Dixmude (airship)

Dixmude was a Zeppelin airship built for the Imperial German Navy as L 72, construction number LZ 114, and unfinished at the end of the First World War. It was the third and final Zeppelin of the X class built for the Navy and was intended to bomb New York City, a mission never carried out; the Zeppelin Company then wanted to fly it to New York as a demonstration, which was not done for political reasons. It made its first flight on 9 July 1920 and was surrendered to the French authorities four days later, and was recommissioned in the French Navy and renamed Dixmude, after the Belgian city of Diksmuide. On 21 December 1923 it exploded in mid-air off the coast of Sicily, killing all 50 people aboard, 40 crew and ten passengers, one of the earliest great airship disasters.