Editing USS Shenandoah (ZR-1) (section)

==Aftermath==

===Looting===
The crash site attracted thousands of visitors in its first few days. Within five hours of the crash, more than a thousand people had arrived to strip the hulk of anything they could carry. On Saturday, 5 September 1925, the ''St. Petersburg Times'' of Florida reported the crash site had quickly been looted by locals, describing the frame as being "[laid] carrion to the whims of souvenir seekers".<ref name=stpete>{{cite news|title=Shenandoah is looted of all valuable parts|newspaper=The St. Petersburg Times|date=5 September 1925|location=St. Petersburg, Florida|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=888&dat=19250903&id=WLpOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7kwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6219,4715844&hl=en| volume=43|issue=248}}{{rp|1}}</ref> Among the items believed to have been taken were the vessel's logbook and its [[barograph]], both of which were considered critical to understanding how the crash had happened. Also looted were many of the ship's 20 deflated silken gas cells, worth several thousand dollars each, most of them unbroken but ripped from the framework before the arrival of armed military personnel. Looting was so extensive it was initially believed that even the bodies of the dead had been stripped of their personal effects. That such looting was happening was denied by those publicly involved in the incident, however. Still, a local farmer on whose property part of the vessel's wreckage lay began charging the throngs of visitors $1 (equivalent to about ${{Inflation|US|1|1925}} in {{Inflation/year|US}}) for each automobile and 25¢ per pedestrian to enter the crash site, as well as 10¢ for a drink of water.<ref name=stpete/>{{rp|2}}

On 17 September the ''Milwaukee Sentinel'' reported that 20 Department of Justice operatives had been summoned to the site and that they, along with an unspecified number of federal and state prohibition agents, had visited private homes to collect four truck loads of wreckage along with personal [[wiktionary:gripsack|grips]] of several crew members and a cap believed to have belonged to Commander Lansdowne.<ref>{{cite news|title=U.S. raids private homes to recover loot from Shenandoah|date=17 September 1925|newspaper=Milwaukee Sentinel|page=3| url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1368&dat=19250917&id=LWBQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QA8EAAAAIBAJ&pg=6888,5860720&hl=en}}</ref> Lansdowne's Annapolis class ring had also been thought to have been taken from his hand by looters, but it was found by chance in June 1937 near crash site #1.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19370627&id=cU0bAAAAIBAJ&sjid=HEwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5758,3382965&hl=en |work=The Pittsburgh Press |date=27 June 1937 |title=Woman Finds Class Ring of Shenandoah Skipper |agency=United Press |volume=54 |issue=3 |page=14}}</ref> No one was charged with any crime.

===Inquiry===
[[File:Navy board investigating Shenandoah disaster, 10-8-25 LCCN2016850604.tif|thumb|United States Navy board investigating the ''Shenandoah'' airship crash]]
The official inquiry brought to light the fact that the fatal flight had been made under protest by Commander Lansdowne (a native of [[Greenville, Ohio]]), who had warned the Navy Department of the violent weather conditions that were common to that area of Ohio in late summer. His pleas for a cancellation of the flight only caused a temporary postponement: his superiors were keen to publicize airship technology and justify the huge cost of the airship to the taxpayers. So, as Lansdowne's widow consistently maintained at the inquiry, publicity rather than prudence won the day.<ref>[http://www.americanheritage.com/content/death-dirigible Death of a Dirigible] www.americanheritage.com</ref> This event was the trigger for [[United States Army|Army]] Colonel [[Billy Mitchell]] to heavily criticize the leadership of both the Army and the Navy, leading directly to [[Billy Mitchell#Court-martial|his court-martial]] for insubordination and the end of his military career. Heinen, according to the ''Daily Telegraph'', placed the mechanical fault for the disaster on the removal of eight of the craft's 18 safety valves, saying that without them he would not have flown on her "for a million dollars".  These valves had been removed in order to better preserve the vessel's helium, which at that time was considered a limited global resource of great rarity and strategic military importance; without these valves, the helium contained in the rising gas bags had expanded too quickly for the bags' valves' design capacity, causing the bags to tear apart the hull as they ruptured (the helium which had been contained in these bags became lost into the upper atmosphere).<ref>{{cite journal|title=The Shenandoah disaster|journal=Flight|date=10 September 1925|page=580|url=http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1925/1925%20-%200580.html}}</ref>

After the disaster, airship hulls were strengthened, control cabins were built into the keels rather than suspended from cables, and engine power was increased. More attention was also paid to weather forecasting.<ref>[http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/aviation/she.htm Shenandoah Crash Site] www.nps.gov</ref>