During the early hours of 31 August 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales, died from injuries sustained earlier that night in a car crash in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris, France. Diana's partner, Dodi Fayed, and the driver of the Mercedes-Benz W140, Henri Paul, were found dead inside the car. Dodi's bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, was seriously injured, but was the only survivor of the crash.
Some media claimed that the erratic behaviour of the paparazzi chasing the car, as reported by the BBC, caused the crash. In 1999, a French investigation found that Paul lost control of the vehicle at high speed while intoxicated by alcohol and under the effects of prescription drugs, and concluded that he was solely responsible for the crash. He was the deputy head of security at the Hôtel Ritz Paris and had earlier goaded paparazzi waiting for Diana and Fayed outside the hotel. Anti-depressants and traces of an anti-psychotic in his blood might have worsened Paul's inebriation.
In 2008, a jury at the British inquest, Operation Paget, returned a verdict of unlawful killing through grossly negligent driving by Paul and the following paparazzi vehicles. Some media reports claimed that Rees-Jones survived because he was wearing a seat belt, but other investigations revealed that none of the occupants of the car were wearing them.
Diana was 36 years old when she died. Her death sparked an outpouring of public grief in the United Kingdom and worldwide, and her televised funeral was watched by an estimated 2.5 billion people. The royal family were criticised in the press for their reaction to Diana's death. Public interest in Diana has remained high and she continues to retain regular press coverage in the decades since her death.
Circumstances
Events preceding the crash
On Saturday, 30 August 1997, Princess Diana left the Olbia Airport, Sardinia, on a private jet and arrived at Le Bourget Airport in Paris with Egyptian film producer Dodi Fayed, son of businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed. They had stopped there en route to London, having spent the preceding nine days together on board Mohamed's yacht Jonikal on the French and Italian Riviera. They had intended to stay there for the night. Mohamed was owner of the Hôtel Ritz Paris and resided in an apartment on Rue Arsène Houssaye, a short distance from the hotel, just off the Avenue des Champs Elysées.
Henri Paul, deputy head of security at the Ritz, had been instructed to drive the hired black 1994 armoured Mercedes-Benz S 280 sedan (W140 S-Class) in order to elude the paparazzi; a decoy vehicle left the Ritz first from the main entrance on Place Vendôme, attracting a throng of photographers. Diana and Fayed then departed from the hotel's rear entrance, Rue Cambon, at around 00:20 on 31 August CEST (22:20 on 30 August UTC), heading for the apartment in Rue Arsène Houssaye. They did this to avoid the nearly 30 photographers waiting in front of the hotel. Diana and Fayed were the rear passengers; Trevor Rees-Jones, a member of the Fayed family's personal protection team, was in the (right) front passenger seat. None of the occupants were wearing seat belts. After leaving the Rue Cambon and crossing the Place de la Concorde, they drove along Cours la Reine and Cours Albert 1er – the embankment road along the right bank of the River Seine – into the Place de l'Alma underpass.
The crash
At 00:23, Paul lost control of the car at the entrance to the Pont de l'Alma underpass. The car reportedly struck a passing white Fiat, swerved to the left of the two-lane carriageway and collided head-on with the 13th pillar that supported the roof. It was travelling at an estimated speed of more than twice the speed limit of the tunnel. It then spun, hit the stone wall of the tunnel backwards and finally came to a stop. The impact caused substantial damage, particularly to the front half of the vehicle, as there was no guard rail to prevent this. Witnesses arriving shortly after the crash reported smoke. Witnesses also reported that photographers on motorcycles "swarmed the Mercedes sedan before it entered the tunnel".