On September 3, 1925, Ohio witnessed one of the worst disasters in aviation history when the USS Shenandoah rigid airship crashed in Noble County.  Occurring over a decade before the Hindenburg disaster, the crash generated international headlines and led the U.S. Navy to significantly alter their designs for future airships.  Today, the crash site is commemorated by several monuments and historic markers in Noble County.

Following the first World War, the U.S. Navy began to develop dirigibles (balloon-like, steerable aircraft with metal frames) similar to those used by Great Britain and Germany during the war.  In 1923, the Navy produced the country’s first rigid airship, the USS Shenandoah, at the Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey.  Filled with twenty non-flammable helium gasbags, the Shenandoah’s metal frame measured over 680 feet in length, weighed over forty tons, and was powered by five 300-horsepower engines.  Originally dubbed the ZR-1 (“Zeppelin-type Rigid 1”), the airship was christened Shenandoah by Marion Denby, the wife of Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby, in honor of her home in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.

Over the next two years, the Shenandoah engaged in over fifty flights across the country, often to gain public support for the Navy’s new rigid airship program.  During these flights, the airship was captained by Lieutenant Commander Zachary Lansdowne, a native of Greenville, Ohio, and a strong supporter of the Navy’s development of LTA (“lighter-than-air”) craft.  In September of 1924, the Shenandoah, helmed by Lansdowne and a crew of around forty men, completed the first transcontinental flight by a rigid airship when it traveled round trip from New Jersey to Tacoma, Washington, (with stops in Texas and California) in nineteen days.

In 1925, after plans for the Shenandoah to visit the North Pole fell through, the U.S. Navy scheduled the airship for a six-day publicity tour of the Midwest. Upon leaving Lakehurst Naval Air Station on September 2nd, the air ship traveled safely over Pennsylvania before encountering thunderstorms as it crossed into eastern Ohio. At around 6:00am, the Shenandoah passed through a line of severe wind squalls over Ava, Ohio; ultimately, the severe weather caused the airship to break in half. As a result, the ship's suspended control car detached and plummeted to the ground, killing Lt. Cmdr. Lansdowne and eleven of his crew. Like a sinking ship, the rest of the Shenandoah took nearly an hour to reach the ground; the 400-foot stern came to rest not far from the control car, while the 200-foot bow landed six miles to the south. Of the forty-three crewmen onboard, a total of fourteen lost their lives in the horrific crash.

Due to this disaster, the U.S. Navy made significant changes to its airship design including enhancing the overall strength of the ship's structure, increasing the total number of engines, and attaching the control car directly to the ship's frame.  In partnership with the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation, the Navy would go on to develop two more rigid airships: the USS Akron in 1931 and the USS Macon in 1933.  Sadly, both of these airships also crashed, leading to the demise of the Navy's use of rigid airships.

Immediately following the crash, members of the FBI and the Ohio National Guard arrived in Noble County to protect the crash site from looters.  Despite the authorities' best efforts, pieces of the airship and its contents were collected as souvenirs by the public.  The Ohio History Connection possesses several items taken from the USS Shenandoah including a fragment of the airship's metal girder, a cockpit clock, and a paper spoon from a first aid kit.