Pilot killed after helping three passengers to make incredible escape as Goodyear blimp plunges to the ground in flames
The Goodyear blimp seen in the sky above nearby Bad Vilbel earlier in the day
A Goodyear blimp burst into flames and plunged to earth in a weekend crash in Germany.
The pilot was killed but three passengers managed to jump to safety when the airship caught fire as it was coming in to land at the Reichelsheim aerodrome near Friedberg.
When the airship was just six metres from the floor, the pilot told his passengers, all journalists, to jump to the ground while he tried to land safely.
Once the three had leapt clear of the blimp he took it back up before being it became overwhelmed by flames and crashed to the earth, in a chilling echo of the Hindenburg disaster.
The pilot managed to get near enough the ground for passengers to escape before climbing back up
The cause of the crash was not immediately clear but an investigation was underway.
Witnesses reported hearing a loud noise from the engine and smelling petrol fumes.
One eyewitness said: 'We could also hear the cries of the doomed pilot as the fire surrounded him. It was terrible.'
Eyewitnesses said three passengers escaped the gondola of the blimp before the 42-year-old pilot ascended and crashed in a nearby field.
The blimp pilot who died was named by the airships.net website has named the pilot as 42-year-old Australian Mike Nerandzic.
The journalists who escaped were a photographer from Germany's Bild newspaper and two from RTL television.
The crash happened at 8.30pm on Sunday after the airship had made a round trip for the pressmen to take photos of the state of Hessen.
A spokesman of Lightship Europe Limited, which owned the airship, said: 'One member of the flight crew suffered fatal injuries. There were no injuries to passengers or ground crew.
The burning wreckage of the airship. The pilot was killed in the accident, but he managed to save his passengers
The cause of the crash was not immediately clear but an investigation was underway.
Witnesses reported hearing a loud noise from the engine and smelling petrol fumes.
One eyewitness said: 'We could also hear the cries of the doomed pilot as the fire surrounded him. It was terrible.'
Eyewitnesses said three passengers escaped the gondola of the blimp before the 42-year-old pilot ascended and crashed in a nearby field.
The blimp pilot who died was named by the airships.net website has named the pilot as 42-year-old Australian Mike Nerandzic.
The journalists who escaped were a photographer from Germany's Bild newspaper and two from RTL television.
The crash happened at 8.30pm on Sunday after the airship had made a round trip for the pressmen to take photos of the state of Hessen.
A spokesman of Lightship Europe Limited, which owned the airship, said: 'One member of the flight crew suffered fatal injuries. There were no injuries to passengers or ground crew.
'As is customary in incidents involving aircraft, the aviation and local authorities have initiated an investigation and it would be premature for Goodyear or Lightship Europe Limited to speculate on causes and findings at this time," the statement said.'
Germany led the world in airship technology in the first half of the last century. Its most famous airship was the Zeppelin - named after Count von Zeppelin who began experimenting with rigid airship designs in the 1890s.
The Zeppelin was a rigid airship, meaning it has an internal structural framework, whereas blimps are non-rigid and there shape is maintained solely by internal air pressure.
One of the best-known Zeppelins was the Hindenburg which crossed the Atlantic to New Jersey on May 6 1937, but caught fire as it was trying to land, causing the deaths of 35 people.
The actual cause of the fire remains unknown, although a variety of hypotheses have been put forward.
The incident shattered public confidence in the giant, passenger-carrying rigid airship and marked the end of that particular era of air travel.
The aircraft have made a comeback in Germany in recent years as tourist magnets.
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