ZEPPELIN WRECKED

Te Puke Times, Volume II, Issue II, 21 October 1913, Page 3

ZEPPELIN WRECKED

THE CREW'S TERRIBLE' FATE. Berlin, October 17 The Zeppelin airship L 2, which was wrecked to-day, was sailing beautifully when a battalion of sappers in an adjacent highway were alarmed by a terriffic explosion. Windows were broken 1000 ft. away. The airship was a sheet of flames, and the blazing mass was plunging to earth. Before the sappers reached it its destruction was. complete. The airship was a smoking pile. Its grey canvas envelope had burst into' a thousand fragments, resembling a Yorkshire pudding, and the benzine tanks were flaming madly. Baron von Blemen was dragged out alive, but shrieking in agony. He pleaded with his res* cuers. to kill him. . Another man"'was still alive, but in extremis. Souvenir hunters were soon picking up fragments of twisted aluminium and pieces of the envelope. Lieutenant Freyburg was incinerated in the wreckage of the aeroplane. The German navy is now without a Zeppelin. The airship was making an altitude test, and carried a heavier crew than usual. . While at a great height, a tongue of flame enveloped the structure with the rapidity of lightning. This was followed by a mighty detonation, and the envelope scattered into thousands of blazing fragments, fluttered earthwards. For a moment the framework stood out against the sky, then the ghastly tangle fell head downwards. There was a second explosion in the car as it was seen. 130 feet from the ground, and a third as it struck the earth. Men were seen writhing in agony and screaming. Helpers regardless of their burns, cut through the scorching metal. 'Four of the men were drawn out alive, but they quickly died, The human remains amongst the wreckage presented a horrible spectacle, some heads and limbs having been cut off by the framework.* . , —.