"Here it comes, ladies and gentlemen, and what a sight it is, a
thrilling one, just a marvellous sight. It is coming down out of the
sky pointed toward us, and towards the mooring mast. The mighty diesel
motors roar, the propellers biting into the air and throwing it back
into gale-like whirlpools...
"No one wonders that this great floating palace can travel through the air at such speed with these powerful motors behind it. The sun is striking the windows of the observation deck on the eastward side and sparkling like glittering jewels against a background of black velvet...
"It's burst into flames! Get this, Charlie, get this, Charlie. Get out of the way, please, oh, my, this is terrible, oh, my, get out of the way, please! It is burning, bursting into flames and is falling on the mooring mast and all the folks we... this is one of the worst catastrophes in the world! Oh, it's four or five hundred feet into the sky, it's a terrific crash, ladies and gentlemen. Oh, the humanity!"
- Herbert Morrison, Lakehurst, New Jersey, May 6, 1937, 7:25 pm.
The photograph I have attempted to reproduce here was originally in
monochrome, so I added the colours to make it more vivid. The newspaper
surrounding the image is an actual scan of the next day's New York
Times, modified slightly to enable me to fit in a larger "photo" than
the one they published. (This image is not the same photo used by the
real New York Times.)