But her glory was short-lived. In the course of the Government
trials, while some 900 feet aloft, the huge vessel suddenly
exploded and was burned in the air, a mass of broken and twisted
metal-work falling to the ground. Of the 28 officers and men,
including members of the Admiralty Board who were conducting the
official trials, all but one were killed outright, and the
solitary exception was so terribly burned as to survive the fall
for only a few hours.
The accident was remarkable and demonstrated very convincingly
that although Count Zeppelin apparently had made huge strides in
aerial navigation through the passage of years, yet in reality he
had made no progress at all. He committed the identical error
that characterised the effort of Severo Pax ten years previously,
and the disaster was directly attributable to the self-same cause
as that which overwhelmed the Severo airship. The gas, escaping
from the balloons housed in the hull, collected in the confined
passage-way communicating with the cars, came into contact with a
naked light, possibly the exhaust from the motors, and instantly
detonated with terrific force, blowing the airship to fragments
and setting fire to all the inflammable materials.
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