A 785-Foot Airship Crashed on This Day in 1935. The Location of the Wreck Site Remained a Mystery for More Than 70 Years
The USS Macon crash brought a quick end to the U.S. Navy’s vision of “flying aircraft carriers” powered by helium gas
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For a few decades in the early 20th century, giant airships promised to be the future of aviation. But high-profile crashes, like that of the USS Macon on February 12, 1935, ensured the aircraft’s future as more an element of science fiction than day-to-day reality.
Giant airships captivated the human imagination for hundreds of years, with the first depictions of the aircraft emerging in the late 1600s. Also known as dirigibles, these craft could run on their own power. Essentially, they were lighter than air, using  to give them buoyancy. This feat, coupled with their large size, seemed to pave the way for their mass use as people and cargo movers.
And by the early 1900s, that was shaping up to be the case. Airships completed trans-Atlantic passenger flights, and the U.S. military launched an operation to use them as aircraft carriers. The USS Macon was one such aircraft, which made its first U.S. Navy flight in 1933.
The USS Macon was truly a beast of the air. It was 785 feet long, three times longer than a Boeing 747. The rest of the airship’s stats were equally impressive: It weighed 200 tons, could stay in the air for three days, and handled an 83-person crew. Unlike the infamous Hindenburg zeppelin, the USS Macon used helium for buoyancy. Eight on-board power plants allowed it to use that gas and enable propeller movements in all directions.
For just about two years, the USS Macon served as a futuristic aircraft carrier. The Navy believed that the airship could aid in scouting—flying ahead of a fleet to identify an enemy. But critics were quick to point out that airships’ giant size hindered this aim. This prompted a pivot. The dirigibles could be airborne aircraft carriers.
The Macon was outfitted with trapeze bars under its belly and could carry either five Curtiss F9C-2 Sparrowhawk biplanes or five N2Y-1s. The Sparrowhawk was a type of plane known as a “parasite fighter” intended to be deployed from a larger aircraft, while N2Y-1s were a special training aircraft for rigid airships. Pilots could use them to practice launching from the USS Macon’s trapezes before real operations with the Sparrowhawks.
Unfortunately for aviation fanatics, the USS Macon’s commission ended abruptly after just two years. On February 12, 1935, the airship ran into a storm above Point Sur, California. The storm punctured the airship and caused a gas leak. In 20 minutes, the craft descended into Monterey Bay.
All but two crew members survived the crash. Experts credit this to favorable water temperatures and quick rescue missions.
Though the era of the airship is long gone, the crash’s aftermath continues to fascinate.
For nearly 70 years, the exact location of the airship’s wreckage was unknown to the public—both because of its impressive depth of 1,476 feet underwater and due to the U.S. Navy’s attempts to discourage treasure hunters from discovering the wreck site.
In 1990, scientists discovered the first pieces of the wreckage on the ocean floor, and survey work began to photograph what was left. A “time capsule” of a different era, the site contains four Sparrowhawks that appear intact. In more recent years, ocean explorers have conducted dives down to the crash site to learn more about the wreckage.
As for the Navy’s rigid airship program, it sank with the USS Macon. Passenger airships came screeching to a halt in 1937, too, with the high-profile Hindenburg’s spectacular crash and its 35 casualties. The tragedy, combined with emerging commercial airplane technology, closed the chapter on this once-futuristic mode of transportation.
