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
R101 many of his criticisms of the R101 team were unjustified. An extremely optimistic timetable was drawn up, with construction of the government-built airship to be begun in July 1925 and complete by the following July, with a trial flight to India planned for January 1927. In the event, the extensive experimentation that was carried out delayed the start of construction of R101 until early 1927. R100 was also delayed, and neither flew until late 1929. The whole airship programme was under the direction of the Director of Airship Development (DAD), Group Captain Peregrine Fellowes, with Colmore acting as his deputy.