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Aviation History
1924
1924 - 0009.PDF
JANUARY 3, 1924 . THE FRENCH AIRSHIP CATASTROPHE The " Dixmude " Now Assumed Lost ONE of the most terrible catastrophes in the history of aviation must now be assumed to have taken place during the week before Christmas, resulting in the loss of the French airship " Dixmude " (ex-German I..72) with all hands. At the time of writing there is no reliable information relating to what actually happened, although several plausible theories have been advanced. The only authentic fact at the moment is that the body of the " Dixmude's " commander, du Plessis de Grenadan, has been found by Italian fishermen off Sciacca. Sicily. No other bodies have yet been found, nor any wreckage of the lost airship, although a diligent search is being made by French and Italian warships. For several days there were rumours of the airship having been seeii by Touareg tribes drifting over the Sahara desert, but considerable doubt is now felt regarding the reliability of this information, which was at one time believed to be correct. Briefly, the events, as far as they can be told from the relatively scant information available, that preceded the very sad accident are as follows: The " Dixmude " left her base at Cuers-Pierrefeu, near Toulon, on December 18 at about 5 a.m. She was to make a cruise to Tunis, Algeria, and the borders of the Sahara desert, and carried, in addition to her usual crew, several passengers, mostly military and naval officers of high rank. The total complement on board numbered 50 in all. At 7.30 p.m. on December 18 the airship was over Bizerta, Tunis, proceeding in a south westerly direction. On December 19 the "Dixmude" was over Gafsa and Tozeur, and on December 20 one of her passengers dropped postcards near Ouargla, in the vicinity of Tuggurt, stating that all was well. From this onwards the exact movements of the airship are very uncertain. A wireless message is stated to have been received at Medinin, in Tunis, on December 21, reporting that the airship was fighting a violent storm and that the petrol was running short. On Saturday, December 22, reports seem to indicate that the " Dixmude " was still being buffeted by the storm in the neighbourhood of Medinin and the Gulf of Gabes, and the captain of the Italian steamer Porto Alessandretta reports having picked up wireless calls of distress from the airship, giving her position. By timing the interval between the signals and accepting the positions sent by the airship, the captain estimated that the ship was being driven along at a rate of something like 125 miles per hour, but too much reliance should not be placed on this figure. A small error in timing, or in the positions given, would greatly alter the speed. Nevertheless, it seems certain that the ship was being driven along at a very high speed by the violent gale. For several days no news was received—at any rate, no news that could be considered reliable. Then suddenly, on December 26, the " Dixmude " was reported to have been seen by Touareg tribesmen in the vicinity of In-Sahara, drifting towards the desert. For a time hope was entertained that the airship might have been drifted south by the gale, and that her crew might still have a chance of being saved. It was, of course, realised that by this time all petrol must have been consumed, and that the best that could be hoped for was that the crew might jump out with their parachutes near some oasis, and thus be saved. Then, on December 27, Italian fishermen found the body of the commander of the " Dixmude," Lieut, de Vaisseau du Plessis de Grenadan, off the coast of Sicily, near Sciacca. With the identification of the body of the Commander the last hope had to be abandoned, and the previous report of the airship having been seen over the Sahara on December 26 was regarded in official circles as of extremely doubtful reliability. As soon as it was established that it was indeed the body of the Commander that had been found, French warships were rushed off to the spot in order to look for the rest of the crew and for pieces of wreckage. Up to the present, however, no trace of either crew or ship has been found. Theories as to Cause In the absence of reliable information, it is impossible to state exactly what happened, and all that can be done is to put forward certain suggestions and |heories as to, some probable causes. In the first place, the station master at Sciacca is stated to have'seen a very strong light in the sky, which appears to indicate the possibility of the airship having caught fire, either through breaking her structure and sparks from the fracturing girders and electric cables causing the fire, in the manner of our " R.38," or through being struck by lightning. Dropping into the sea somewhere in the Channel between Sicily and Tunis, the crew would have but small chance of being saved, especially in view of the very rough sea running at the time. It is believed that carrier pigeons were carried on board, and the fact that none have reached home seems to indicate that the catastrophe, of whatever nature it was, must have been so sudden as to afford no time for writing a message and liberating a pigeon. It is also more than likely that in that case there would not be time for the crew to don their parachutes, with which, it must be presumed, the airship was equipped. It is possible that the airship may not have caught fire, although the fact of a strong light having been seen in the sky rather suggests that this was the case, and that the airship was simpty forced down by loss of hydrogen until it fell into the sea. With the high sea running she could not, probably, last very long, although there should have been time for a message to be written and a pigeon sent off. Another possibilitv suggested is that the airship was, in fact, at one time driven over Tunis and Sahara, and that all the crew, with the exception of the Commander, jumped overboard in their parachutes. Thus lightened the airship would receive a great amount of additional buoyancy, and might have got drifted out over the sea again, only to sink later, when night came and the lift was reduced. That would explain the prasence of but one single body, that of the Commander, in the sea near Sicily. Personally, we incline to favour the theory that the airship caught fire for some reason and fell into the sea, and the probability is that the fire was caused by the failure of the structure. It is known that the " Dixmude " was designed (as the German L.72) for bombing raids at great altitudes and in fine weather only. Consequently, as much structural strength as possible would have to be sacrificed in order to obtain the " ceiling " necessary. Something very similar was the case with "R.38," whose girders failed and which subsequently caught fire from sparks from the girders and electrical cables. There is a strong feeling in France that the cruise of the " Dixmude " was ill-advised and that there was insufficient co-operation between the airship and the meteorological service. The coming of the storm, it is claimed, could have been foretold, and the airship could have been warned of its approach and told to steer clear of it. It is alleged that this was not done, and the French Ministry of Marine has instituted an enquiry into the conditions under which the " Dixmude " was sent out on her fatal cruise, who gave the order, and whether all reasonable precautions had been taken. Messages of Sympathy The loss of the " Dixmude " is a severe blow to French aviation, and from all sides messages of sympathy have been sent. His Majesty King George sent to the President of the French Republic the following message :— " Fearing from the latest information available that it is unfortunately all too probable that the airship ' Dixmude ' has met with disaster, I ask you, M. le President, to accept in the name of the French nation the deepest sympathy which I offer on behalf of the whole Empire in the loss of so many gallant men, whose untimely fate is deplored here no less than in their own country.—George R.I." Sir Samuel Hoare, Secretary of State for Air, has sent the following message to the French Minister of Marine : " On behalf of the Air Council and myself I wish to offer you sincere condolences for the loss of the ' Dixmude,' and to express our deep sympathy for the relatives of those who have been lost." Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh M. Trenchard, Chief of the Air Staff, has despatched the following message to the Chief of the French Naval Staff : " On behalf of the officers and men of the Royal Air Force I wish to express the deepest sympathy for the loss of the ' Dixmude ' and her crew." On December 31 Herr von Hoesch, German Charge d'Affaires in Paris, called at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and expressed to M. Peretti Delia Rocca the sympathy of the German Government with France in the loss of the " Dixmude."
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