12:00 AM
No Name
The topic for this week’s blog is brought to you by my mother who loves obscure historical facts as much as I do. I guess that means I come by my interest in Minutiae of the Past from her. One might wonder if it's a genetic or learned trait. Or both.
When most of
us think of helium-filled airships, we think of the Hindenburg which crashed on May 6,
1937. Who can forget the newsman who cried, “Oh, the humanity!” Of the 97 on board the Hindenburg, there were
35 fatalities, along with one death among the ground crew.
But when the
USS Akron crashed four years earlier, 73 of the 76 people aboard died, making
it the largest loss of life for any airship disaster on record. Because the
crash was in the Atlantic Ocean, with no photographers or newsman nearby, it
didn’t have the impact of the Hindenburg.
In the Akron's
18-month term of service in the Navy it served as a flying aircraft
carrier for launching F9C Sparrowhawk biplane fighters, as well as other
duties. Some say the Akron was jinxed. It was involved in three accidents before
its final flight. In one accident, its tail slammed into the ground several
times. Another accident killed two sailors.
The cause of
the crash on April 4th was likely bad weather combined with poor
decisions by the ship’s commander, Frank C. McCord, who died in the accident. It’s
thought that McCord relied on incorrect altitude readings given by the ship’s
altimeter, which was rendered inaccurate by the storm’s low pressure. Perhaps McCord
thought his ship was higher than it was. It is also possible that McCord simply
flew the ship’s tail into the water while attempting to escape a downdraft, and
when the nose rose sharply, the tail may have simply pivoted into the ocean. Either
way, poor handling was probably responsible for the crash.
There are a
number of websites with detailed information about the crash, including the
following:
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