, trampling crops, flattening fences and stripping the carcass of the great ship almost bare. Army troops were called in to maintain control. The crash made front-page news around the world. But as the years have passed, this historic event has all but faded from our collective memory.Now - this tragic story is told anew, with over 100 photographs and illustrations.