Sky Ships. William Althoff

men were ready to drop fuel. As he stepped onto the ladder a violent gust struck the underside of the bow, forcing the ship to assume an upward angle “greater than any I had ever experienced in an airship.” The structure could withstand no more. Struts began to snap, the hull breaking in two at frame 125, opening up at the bottom. Four men were on the keel where the break occurred; three were thrown free. The airship had begun to break up. The two halves of the hull remained together via the massive control cables to the ship’s rudders and elevators, but these were then carried away, allowing the control car and six crewmen to fall free. Standing on the keel facing aft, Rosendahl had the awful vision of the hull’s larger after portion floating away, and down, from the bow section. The aft section descended rapidly, but a further break occurred at frame 110, hurling two engine cars and their mechanics to their deaths. The ship’s tail section landed not far from the twisted wreckage of the control car and the dead. The 210-foot bow part, free of the control car, rose to perhaps 10,000 feet. Rosendahl found he was not alone. He and six shipmates assessed their situation, deciding to free balloon the derelict nose section to a “landing.” Gradually, they valved their piece down. The trail ropes finally snagged on a hill near Sharon, Ohio, concluding a harrowing hour aloft in their section of the hull. Thanks in large measure to helium, twenty-nine of the forty-three aboard Shenandoah had survived.

      The Shenandoah tragedy was without precedent in the United States, certainly the most spectacular aviation accident to that date. Newspapers screamed the headlines. Secretary of the Navy Curtis D. Wilber asserted that “no immediate change” in naval policy with respect to large airships would be made as a result of the crash. Clearly, however, testing the military value of Shenandoah and later ships stood compromised.

      The press exploded with criticism of the Navy Department and BuAer. Brig. Gen. William “Billy” Mitchell leveled charges of negligence at the War and Navy Departments. Lansdowne’s widow, Betsy, was quoted (unfairly) as charging that her husband had been sent to his death on a publicity stunt for the Navy. Charges, denials, criticism, and rebuttals filled the newspapers—hardly the publicity Moffett had intended. The court of inquiry was a thorough if sometimes acrimonious affair. Its report was submitted on 24 December 1925. The court found that “the final destruction of the ship was due primarily to large, unbalanced, external, aerodynamic forces arising from high velocity air currents. Whether the ship, if entirely intact and undamaged, would have broken under the forces existing, or whether prior minor damage due to gas pressure was a determining factor in the final breakup are matters which this Court is unable to determine.”²⁶

      A modification of Zeppelin design-engineering, ZR-1 was obsolete before commissioning. The ship’s breakup over Ohio underscored the need for greater hull strength to meet U.S. weather and rough ship handling compared to German practice. Following closely upon the loss of ZR-2, the Shenandoah disaster led to heated criticism of the program. U.S. Naval Institute photo archive

      No negligence or culpability was found in the actions of any individuals, though the reduction of gas valves was deemed “inadvisable.” The Navy’s penchant of complying with publicity requests was criticized. The movement of naval craft should be limited to military operations “in so far as possible, especially in the case of new and experimental types.”

      During the two-year career of Shenandoah the LTA program had taken its first, faltering steps. Personnel had been trained, valuable experience accumulated, and the potential (and liabilities) of helium and water-recovery demonstrated. The disaster forced a reevaluation of the strength requirements for rigid airships; the Akron and Macon were built far stronger as one result. As well, control cars were built directly into the hulls, the engines placed inside. Fewer publicity flights would interfere with the operating schedules of Los Angeles and of Akron and Macon.

      Rosendahl had become an attractive public figure overnight. His naval career prospered, and his influence began to dominate the young LTA program. On the other hand, the experience, rank, and influence that Lansdowne could have exerted had been wrenched away—an incalculable loss to the cause.²⁷