A new book about the 1922 airship Roma disaster will be published soon.
The Roma was a United States Army airship built by Umberto Nobile; the ship ignited when it hit high-tension electrical wires near Langley Field at Hampton Roads, Virginia, killing 34 of the ship’s 45 crew members.
Burning wreckage of the U.S. Army’s hydrogen airship Roma; Norfolk, Virginia – February 21, 1922.
The Roma crash was just one of many hydrogen airship disasters and after the accident the United States government decided never again to inflate an airship with hydrogen.
I am looking forward to reading more about the full story in Ms. Sheppard’s book.
My book, The Airship ROMA Disaster in Hampton Roads, is now available at the Amazon link in this comment. Thanks!
Just bought one. Thanks for the information, Dan. Roma seems to be the first of the ‘Umberto Nobile’s deadly chain’ of semi-rigid airships. ‘Roma’ – emergency descent, crash, fire, (1922). ‘Italia’ – emergency descent, crash (1928). ‘SSSR V-7bis’ – emergency descent, crash, fire (1935). ‘SSSR V-6’ – emergency descent, crash,… Read more »
It’s more of a demonstration of how delicate airships were at the time. Keep in mind that the Italia was lost in the Arctic.
I hope this book opens up the engineering secrets of the Roma and Nobile’s semi rigid airships. I am curious to know more about how they maintained the gas bag pressure and prevented surging with such a large envelope. I am also interested in the static lift, and performance numbers… Read more »
AFAIK, the Roma and Nobile’s other airships were “semi-rigid” whose shape was maintained with the keel.
Thanks for the tip.