The first of a new generation of airships designed by Germany’s Zeppelin corporation was forced to abort its maiden flight from Germany to Japan on Tuesday following delays owing to Russian red tape, officials said.
In an embarrassing turnaround, the airship will be transported to its new owners in Japan aboard a seagoing ship rather than making a triumphal arrival by air.
For more than six weeks, the airship and its crew have been stranded in Finland, unable to get permission from Russian aviation authorities to fly through Russian airspace before the onset of the Siberian winter.
The 75m-long Zeppelin NTD will now return to the Zeppelin corporation headquarters on the shores of Lake Constance, officials said.
The flight started on July 4 amid a flurry of publicity — 104 years after the first Zeppelin dirigible was launched. It is the first transcontinental flight by a rigid airship since the Hindenburg went up in flames on May 6 1937.
Officials of Nippon Airship Corporation took possession of the new airship in a ceremony in Friederichshafen, the Zeppelin firm’s headquarters since 1900.
It was from there that Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin’s prototype LZ-1 lighter-than-air ship made aviation history with a 20-minute flight on July 2 1904.
From the outset, the trip has been plagued by problems. The launch of the gleaming new airship, buoyed by non-flammable helium, was delayed for 48 hours due to thunderstorms on the first flight’s anniversary on July 2.
This summer marks the 75th anniversary of the precedent-setting, round-the-world flight in 1929 of the legendary Graf Zeppelin. About 100 000 people greeted it when it made a stopover in Tokyo that year.
The new airship, accommodating 12 passengers, will be used for tourist flights in Japan. — Sapa-DPA