Back in the Day

Local man met fiery end in dirigible crash

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During the winter of 1921, Capt. Clifford Erle Smythe sat down and wrote a letter to his father, Robert. He had just completed a test flight aboard the dirigible Roma.
“The Roma behaved so badly on her first trial over Washington that she was declared unsafe and the majority of those on board were advised to make the return trip by train,” the 34-year-old penned. “If anything has been done to alter her, except to change the engines, I don’t know what it is. It looks to me like criminal negligence to fly her without making changes in her construction. But what can I do?”
The airship had been designed and constructed by the Aeronautical Construction factory in Italy as its first project. After a trial flight in the autumn of 1920, the United States purchased the ship for its military at a cost of a quarter of a million dollars. It was taken apart, packed into crates, shipped to America and put back together.
Despite his concerns, Smythe was aboard the 410-foot long, hydrogen-filled airship once again as it left its hangar at Langley Field in Virginia for another test flight at about 1:30 p.m. on Feb. 21, 1922.
Less than an hour later, the left elevating rudder buckled and fell forward, forcing the airship into a nosedive. It struck high-voltage electrical wires. The resulting explosion sent the fiery ship crashing to the ground less than a hundred feet away.
Eleven of the crew managed to jump from the dirigible before it was reduced to burning wreckage. The 34 who remained aboard, pinned in the hull, died. One of the survivors was the pilot, who later said that while 600 feet in the air, he found the airship refusing to respond to the elevating controls. He explained that the machine made a dive toward the ground at a 45-degree angle. As he was unable to raise the nose of the ship, he could not avoid it striking the wires.
A later investigation into what was considered the greatest American air disaster of all time showed the supports of the rudder had given way, overbalancing the ship and causing the nose to lower.
A temporary morgue was set up in Newport News, where bodies were placed until family members could come and identify them. Most were burned so badly that identification was made through personal artifacts they carried with them.
Among the dead was Clifford Smythe, whose cause of death was incineration. His remains were brought back to Cranston, where he was laid to rest in Cranston Cemetery No. 54, the Thomas Baker lot.
The Roma was the last hydrogen filled airship flown by the United States military.

Kelly Sullivan is a Rhode Island columnist, lecturer and author.

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