Princess Johanna Marina Eleoore of Hesse was orphaned at the age of fourteen months, when her family was killed in a plane crash, when the plane they were in hit what?
Princess Johanna of Hesse and by Rhine Princess Johanna Marina Eleonore of Hesse and by Rhine (Johanna Marina Eleonore Prinzessin und Landgräfin von Hessen; 20 September 1936 – 14 June 1939) was the third child and only daughter of Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse, and Princess Cecilie of Greece and Denmark. She was orphaned at the age of fourteen months when her parents, older brothers Ludwig and Alexander and paternal grandmother Eleonore were killed in a plane crash on their way to a family wedding in London. The remains of her unnamed stillborn baby brother were also found among the wreckage.
Dixmude (airship) The Dixmude was an airship built for the Imperial German Navy as L 72 (c/n "LZ 114") and not completed until after the end of the First World War, when it was given to France as war reparation and recommissioned in French Navy service as "Dixmude". It was lost when it exploded in mid-air on 21 December 1923 off the coast of Sicily, killing all 52 (42 crew and ten passengers) on board. This was one of the first of the great airship disasters, preceded by the crash of the British "R38" in 1921 (44 dead) and the US airship "Roma" in 1922 (34 dead), and followed by the destruction of the British "R101" in 1930 (48 dead), the USS "Akron" in 1933 (73 dead) and the German "Hindenburg" in 1937 (36 dead).