Airship Wrecked At Anchor.

New York Times 100 years ago today, March 21, 1913:
Soldiers Manning Zeppelin's Ropes Lifted Seventy Feet In Hurricane.
By Marconi Transatlantic Wireless Telegraph to The New York Times.
    BERLIN, March 20.— Details of the wrecking of the Zeppelin airship, Substitute Z1, show that an attempt was made to land at St. Weiler, but a gust of wind swept her in the direction of Karlsruhe, where the vessel battled for an hour and a half with a wind blowing more than 50 miles an hour before the commander cared to risk an emergency descent. His eighteen-hour supply of gasoline was exhausted and one of the engines had become defective. The officers and crew congratulated one another heartily when they landed safely, after a more tempestuous voyage than any Zeppelin had previously survived.
    The wind having subsided to some extent, the commander gave orders for another ascent. While the preparations were being made, disaster overtook the vessel with dramatic suddenness. A strange crash was heard; it was the breaking of one of the aluminium girders near the bow. The work of destruction then set in along the entire surface of the vessel. Although the airship was anchored on all sides by stout ropes held by strong arms, she seemed to be hanging almost entirely by her bow, which proved the weakest spot.
    The vessel was whirled helplessly higher and higher by the wind. The soldiers hauling the ropes at the stern were lifted seventy feet from the ground and would have been killed if another gust had not suddenly plunged the vessel downward. A Lieutenant who found himself under the bow narrowly escaped being crushed, and dozens of soldiers had the spikes of their helmets torn off. Two violent gusts now sealed the fate of the airship. Gradually her bow caved in, and ballonet after ballonet burst with a report like that of an exploding shell. Then another gust, the most violent of all, struck the vessel squarely amidships, and all hope of saving her vanished. The wind grew more and more violent, and was soon a hurricane. From within the creaking depths of the airship came increasingly loud explosions. The aluminium framework was already bare for three-quarters of its length. There was a desperate scramble to save the machinery and other equipment, but the destruction was complete.