On this day in aviation history, February 12, 1935, the United States Navy’s scouting airship and “flying aircraft carrier” USS Macon (ZRS-5) was lost in a storm of the California coast.

Al Margolis, director of operations at Moffett Field Historical Society and Museum, speaks about the USS Macon at the museum in Mountain View on April 13, 2023. Photo by Magali Gauthier.

Remote vehicle operators on the Nautilus get a live view of the USS Macon wreck View of the USS Macon wreck Lickliter-Mundon wants to use the 3D photomosaic to learn more about how the Macon sank.

The U.S. Navy once dreamed of airships serving as flying aircraft carriers, with the USS Akron and Macon leading the way. But after a series of deadly disasters, the vision collapsed. This is the ...

April White - Author, The Divorce Colony: How Women Revolutionized Marriage and Found Freedom on the American Frontier Top, the Navy’s short-lived USS Macon in 1933; above, a commercial ...