Monterey Bay has seen a lot of history unfold along its rocky shores, but there's been nothing quite like the crash of the airship Macon.
On Feb. 12, 1935, the 785-foot-long rigid dirigible — the largest and last built in the United States — was puttering along at 80 knots, 100 feet above the water when winds around Point Sur knocked off the tail fin. Over the next 25 minutes, the Macon drifted toward the choppy seas and sank.
The slow descent gave 81 crew members time to board lifeboats and make it to shore. Two crew members drowned.
"It was like the space shuttle of its day. It was a really big deal when it crashed," said Tim Thomas, historian at the Monterey Maritime and History Museum.
Hoping to learn more about the Macon, researchers last week used video equipment to see how the dirigible has fared under 1,500 feet of salt water. They plan to release their findings today.
"I think it's going to be really exciting. It really was an amazing ship. People were just awed to see it fly overhead," said Bernie McDonough, a museum docent at Moffett Federal Airfield in Mountain View, where the Macon was based.
The Macon and its sister ship, the Akron, were built by the Goodyear-Zeppelin Co. in Ohio in 1933. The Navy wanted to use them for spotting submarines, because they could fly as high as 3,000 feet and go 10,000 miles before refueling.
The Macon was three times the size of a 747, weighed 400,000 pounds and could carry a crew of 100, plus four small airplanes. It had an aluminum shell and canvas covering, with room for a cockpit, offices, a galley, bathrooms and sleeping quarters.
"It was like the Titanic floating over your house," said Thomas. To accommodate the Macon, Akron and other dirigibles, Moffett Field built Hangar One, which the Navy now wants to demolish because of the toxic materials it was constructed with, although a group of preservationists are trying to save the landmark.
Tragedy haunted the dirigibles. In 1933, the Akron got caught in a storm off New Jersey, lost its tail fin and crashed in the Atlantic. Seventy-three of the 76 crew members died, including Rear Adm. William Moffett, for whom Moffett Field is named. Eight years earlier, another Navy rigid airship, the Shenandoah, crashed in Ohio, killing 14 aboard. The only other American rigid airship, the Los Angeles, never crashed but once got stuck on its mooring mast and rose tail-first so it was nearly vertical. The Navy scrapped it in 1939.
The Macon was en route from Southern California to Moffett Field in February 1935 when it hit the notorious gusts at Point Sur. Beneath a screaming headline, The Chronicle described the spectacle:
"She went down in an offshore drizzle, just as night was closing down. Her gray length was last seen dipping toward the ocean. Then she soared in her death throes, and was lost to view in the mist."
Harold Miller, who commanded the airplanes on board the Macon, was one of the survivors.
"He and some other guys were sitting on top of the nose cone as it sank, and they were scared of getting in the water because it was so cold," said Miller's son, Barry Miller, of Bethesda, Md. "All his life he talked about how cold that water was."
The wreck was discovered by a fisherman in 1990. In 1991, researchers took the first archeological look at the ship, which is about 5 miles from the Point Sur lighthouse. This time out, researchers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and the National Marine Sanctuary spent five days studying the ship, using an unmanned vehicle to take photos and video images. Thomas, who spent two days with the researchers, saw footage of cabinets, desks, chairs, stoves, empty tanks, pieces of airplanes and bits of aluminum framing.
The Navy stopped making rigid airships after the Macon crashed. By World War II, it switched to blimps — nonrigid airships, which are cheaper to build, safer and a quarter of the size.
"I was stunned you could still see pieces of the Macon," said Thomas, describing the new footage of the wreck. "A lot of it was buried in silt. If we go back in another 15 years, most of it will probably have disappeared entirely."
source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/09/27/BAGT3LDAAO1.DTL&type=printable 1oct2006
Four Sparrowhawk biplanes, five German-built gas engines, two sections of an aluminum stove and a dining table were among the debris identified by researchers who spent five days studying the wreck of the airship Macon, a 785-foot dirigible that crashed off Point Sur in 1935.
The researchers announced their findings Wednesday at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.
Using high-definition video equipment and still cameras, the scientists pieced together a mosaic of the wreckage, which has been under 1,500 feet of salt water for 71 years.
Researchers are able to compare the state of the wreckage with information gathered by the Navy and the research institute during expeditions in 1990 and 1991.
"Visiting the site again was like visiting an old friend that you haven't seen in years," said Chris Grech, the research institute's deputy director for marine operations.
The Macon was the largest and last rigid airship made in the United States. The Navy built four of the helium-filled behemoths to spot submarines and enemy ships, then scrapped the program when three of the four dirigibles crashed.
The Macon, which was based at Moffett Federal Airfield in Mountain View, crashed when its tail fin blew off. Two crew members died, and 81 made it to shore in lifeboats.
The debris lies within the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and will not be disturbed.
More information on the new research about the Macon can be found at www.montereybay.noaa.gov/research/macon/2006.html and at www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2006/s2708.htm, which has photos of some of the finds.
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source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/09/28/BABADIGEST2.DTL&hw=macon+sur&sn=002&sc=495 1oct2006
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