The Dixmude was a Zeppelin airship built for the Imperial German Navy as L 72 (c/n "LZ 114") and unfinished at the end of the First World War, when it was given to France as war reparation and recommissioned in French Navy service and renamed "Dixmude". It was lost when it exploded in mid-air on 21 December 1923 off the coast of Sicily, killing all 52 (42 crew and ten passengers) on board. This was one of the first of the great airship disasters, preceded by the crash of the British "R38" in 1921 (44 dead) and the US airship "Roma" in 1922 (34 dead), and followed by the destruction of the British "R101" in 1930 (48 dead), the USS "Akron" in 1933 (73 dead) and the German "Hindenburg" in 1937 (36 dead).