Jetrader - Spring 2017 - 43

at the Sicilian port city of Augusta. During takeoff, the tail
section slapped onto the water and was torn away. The broken
Do X 2 was taken in tow for about 600 miles to Marina di Pisa
on the Italian mainland where the same reinforcements and
repairs were performed.
Dornier X taxiing near the site of today's New York LaGuardia Airport. The
great size of the wing is shown here. Looking closely shows that only the
two forward engines farthest out to port and starboard are operating.
Photo: U.S. Navy via San Diego Air & Space Museum.

Baltics. Recently-elected Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler came aboard
at the first stop on the tour, where he enjoyed a sightseeing ride.
Two months into the tour, disaster struck when the aircraft
landed on the Danube a few kilometers west of Passau. Making
the landing approach flying west into the setting sun, the Luft
Hansa captain said he was blinded by the sun reflecting off the
smooth-as-glass water, and the aircraft touched down while still
flying faster than the normal landing speed. The aircraft bounced,
pitched up and came down hard, with the tail hitting the water
and being torn off and dragged along by the control cables to
the rudder and elevators.
The Dornier was towed downstream to the small port town of
Passau-Heining where it was repaired and fitted with a new, beefedup tail section. The rest of the European tour was canceled, and
in September the repaired Dornier flew back to its home port on
Lake Constance.
Only one month after the crash on the Danube, a similar
accident happened to one of the Italian Dorniers, the Do X 2,

Where are They Now?
Claude Dornier went on to design and produce a large number
of novel aircraft, including commercial transports and military
aircraft. Many Dornier aircraft were produced for the Luftwaffe
in World War II. After the war, the Dornier Company continued its
aircraft production with Claude Dornier at the helm until his death
in 1969. After a number of mergers and acquisitions, the company
eventually became a part of Airbus.
After the original prototype Dornier Do X had been repaired in
1933, it remained at the Dornier shipyard at Friedrichshafen. Its
last flight in October 1934 was from there to Travemunde, where
it was disassembled and carried by barge to Berlin, was reassembled and then became the main attraction in the new German
Aviation Collection Museum. Ten years later in 1944, RAF bombing
raids reduced the museum and the Do X to rubble. By the early
1950s, scrap metal collectors had carried off all that was left of
the great aircraft.
The two Italian Do X models saw very little flying service. By
1937 they had been cannibalized for parts and reduced to scrap.
A few Do X artifacts can be found at the Dornier Museum at
Friedrichshafen, which opened in 2009 and includes a life-size
replica of one of the passenger cabins.

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