R101 lengthening the ship by to add another gasbag, the R101 crashed in France during its maiden overseas voyage on 5 October 1930, killing 48 of the 54 people on board. Among the passengers killed were Lord Thomson, the Air Minister who had initiated the programme, senior government officials, and almost all the dirigible's designers from the Royal Airship Works. The crash of R101 effectively ended British airship development, and was one of the worst airship accidents of the 1930s. The loss of life was more than the 36 killed in the highly public "Hindenburg" disaster of 1937, though fewer than
The Way to the Stars did not regret her own marriage in spite of her husband's death. Hollis, who has formed a platonic relationship with Toddy, is killed while crash-landing a damaged returning bomber rather than bail out and risk it crashing into the village. During the war, Rattigan served in the Royal Air Force as a tail gunner, and used his wartime experiences to help inspire his earlier stage play, "Flare Path". In 1945, he was released from the service to help rewrite it with Anatole De Grunwald as a film screenplay of "The Way to the Stars". Although Michael Redgrave and John Mills