Last of America’s Zeppelin Flyers
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John Lust, the last known surviving crew member from the Navy’s disaster-prone rigid airship program of the 1920s and 1930s, died December 29 in Butler, N.J.
Lust enlisted in the Navy at 17, a few years after the 1925 crash of the rigid, blimp-like USS Shenandoah. Unlike the flexible blimps, the rigid airships had internal frames.
Lust ran engines on the airships, including on the USS Akron, which was based in Lakehurst.
Lust was recovering from injuries he sustained in a car accident when the Akron crashed into the sea off Long Beach Island on April 3, 1933. Seventy-three of the 76 men aboard died. Within two years, the Navy ended its rigid-hulled airship program.
