3-021-997 - British Pathe Ltd/Heritage Images

Chief Marshal Sir John Salmond and Other British Officials Inspecting the Wreckage of the R-101 Airship, 1930. 'But with...progress, dreadfully sobering failures. An airship named the R101 - a ship carrying with her a nation's aeronautic future. Beauvais, France, 1930. The end of what was to have been an epic flight to India. On board, the air minister and the best airship brains the nation possessed. Only a few, lucky enough to be in a gondola torn off by a tree, escaped. In the early hours of that historic Sunday morning, the fate of the R101 was a story that few believed. But there, in a field at Beauvais, was the dreadful proof'. When built, the R101 was the world's largest flying craft[ at 731 ft (223 m) in length. From "Time To Remember - A New Era", 1931 (Reel 3); documentary about the world in the early 1930s.