Empire of the Clouds story of the R101 airship, which crashed on its maiden voyage in northern France on 5 October 1930. The song was written entirely by the band's lead vocalist, Bruce Dickinson, who initially intended it to be about "World War I fighter airplanes;" Dickinson abandoned the idea after using the same theme for the song "Death or Glory," also from "The Book of Souls". At the time of recording, Dickinson was reading "a big, sort of encyclopedic crash report" of the R101, entitled "To Ride the Storm", which gave him the idea for the song's eventual subject. Dickinson describes it as
1919 Verona Caproni Ca.48 crash airliner's two pilots, five prominent Italian journalists, and seven Caproni company mechanics – were on board. Later sources place the death toll at 15 and 17 without further explanation. 1919 Verona Caproni Ca.48 crash On August 2, 1919, a Caproni Ca.48 airliner crashed at Verona, Italy. All aboard died, with various sources placing the death toll at 14, 15, and 17. It was Italy‘s first commercial aviation disaster and one of the earliest heavier-than-air airliner disasters in history. The Caproni Ca.48, owned and operated by the Caproni company and flown by two Italian military pilots, took off from the companys