AIRSHIP DISASTER.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 May 1922, Page 11

AIRSHIP DISASTER.

LOSS OF THE ROMA. FIRED BY ELECTRIC WIRES. Describing the destruction of the airship Roma at Hampton Roads, Virginia, on February 21, with the loss of 34 lives, the New York correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph stated that the military authorities admitted that, in the interests of economy, the expensive helium gas had been withdrawn from the Roma’s envelope, so that it might be used later in a contemplated transcontinental flight, and hydrogen substituted. From the stories told by the 11 survivors, it appears that had the Roma been inflated with non-inflammable gas probably every man aboard the airship would have escaped with his life, if not without serious injury, because after the steering-gear jammed the dirigible circled earthward with comparative gentleness from her elevation of 1000 feet or I'soo feet. Although the crash with which the vessel grounded might have partly wrecked her, it is believed that all the crew would have escaped, with the erception of one lieutenant, who jumped from a height of 150 feet, had it not been for the sweep of flame through the hydrogen-filled compartments when the steel nose came into contact with the high-voltage electric light wires surrounding the Hampton Roads army base. On contact with the land wires, according to eye-witnesses, there was a muffled explosion, the Roma seemed to crumple up and almost turn turtle, so that the rigid keel landed partly on the gas-bag, and most of the passengers dropped directly into the blazing bag which, formed the heart of the fire.

CAPTAIN DEAD AT HIS POST. For two hours after the Roma landed it was impossible for rescuers to approach the blazing structure because of the intense heat. The men who escaped were those fortunately placed about the airship, who could leap to the ground from her keel in a few seconds before the great sweep of flame shrivelled and incinerated everything except the aluminium framework. Captain Dale Mabry, commandant of the Roma and principal pilot, stuck to his post, mid his body was found later with his fleshless fingers still clutching the wheel of the airship. The Roma left Langley Field only half an hour before the disaster, and had risen to a height variously estimated at 1000 ft and 1500 ft in a trial flight to test the four 400 li.p. Liberty motors which had been substituted for the original Italian motors. The ship was circling preparatory to landing when, according to Lieutenant Byron Burt, who was in charge of the elevating planes, the Roma refused to answer her helm and to climb. Lieutenant Burt says: “Captain Mabry shouted to me to make her climb, but she would not, although I threw all my strength upon the lever and tried to force the ship upward. We were still trying to climb when J saw the wire, and heard, the captain shout, ‘Good God! boys, look!’ I could, see he was doing his best to get us down safely, but he could not make it, and the last I saw of him he was sticking to the wheel with the flames all around him.” DEFECT IN STEERING GEAR.

Some observers on the ground declare that they saw the box-like steering gear under the Roma’s stern suddenly slew sideways as the airship commenced her wide swing downwards to her landing field, and although the vessel was too far aloft for people to see what happened, it was apparent that something was wrong by the way she shivered and took a sideways lunge. The Roma continued her “crazy” course downward, and it seemed to watchers below at one time that the airmen would win. In a few seconds there was a shower of sandbags, but the Roma failed to respond to the lightened load and continued to point her Xose earthward. Major Reardon states he did not see any flame before the dirigible hit the wires, and this is born out by other survivors’ statements. “I am alive because I waited for the fire to burn a hole in the fabric, out of which I crawled and escaped just before the explosion in the gas bag,” continued the Major.