The Worst Air Disaster You've Never Heard Of(longreads.com)
longreads.com
The Worst Air Disaster You've Never Heard Of
https://longreads.com/2025/09/04/zeppelin-navy-aircraft-disaster/
24 comments
Gives you a bit over a quarter of the full article, without the pictures, then links to the top of the original article for you to read the rest.
Blogspam. This submission should definitely be changed to that URL.
Blogspam. This submission should definitely be changed to that URL.
To be fair the original article is so long that it has chapters. It’s super long read so it’s at least nice to have a shorter version
The linked article is not a shorter version. It is just the first two and a half chapters.
The Atavist is full of articles like this one - in-depth stories about obscure-but-interesting (at least, to me) moments in history. Sort of a cross between Ira Glass and Ken Burns.
No idea what funds this - looks like they were bought by Automattic? But glad it exists. If they were on substack or patreon I would pay.
No idea what funds this - looks like they were bought by Automattic? But glad it exists. If they were on substack or patreon I would pay.
Without clickbait: The Zeppelin USS Akron Air Disaster You Haven't Heard Of
Paradoxical title, once you've read it fully, it becomes false.
If you flip it 'You Haven't Heard Of The Zeppelin USS Akron Air Disaster' could be true once.
How about: The Zeppelin USS Akron Air Disaster You Hadn’t Heard Of.
How about simply: The Zeppelin USS Akron Air Disaster
I wonder if AI has progressed to the point where one could write a proxy that rewrites all the clickbait headlines automatically.
Finally a real world useful example of AI.
It had two disasters?
;-)
;-)
Personally, the Boeing 737 air max was the worst. Multiple crashes. Corporate incompetence, coverup, and denial.
One of the worst air disasters I've never heard of is one of the most famous and impactful in the history of aviation that I've heard about from dozens of sources in almost every medium? But not in interpretive dance yet, so maybe that's what they mean.
I guess different people's experiences are different. Seems needlessly snarky. I have no memory of this yet can rattle off (among others)
- Hindenburg
- Pan Am 103
- Tenerife
- TWA 800
- JAL 123
- Korean 007
- Iran Air shootdown
- MH 17
- MH 370
- The DC-10 cargo door (Turkish airlines)
- The DC-10 fan disk (United airlines)
- The Hawaiian Airlines 737 fatigue decompression
- Gimli glider
- Miracle on the Hudson
- September 11
- Hindenburg
- Pan Am 103
- Tenerife
- TWA 800
- JAL 123
- Korean 007
- Iran Air shootdown
- MH 17
- MH 370
- The DC-10 cargo door (Turkish airlines)
- The DC-10 fan disk (United airlines)
- The Hawaiian Airlines 737 fatigue decompression
- Gimli glider
- Miracle on the Hudson
- September 11
Damn, I subscribe to Mentour Pilot on youtube and a couple of the aviation/accident subreddits, and I have to admit I’ve never heard of this one.
Number 6 will surprise you!
Pilots hate this one simple trick!
Pilots hate this one simple trick!
> Generally, in a thunderstorm, airships remained over land, where it was easier to keep one’s bearings: There were landmarks and, at night, illuminated areas for guidance. In the event that the worst happened, being over land helped facilitate rescue efforts. It was also common maritime knowledge that winds tended to be less severe on the western side of a storm. Knowing this, Wiley suggested at least twice that the ship move west and further inland for the time being. McCord disagreed. How much he took into account what Moffett wanted is impossible to know, but he surely didn’t wish to arrive in Newport far behind schedule with such an esteemed passenger on board.
So they had egos as big as the oversized airship they built. What a tragedy and waste of human life, I hate it.
I wonder why they didn’t just build smaller airships, why risk an unproven type of craft with some megalomaniacal project?
So they had egos as big as the oversized airship they built. What a tragedy and waste of human life, I hate it.
I wonder why they didn’t just build smaller airships, why risk an unproven type of craft with some megalomaniacal project?
Because that was not the attitude of the early aviation pioneers. With that attitude NACA and NASA would not have been founded, and man would never had walked on the moon.
That attitude also gave us the Titanic and Hindenburg. I feel like your assumptions are horrible - because surely there’s a middle ground where you make progress, but without being so irresponsible that man’s ego and desire for grandeur results in countless lives being thrown away. It might be slower and take longer, sure.
> That attitude also gave us the Titanic and Hindenburg.
That said, that attitude also brought us a dozen humans walking on another world.
https://magazine.atavist.com/2025/american-hindenberg-zeppel...