On this day in 1923, USS Shenandoah is christened. The rigid airship was intended for airborne surveillance, similar to what Germany achieved during World War I. Shenandoah was also the first rigid airship constructed by the United States, and the first to rely on helium, rather than the more flammable hydrogen.
Unfortunately, Shenandoah wouldn’t last long. She was caught in a storm in 1925, killing 14 of 43 men aboard, including her captain.
What a sad ending for the airship that was then said to be the “pride of the U.S. Navy.”
And who can blame the Navy for being proud? Shenandoah boasted five 300-horsepower, six-cylinder Packard engines, and she could reach a top speed of 60 mph. After her christening, she made test flights across the United States, even impressing the nation with a transcontinental flight in October 1924. She became a popular sight, and local officials began requesting flights over their cities.
By the summer of 1925, Shenandoah’s schedule was packed, and she was scheduled to complete a tour of 40 cities and state fairs. But did her popularity contribute to the mistakes that were made on the night of September 2-3, 1925?
Her captain didn’t want to fly that day. To the contrary, when Shenandoah departed Lakehurst Naval Air Station on the 2nd, Lt. Commander Zachary Lansdowne was concerned about the weather. He’d wanted to delay, but he was under pressure not to break the Navy’s tight schedule.
His wife would later remember her sense of growing unease as she watched her husband’s airship depart for the last time.
In the end, Lansdowne did change his course a little bit to avoid a storm, but he didn’t travel as far south as he probably should have.
The National Park Service describes what came next: “At about 6:00 am on the morning of September 3, the Shenandoah was suddenly caught in a violent updraft of warm air, rising at the rate of a meter a second. At about 6,200 feet the ascent was checked, but the ship began to fall at a faster rate. When halfway to the ground, it was hit by another warm air current and began to rise rapidly once more, but then descended again. On the third ascent the ship was hit by a turbulent side wind, twisting the hull and breaking it.”
The ship was getting thrown about, but Lansdowne refused to leave the helm. Nevertheless, he worried that the control gondola would get wrenched off the ship, so he told the men around him to save themselves. Two men climbed up the ladder and did exactly that.
They were just in time. The control gondola on Shenandoah hung below the ship, and it was torn off by the twisting winds. Those in that gondola crashed to the ground and were killed, along with several more who were near break-up points.
In the meantime, the rest of the ship was torn in half. The stern section glided to Earth, carrying 18 men to safety. The bow section initially rose to 10,000 feet, but the crew vented helium and managed to make a controlled glide to the ground 53 minutes later. The bow wreckage and its seven survivors were found six miles away from the initial crash site.
It was a sad ending to what had once been a proud ship, yet lessons were learned.
Future airships would have control gondolas built into the keel, rather than hanging below the ship. The diameter to width ratio of the ships was improved, and ships were given more engine power. Weather forecasting was improved. Airships that came after Shenandoah would be safer.
Perhaps today is a good day to remember the many American pioneers who have gone before us. But for the risks they took, where would we be today?
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Primary Sources & Further Reading:
Jerry Copas, The Museum That Fell From the Sky: An Ohio native preserves the story of the Navy’s first rigid airship (Smithsonian Mag.; Dec. 2020)
Jerry Copas, The Wreck of the Naval Airship USS Shenandoah (2017)
Junius B. Wood, Seeing America from the Shenandoah (National Geographic Mag.; Jan. 1925) (p. 1)
Shenandoah Crash Sites (National Park Service website)
Shenandoah III (ZR-1): 1923-1925 (Naval History and Heritage Command)
Sitara Maruf, A Gripping Story of America’s Great Airship (LTA Science & Flight Mag.; Sept. 28, 2017)
The United States Navy's First Rigid Airship (National Air and Space Museum)
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