1944 – May 16, dirigible airship K-5 hits hangar and crashes, Lakehurst NAS, NJ     —     10

–10  Shock.  US Navy Airships 1915-1962: A History by Individual Airship. 1992, 2001, p. 92.

–10  UP. “Blimp crash Kills 10 in New Jersey.” The Salt Lake Tribune, UT. 5-17-1944, p. 1.

Narrative Information

Shock: “On May 1944, while making practice take-offs and landings, K-5 struck the upper ledge of Hangar No. One at Lakehurst and deflated on hangars no. 2 and 3.”  Listed as “Loss of lives included…” are the names of 10 men.  “This was the greatest single loss of airship personnel to that time in World War II.”  (Shock 1992/2001, p. 92.)

Newspaper

May 16, UP: “Lakehurst, N.J., May 16 (UP) – Ten men, including six naval aviation officers and four enlisted men, were killed Tuesday when a training blimp crashed into a hangar at the naval air station here, dropping its control car more than 250 feet to a concrete runway. An eleventh crew member, an enlisted man, was injured critically.

“An official announcement said that the airship, 250 feet long and containing 416,000 cubic feet of noninflammable helium gas, was on a routine training flight with a student crew. The student pilot, the nave said, brought the ship down to a landing mat on the airfield for what was described as a ‘short wheel run.’ This, officers said, consists of rolling the airship along the ground on its one wheel, without the aid of a ground crew, and then taking off again.

“The student pilot, the navy said, apparently miscalculated distances and the control car of the airship crashed against the side of the 268-foot high hangar, which once housed the dirigible Los Angeles.

“There was no fire, the official announcement said. The bag of the airship was badly torn.

“Names of the dead and injured were withheld by the navy pending notification of next of kin.

“The Lakehurst naval air station was the scene of the disastrous fire which wrecked the German Zeppelin Hindenburg. It once housed the ill-fated dirigibles Shenandoah, which broke in two during a thunderstorm over Ohio; the Macon and the Akron, both lost off the New Jersdy coast in storms.” (UP. “Blimp crash Kills 10 in New Jersey.” The Salt Lake Tribune, UT. 5-17-1944, p. 1.)

Sources

Shock, James R.  US Navy Airships 1915-1962: A History by Individual Airship.  Edgewater, FL: Atlantis Productions, 1992, 2001. 

United Press. “Blimp crash Kills 10 in New Jersey.” The Salt Lake Tribune, UT. 5-17-1944, p. 1. Accessed 4-3-2024 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/salt-lake-tribune-may-17-1944-p-1/