Dixmude (airship)

Dixmude (ex-LZ 114)
Zeppelin LZ-114
General information
Role	reconnaissance/bomber
National origin	Germany
Manufacturer	Zeppelin Luftschiffbau
Designer	Ludwig Dürr
Service	French Navy
History
First flight	9 July 1920
Last flight	21 December 1923
Fate	Destroyed after crash and explosion

The Dixmude was a Zeppelin airship built for the Imperial German Navy as L 72 (c/n LZ 114) and unfinished at the end of the First World War, when it was given to France as war reparations and recommissioned in French Navy service and renamed Dixmude. It was lost when it exploded in mid-air on 21 December 1923 off the coast of Sicily, killing all 52 (42 crew and ten passengers) on board.^[1][2] This was one of the earliest of the great airship disasters, preceded by the crash of the British R38 in 1921 (44 dead) and the US airship Roma in 1922 (34 dead), and followed by the destruction of the USS Shenandoah in 1925 (14 dead) the British R101 in 1930 (48 dead), the USS Akron in 1933 (73 dead) and the German Hindenburg in 1937 (36 dead).