Top speeds reaching 170 mph, open cockpits and no roll bars nor seatbelts. It’s a miracle any of these drivers survived. That’s absolutely insane.

Refusing to call off the race in order to keep the surrounding roads clear for emergency vehicles actually seems like a smart call. Callous, but smart.

This is one of the best summaries of the '55 LeMans disaster I've seen; Well done. As a former volunteer track worker who has researched this a lot, there are a few things I'd like to add: 1. There was no separate pit lane, unlike today. Pit lane was just the far side of the track surface with nothing to separate it from the racing cars. That's why Hawthorn pitting trigger such mayhem--he was going full racing speed, with Macklin close behind him, and then stomped on the brakes at the last minute & pulled over. 2. The Jaguars were the *only* cars with disc brakes; all others, including the Mercedes 300SLRs of Levegh & Fangio, had only drum brakes. Jaguar was the first to develop them, based on similar systems used on aircraft, and this was the first time cars with disc brakes were raced. So the Jags could stop in a much shorter distance than any other car on the track, which is why Macklin had to swerve out of the way when Hawthorn braked; his only other option was to plow his Austin-Healy into the back of the Hawthorn's Jag. 3. At this time, there was no such thing as a safety culture in racing. At all. Be it drivers or spectators or track workers, the attitude was that if you were stupid enough to go to a race (an inherently dangerous activity), if something went wrong, you got what you deserved. After the disaster, safety for the spectators was improved, but not for the drivers. That wouldn't start until the late '60s/early '70s, when drivers like Sir Jackie Stewart and Emerson Fittipaldi started making a fuss about it. And it took until the early/mid 1980s for actual medical treatment of racing injuries because a thing, again thanks to people like Sid Watson in F1 and Drs. Steve Olvey and Terry Trammell in Indycar(CART). LeMans '55 was and still is a major impetus for drastic change in racing, to the point that racing is still illegal in Switzerland to this day. A curious footnote to the whole situation was Mike Hawthorn's death a few years later in 1959. He was supposedly racing a friend, team manager Rob Walker, and lost control of his Jaguar 3.4 Mk 1. Walker was driving a Mercedes 300 SL (gullwing), the street counterpart to the 300 SLR racecar Levegh & Fangio were driving at LeMans in '55.

I remember learning about this tragedy years ago. The detail of the bonnet "decapitating 14 spectators" etched this one into my memory. Such a visceral image.

I'm still in awe how deadly this accident was. Just the thought of an engine decapitating spectators is such a haunting visual

The hood from the Mercedes came off and went through the crowd like a scythe. There were a number of people that were decapitated. One survivor talked about a young girl's head coming to rest near his feet. 😣

As an F1 fan this is one of the few events I'm already familiar with. Up until VERY recently racing was just about the most dangerous profession there was. You could easily do an entire series on F1 incidents alone.

You did miss an interesting safety-related tidbit that would have been a nice addition to the end of the video. Levegh's co-driver John Fitch, looking for racing safety improvements, filled liquor barrels with sand, inventing some of the first impact attenuators. The term Fitch Barrel is still used in the civil engineering world and are still used on roads today, but they are the yellow, sand-filled plastic barrels you see on highways, generally at the end of guard rails and barriers.

If you are ever looking for another racing disaster to cover, the 1986 World Rally Group B race in Portugal is an intense subject. The crowd was so close to the road that a car drove over several spectators when it lost control trying to avoid hitting ANOTHER spectator in the road.

I have a story about this one race, my grandmother who was 13 at the time, remembers the radio being on and she was in a cafe at the time in Germany and the radio was on and when the crash happened everyone went deathly silent.....and she remembers just how shocked everyone was at the time realising that one of their cars had crashed and killed over 80 people....there was another thing I remember "We are racing drivers, we are not monsters" that was a line from a video posted years ago on this very incident Mercedes took the lead 10 hours into the race and then promptly withdrew all the cars from that race and by morning, they had returned to Germany..... Also the fact that Mike Hawthorn had gone sobbing to the Merc team boss Alfred Neubauer was also telling and that Mercedes discussed with Jaguar about pulling out of the race as a mark of respect and Jaguar refused and we had that infamous picture of Mike smiling at the end of the race and he was hung out to dry for it by the French Media....

The deadliest motor racing event overall is also the world's oldest - the Isle of Man TT. The 1955 Le Mans accident remains the deadliest _single_ incident in motor sport, however the Isle of Man circuit has claimed the most lives of any motor sport during the course of its 116-year history. There have been over 260 fatalities over that time span, including some spectators. There were 5 fatalities in 2022 alone.

Early racing was terrifying in general really, it's sad incidents like this happened. Thankfully stuff is a lot safer now.

That the driver who ultimately started the accident also won the race is an interesting if not sad coincidence.

This generation's idea of safety was a bullet missing you, not the lack of being shot at, so to speak- they were used to sitting in bombers getting hit by flak, or trenches with artillery coming down around them. Anything in comparison would seem safe. Combine that with PTSD and survivor's guilt, it's a perfect storm for risky behavior/passive self destruction

I had come across this story before on another channel, but while they had mentioned people continued racing (primarily Mr Hawthorn), they didn't include the detail that this was partially to the organiser's plan to hopefully avoiding a panic, and making the situation worse. While the fact the one who caused the accident continued to win and celebrate still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, this added context helps understand why both he and the other drivers continued to race.

I’ve been following you for a long time now, you might be one the most consistent youtubers out there, I look foward to every tuesday and usually eat my lunch while watching the new video, your videos are always well researched, respectful and you are an excellent narrator. thank you for everything!

One thing I find interesting is in that a lot of accidents that happen, humans tend to be more reactive to make changes instead of proactive. Everything's fine until lives are lost, it seems.

I recall reading a detailed report about this on the internet years ago, and there were many photographs accompanying the article - some of them were absolutely gruesome showing headless bodies, random limbs strewn about, and many burned bodies. Bizarrely, people were in the photographs just standing there staring at the dead. Maybe they were in total shock and couldn't take in what had happened? It was truly appalling.

In one country the racing ban remained permanently: Switzerland never again hosted a race. (Rallies, yes, but not races; there were two "Swiss Grand Prix" F1 events, but they were held at Dijon in France!)

I remember this and the Farnborough Airshow DH110 crash of 1952 when the show also continued despite considerable numbers of deaths and injuries in the crowd. Attitudes to risk were different then. People were used to seeing death and injury around them after WW2.

I can see where that motor speedway disaster on that one Final Destination movie got its inspiration from.

"WW2 had ended just a decade ago and this was one of the first times that nations which had previously been at war would compete in a more civilized competition." I love that final part of the sentence, hahah. ^^

When I first stumbled into this channel, I had a feeling this disaster would be covered at some point down the line. It can't be stressed enough how close motor racing as a whole came to being permanently shut down due to this incident. Fortunately, we learned and made things so much safer and still do make things safer with every passing serious incident but we were this close to having never had the chance to learn from this and losing motor racing all together.

I've never seen a more detailed and un-biased description of how the crash happened. Exceptionally well done.

My dad,a racing enthusiast, has talked about this for years. He is fascinated by LeMans and I believe has passed some of that down to me. As a kid, he had us watch LeMans with Steve McQueen. I didn’t understand the movie at 11, and thought it was boring. Over time, I’ve come to realize what it’s about. Thank you for this video!

To add to Hawthorn winning the race, the next year Hawthorn had a camera on his car in practice. He did a lap around the track and did commentary while driving and mentions safety improvements made to the track after "the terrible accident last year". The one that he caused. That videos on KZfaq

A hand signal to slow down from Levegh to his teammate running behind, just before the crash, was later credited by that driver with saving his life. That driver was 5-time F1 world champion Juan Manuel Fangio. Also worth mentioning is driver John Fitch, who began designing safety improvements for road and track after the disaster. His inventions are credited with saving tens of thousands of lives.

Some of the black and white footage shows how sketchy it could be. Great vid

I watched an extended documentary on this event including interviews with survivors and the co-driver of the driver who died. (Each team had 2 drivers that swapped back and forth so one could rest.) There is a panoramic photo of the area the engine swept through just before and just after and it's horrifying. Several people were decapitated by flying debris. This event is truly both fascinating, and horrifying.

Keep up the quality videos you make. You highlight events that are both well known and aren’t as well known.

Great vid as always. This reminds me of another fascinating horror type thing you might like. I recall at a monster truck show a few years back a bit of debris was flung up into the stands and killed a kid. It's just fascinating how we go through life blissfully unaware that we are in constant danger from things we would never expect.

The ban on motorsports is still in effect in Switzerland. It was only recently modified to allow races with electric vehicles.

Imagine going to a race with your loved ones because you both like motorsport, and then by the end of the day, one or both of you aren’t going home because you ended up in something that could come strait out of a Final Destination movie. Absolutely horrifying to just think about.

As a motorsports fan, watching this footage today with the shear lack of safety and ‘she’ll be right’ attitude is absolutely absounding to comprehend.

My friend's uncle was killed by a flying tire at a Nascar race. I was shocked because i had never considered something like that. And that was just a single fatality accident 😳

My dad told me about this one as a kid and we had some VHS motorsports documentary tapes that covered it. Very good summary here!

Congratulations on the 1 million subscribers! That was fast but more than deserved!

Something similar almost happened in Talladega during a nascar race in 1987. Bobby Allison's car flew into the air after being turned on it's side, and almost flew into the stands. he barely missed by hitting a barrier before the fence, which slowed him down enough to be deflected off the fence & not blow through it

Quite unbelievable in today's racing environment, thankfully

It is understandable that massive changes happen after spectators are killed, moreso than the drivers. I happened to attend another such event, the 1998 US 500 at Michigan, where three spectators lost their lives (this race also continued to completion). Big changes were made after that to make sure wheel assemblies couldn't fly off the main body of the car.

In the 60s it was more dangerous to be a racing driver than to be an astronaut. 50s were not much better. Fragile cars, no seat belts, no pitlanes, no helmets, no fireproof overalls, no safety on the racetrack, no designated hospitals and doctors, cars that were deathtraps and could spontaneously combust after a crash, no marshals and no trackside safety. It's truly a miracle there were not more accidents like LeMans 1955 or Monza 1961.

I’ve been to Le Mans, learning a few years ago that there was one of the deadliest racing disasters in history there (and knowing exactly where on the track it happened) has left me with a somewhat Erie memory of it all. In contemporary footage you can see the layout and exactly where it would be today. Just incredibly sad, but as with many videos on this channel - something like this was, unfortunately, required for change.

The fact this story stands out among all others is a testament to the carnage witnessed by survivors. These events are tragic but witnessing them leave people scarred for generations.

Good job depicting the nuance of the crash and how difficult it can be to place blame on anyone in racing crashes. It all can go wrong so quickly, as seen in the crash here. I love motor racing and feel proud of everyone who contributed to making it as (relatively) safe as it is today, never forgetting those who have paid the price on the way

As a Formula One fan of many decades, this episode interested me in particular. Auto racing has always been a dangerous sport. Thankfully, as you said, technology has made numerous life saving improvements even as it has also increased speeds. You might consider an episode on Roman Grosjean's horrific crash in November of 2020.

Just made my morning! Thx 4 all u do!! 👑

It's insane that not only do we have an video of the car/engine block flying across the grandstands, but also a video of the car jumping over the hay barrier at a camera for it to suddenly freeze. That's basically unheard of at that time.

I haven't started the video yet, but the intro music and your voice instantly calm me down....after a day straight from hell.

This has become one of my favorite channels. I eagerly await each new video, and I am practically guaranteed to learn something I did not know, either from the video itself, or some of interesting comments people leave. Keep up the good work!

This is one of those disasters that I've been fascinated by since reading about in in a book many years ago when in junior high school. Thank you, FH, for covering it here.

Back in the 70s my Dad bought a book about disasters,natural ones and ones caused by humans. This one was in the book and it was truly horrific and completely preventable. Interestingly enough,I think,there was no condemnation of Hawthorne. Used to wonder(the book was still around my folks' place for decades) if this may have been due to the fact that it was a British publication. Just speculating.

I've been expecting you to do this one, and you delivered as always!

It was such a tragedy for all motorsports fans, but ultimately it made racing safer. RIP

This story is horrific! Just when you think it can't get any worse... it does, big time... 😔

last week i was in a games shop,,,, i heard Glass Pond by Public Memory start playing. I froze. My heat skipped a beat and started pounding. I went to the front counter and asked the owner. 'Is this song a normal part of your soundtrack?' He asked why? I told him "dude, im about 3 seconds away from running out of this shop and shopping center!" He burst out laughing and said "You must be a fan of Fascinating Horror on KZfaq like me!' hahah, the legend gave me 40% off my purchases. Legit freaked me the F out!

You've covered this in a calm and sincere way as you always do . Congratulations on your landmark subscriber numbers . I was number 100 😁

Thank you for making these videos and making sure these disasters and the victims are never forgotten ❤

Motor racing used to be so insanely dangerous! This wouldn't be the last time the long straights at Le Mans would cause a Mercedes to take flight (1999) but the drivers would survive the flight into the trees.

The graphs showing the progress of the accident are helpful. Thank you for another good one!

Fantastic report, I remember this clearly. Thank you for this accurate and thoughtful report. Your informative videos never disappoint!

I know that it is available on youtube, but thank you for not using the actual footage from the crash in your video. It’s nice to have an option to relearn about the disaster without having to see the deaths of so many people.

It appears that Hawthorne's tasteless celebrations weren't an aberration. From the girlfriend of Hawthorne's teammate and rival (who had just died): "After visiting the mortally injured Musso in hospital, Breschi returned to her hotel, where she and the rest of the Ferrari team were informed by the team manager that afternoon that Musso had died. Within thirty days Collins too was dead, and the following January, Hawthorn. Breschi could not suppress a feeling of release: "I had hated them both", she said, "first because I was aware of certain facts that were not right, and also because when I came out of the hospital and went back to the hotel, I found them in the square outside the hotel, laughing and playing a game of football with an empty beer can. So when they died, too, it was liberating for me. Otherwise I would have had unpleasant feelings towards them forever. This way I could find a sense of peace."

We enjoy your channel. We've never heard of some of the historical events that you talk about. We're never to old to learn. Thank you.

What some people don't fully appreciate is that there's always been an element of "motor racing is dangerous, if you don't accept the risk then don't participate or spectate" but over the years we've seen just how much risk is acceptable to the general public. More recently, safety has also been mandated because of the risk of litigation. For example the court case after the death of Ayrton Senna dragged on for many years. We still hear of occasional spectator deaths in motor racing, notably rallying. Le Mans was on a different scale though. I doubt anyone in 1955 imagined there could possibly be such a massive death toll from a single accident until that day.

this is so weird, I was just watching a documentary about the le mans disaster but I was looking for a fascinating horror ep on it (I figured it had already been done) and then not two days later this comes out. Spooky. Great work as always.

👏Thanks FH! I love your vids, always brief, yet interesting enough that a lot of the time makes me further look into the story, or subject. Sometimes you shine a light on things that I never knew happened. *Fun fact: We have a game show here in the US called Jeopardy, more than once I knew answers because it was something I had learned from Fascinating Horror!😄👍

I was hoping to find a video explaining the events - and was delighted to find that my favourite channel had made one. Thanks so much for your continued effort in bringing us knowledge about disasters that I would otherwise, in many cases, never had known about!

Been following this channel for a long time. Keep up the great work!

Mike Hawthorn died by racing suicide. He ended up losing one kidney to disease and the other was shutting down, he was not expected to live much longer and the quality of his life was seriously degraded. He ended it by parking a tree in the driver's seat of his modified 1958 Jaguar 3.4 Mk-1. It was right after he passed a Mercedes 300-SL driven by Rob Walker in wet road conditions, and they were racing.

Speaking of motorsport incidents that had far reaching implications, I would suggest the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, Italy. So many incidents occurred that weekend that it would fill a book by itself. It was more than just the death of Ayrton Senna, the various incidents left not just the motorsport community, but people around the world in shock and anger at what had been allowed to happen. After the major incidents that either left drivers, mechanics or spectators injured or killed, the governing body of the Formula One World Championship, the Federation International de l'Automobiles (FIA), made a series of dramatic changes in the wake of what happened that weekend, including modifying the track layout at Imola, improving the overall safety of the cars, and most lasting, the implementation of a pit lane speed limit. The reason for the latter was graphically shown in the closing stages of the race as Michele Alboreto accelerated down the pit lane after his last tyre change and topping up of fuel. As his car approached 90MPH, his right rear wheel came off and ploughed through mechanics from other teams, knocking down two mechanics each from Ferrari and Lotus, leaving them requiring hospital treatment. Another change resulting from Imola 1994, mechanics from every team had to wait in the comparative safety of their team garage until called upon. A lot of people overly simplify that weekend as being the weekend where Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna were killed (the former was the first driver fatality at a race weekend since 1982 and the first at the wheel of then contemporary F1 machinery since 1986)

Scary thing is, the philosophy that it's better to be thrown from your vehicle persisted in hydroplane racing up until the late 80s. It took two high-profile deaths in the early 80s to finally start turning that notion around.

In my town, there's a memorial plaque to Mike Hawthorn outside the local library. Just thought I'd mention it as its on a similar subject.

Well yes, they did not stop the race immediately to avoid panic, but it went on for other 18 hours, including night time when a lot of spectators left anyway, so... it was not a decision simply based on safety. By the way if you like animation, here is a short film about the event (taking artistic liberties) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/aJh5atx7zrXZYKc.html

“WWII on the tracks”. Some serious foreshadowing there.

Before this people went to the races to see cars go fast. After this people went to the races to see fast cars crash.

This is the best event coverage yet! I'm impressed.

I could have swore this topic was covered before. Maybe it was just someone's suggestion on a comment?

Fantastic video

I've been waiting for this for ages! Thanks fascinating horror 😀

Man, that one picture reminds me of that Mercedes CLK GTR that went airborne in 1999 I think it was

I have been involved in motorsport in Australia since 1991. It took me 15 years to see my first accident that caused deathm then ot have someone die at another event a couple of months later was really eerie.

I love your videos, and It’s kinda interesting being a car enthusiast I know about this story very well so any chance to learn more is very intriguing

I just heard about this, I knew you would have a video about it already, and you do. Nice!

I feel that Mike Hawthorn's character all too often gets besmirched in tellings of this story. He had no method of communication with his crew other than signs they put up, and the Jaguar Team would not have told him the horrible news. He would have known there was a big crash and a fire, but would not have been able to tell the severity of it. In any case, fatal crashes, even ones that killed a few spectators, were somewhat normal, and Hawthorn would have not known the severity at the time. The Jaguar Team not pulling out is absolutely a selfish move, but that was not on Hawthorn. Once he got out of the car, he was distraught that he had caused a wreck, but it would be in the Jaguar Team's best interest to not tell him of how bad it was, and the team boss was dead set on continuing nonetheless (again, incredibly selfish, but for the team boss, not Hawthorn) After the race, he immediately pulled into the winner's circle, where all the photographers were, and celebrated, knowing only that he had won, before eventually being told of the severity. However, the motorsport racing world was far less open to safety at the time, evidenced by the continuing of motor racing. A lot of these people were WWII veterans, and considered any activity where they were not being actively shot at to be "safe". It took decades for people to be convinced that death should have no place in motorsport, and until then, especially in the 50s, it was seen as just part of racing for many.

People have the guts to say with full confidence that Pierre Levegh crashed on purpose, even now you'll find some people blaming him This man was a Le Mans veteran, he had absolutely no way of avoiding that Healey

Excellently made and presented as always. You always take the high road and give a well-researched, respectful accounting of times when people are at their best, or at their worst. Possibly in future might you look at the Indianapolis 500, specifically the 1964 or 1973 races?

I have seen the video of the crash and the disintegrating parts hitting the stands...it is truly horrific to see. We researched, and well presented, DF.

Driving and surviving back in those days wasn't a question of talent, it was a question of luck. Respect to the drivers such as Jackie Stewart who had enough of the deaths and wanted to stop it for good.

I highly suggest the Well There’s Your Problem podcast episode on this incident if you wanna learn more about the background of this incident and the history of racing safety.

Oh snap wasnt expecting an upload while looking through old videos!

Lance Macklin's Austin Healey was quite literally ramp shaped in the back: a special drag reducing sloped tail had been fitted. This made an extra 'convenient' ramp for Pierre Levegh's racing Mercedes to zoom up the ramp and into the crowd. His Mercedes' body and wheels were also largely made of magnesium: Magnesium burns white hot and cannot be put out by water. BTW, Magnesium and phosphorous were 2 of the main ingredients in WWII Incendiary bombs.

This sounds like the beginning of one of the Final Destination movies that took place at a racetrack. I wonder if the script writer used this as inspiration. Gruesome. ☹️☹️

Of course this is just one of many devastating accidents involving F1 it comes with the territory I guess when you're going 200 mph around a bend the risk is also there but so does getting into any car imo

A respectful and strong quality video as always - thank you

Fun fact: Mike Hawthorn died in 1959 after his Mk.I Jag crashed. Now yes, I saw a comment discussing this, but the interesting bit is that he probably crashed hard because of a blackout. It was suspected that his kidney failure finally knocked him out when he was behind the wheel. Mike was a bit of a character on track. As a Ferrari driver in F1, he had that devil-may-cry attitude. Seems like he knew that his kidney problem will one day took him away. So between kidney failure or die on a race? Eh. Also, just a moment before Pierre crashed on to Lance (boy did this sound like AlphaTauri crashing on to Aston Martin), Pierre gave a hand signal to Juan Manuel Fangio to overtook him to the right. He knew he won't make it, so he told Fangio to go faster. Up until that point Fangio and Mike Hawthorn raced around La Sarthe as if they were in Formula 1. After the catastrophe, Alfred Neubauer pulled the rest of the Mercedes 300SLRs, leaving Jaaaaaaaaag all to themselves. Mercedes (informally) returned to sportscar racing with help of Sauber during Group C era, then back as manufacturer in GT1 class with CLK GTR (basically killing the entire GT1 class) and later back at prototype with CLR back in 1999. Yea. THAT CLR. The one that flew during Le Mans race week. Three times, with Peter Dumbreck and Mark Webber behind the wheel. Nowadays Mercedes no longer had any interest in sports prototype/Le Mans Hypercar class, opting instead for customer racing program with AMG GT3 EVO and AMG GT4, as well as their incredibly successful F1 program, taking over Brawn GP in 2010 which you can trace back the roots back to Tyrrell in the 1960s.

Imagine actually believing that wearing a seat belt was worse than not wearing one. Crazy, just crazy train of thought.

Terrific content creator, the best part is that you tell us measurements in both metric and whatever the other one is. Thank you!!

Damn I remember watching this channel all the way back in 2020 or so happy to see the channel is still doing good. Would always make my morning every wednesy ong

Been waiting for this one! The worst disaster in auto racing history. So glad you did this!

Isn’t this a re upload ?