The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1922-03-02
BROKEN RUDDER
BRINGS DISASTER
Giant Alrship Consumed by Fire
After a ThOuSand-Foot Fall.
THIRTY-FOUR KNOWN DEAD
Only II Survivors OF Worst Accident
In History of American Military
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I'm
able to Render Assistance.

Norfolk, Va, Feb. 21.-Thirty-four
men were killed, eight were injured Sc
riously and three were bruised slight
ly when tie giant army alrship Roma,
with her crew and number Of civil
ians, totaling 40 in all aboard, plunged
today from 1000 feet or more in the
air to the ground at the Hampton
Roads naval base.
Only eleven Of the forty-five men
alOft were saved, and some of them
were terribly hurt.
1t took less than a minute for the
burning airship to reach the ground
after the explosion.
Those who jumped were forced to
take this slim chance Of escaping GER
tain death in the flames, which had
quickly enveloped the entire craft. 1t
is believed those who remained In the
ship were instantly killed by the ex-
plosion or trapped by the flames and
unable to seek possible safety in flight
Reports from Portsmouth, which is
near the naval base, said the Roma,
after a slanting plunge Of hundreds
Of feet, struck one of the barracks
buildings at the base and then ex-
ploded with a ripping crash. a sheet
of flame leaped from the rent In the
gas bag and the passenger compart-
ments slung underneath dropped TWEEN
ty feet to the ground below.
The breaking of the rudder with It's
vertical controls, affixed in box kite
fashion to the stern was the original
cause Of the disaster. It's more hor
rible phase came just as the stricken
craft plummeted into the earth. The
metal clad nose snapped high tension
electric wires. With flash and roar
that carried dread warning to the
imprisoned crew, the dirigible was
fired from stem to stern.
Army officers who survived the dis
aster declared it was caused by the
collapse of the elevating rudder. The
Roma was sailing along smoothly
about 800 feet in the air, they said,
when the eevating rudder suddenly
buckled throwing the stern of the
craft upward.
The survivors emphatically denied
statements of civilians who saw the
accident from the ground that fire
broke out on the Roma before it struck
the ground.
Pilots Efforts Futile.
The buckling of the rudder crippled
the steering apparatus and started the
Roma on its plunge toward the ground.
The downward progress of the airship
was checked by shutting off the en-
gines, but the pilots were powerless to
right the craft and It plunged to the
ground, crashing through line of
high tension electric wires and landing
upon a pile of steel rails and wheels.
Striking these, the big dirigible cap
sized, it's great 410foot hydrogen bag
smothering the passenger and engine
compartments as it crashed to earth,
to become Immediately a raging fur
mace of blazing hydrogen gas in which
all who had not jumped to earth met
d terrible death. All of the eleven sur
vivors escaped by jumping as the ship
struck, only one Of the victims meet
ing death in this way.
Leap to Beat Fiery Death.
Only those whose fortunate position
in the car enabled them to take the
hazard Of a leap before the flames ran
with lightning speed through the gas
bag, a city block long, had the faintest
chance for their lives. The thirty-three
who couldn't jump died. An officer
broke his neck as he dived earthward
and was dead before he could be got
ten to a hospital. Others Of the in
jured may not survive.
The crushed, misshapen mass that
thudded down on the field was a fu-
neral pyre Of such intense heat that
the agonies of those who were not
killed in the crash must have been
mercifully brief. The bodies were
burned beyond recognition and the
slow work of listing the victims was
carried out partly by a process Of elm
inatiOn and partly through noncOmDus-
tible objects that the aviators were
believed to have carried in their
pockets
The list, when It was completed,
showed that two majors, four captains
and seven lieutenants were lost in
those few minutes Of swift catastrophe
that wiped out much Of the flower of
American army flying.
Furnace Heat Bars Rescue.
For many minutes the pillars Of
fame that went torching skyward de-
fled the bravest Of rescuers. Mortified
Watchers, some Of them veterans Of
gallant exploits abroad, rushed for the
blazing charnel house. Heat halted
them I'm their tracks. Some had dear
associates among the Inflated crew,