The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1922-02-22
Giant Army Airship Plunges
Downward 1000 Feet When
Rudder Doesn't Respond.
MANY OF THE BODIES
BEYOND RECOGNITION
Vessel Was on Trial Flight with
New Battery of Liberty
Motors When Crash Came.
tHy The Associated Press

NORFOLK, Feb. 21.--Flung earth
ward, presumably by a broken rudder
the giant army airship Roma plunged
a thousand feet or more today to strike
ground at the Hampton Roads army
base, capsized across a high tension
electric line and burst into a roaring
furnace of blazing hydrogen gas in
which "a of her army crew and pas
sengers perished.
Long after dark tonight, many hours
after her fall, the ship was still mass
of flames from end to end of her 410
foot mass. The fire was feeding on
the million cubic feet of gas that had
distended the great bag for the flight.
Barely a dozen of the more than
two score men aboard had been picked
up alive. One died en- route to a hos
pital. All of those who survived the
fire escaped by jumping as the ship
struck. The others, pinned in the hull
beneath the fallen bag were burned to
death. Heat of the fire fought back
rescuers sEor. hours.
:. Three fire departments fought the
flames with chemicals and by p. m.
1t was out Derricks began picking up
the wreckage as the flames were
driven back. There was scarcely more
than the aluminium frame work and
the six liberty motors to move. With
in the wreckage lay the bodies, many
of them charred beyond direct recog
milton. Thirty-one bodies had been
taken out tonight. Three or four more
were thought to be still in the charred
Al - -
been the largest ship of her types in
the world.
Accounts of surviving officers as to
what happened were not available to-
night. Every man who escaped alive
was burned or bruised or both. Eye
witnesses who watched the smash
agreed, however, that the huge, kite
like structure of the stern rudder. it.
self as large as bombing plane, had
slipped to one side as the Roma drove
along a thousand feet above the army
base.
She was making trial flight with
a new battery of liberty motors. They
were installed TO replace Italian en-
gines bought with her in Italy, but
which have not proved satisfactory.
Installation was completed at Dang
ley Field two weeks ago.
1t was just before 2 p. m. when
those below at the army base at
Hampton Roads base, their attention
caught by the approaching thunder
of the six motors, looked up to see the
Roma dip down from her straight
flight. They agreed that the rudder
seemed to have slipped bodily down
and TO one side.
The ship nosed steeply down. AS
she came closer it was seen that the
crew were hurling out sand ballast
from the ports in the fragile fabric,
that formed the covering of the space
between her keel and back, the liv-
ing and operating quarters of the
ship. The dipping blunt nose of the
bag did not respond. On the ship
came, unchecked in her glide earth
ward, head first. Her commander
could not force her the few hundred
feet that would have dropped her into
the waters of the bay and compara-
tive safety for her people.
Below ran the high double wires of
the high power electric line 1t carried
a 1900 volt current. The Roma's nose
shod with its aluminium guard thrust
into the wires, broke them as the ship
flattened TO earth and rolled over and
the next moment came the noise as of
an explosion and the flames burst out
along the hull space.
There was a rush of men to the
rescue from the army post and the
navy base beyond. Just as the Roma
neared the wires, two men were seen
TO leap from high up in her slantnig
hull. AS the stricken, flaming mon
ster writhed in her first death agony,
ten more dropped from doors or ports
or through holes they tore in the fabric
sides that enclosed them. Some leaped
from the platform where the engines
stood, far out from the hull
So swift was the flare of the gas
flame that rescuers We're driven back
before it's terrific heat. They watched
helplessly as the great eighty foot bag
shriveled in the fierce blaze of the lib
Grated gas. The Roma was a wall of |
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