Queen Astrid’s Packard – still at the bottom of Lake Lucerne?

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Friday the 13th is a day you need to be careful with. The superstitious among us are telling us it’s a day for bad luck. If that’s right this may be an opportunity to introduce you to one unlucky Friday Lady in particular: Queen Astrid of Sweden, who was killed in a car accident on August 29, 1935.

That morning she was driving with her husband King Leopold and chauffeur Pierre Devuyst plus a support vehicle near the Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. Contrary to usual practice, the king drove the vehicle himself - a Packard 120 Convertible Coupé. Devuyst was seated at the back. According to a local man who saw the accident happen at 9:15 am, Queen Astrid held a map in her hand and pointed over to the mountain Rigi on the opposite lakeside. Shortly thereafter, King Leopold drove with the right-hand wheels and a speed of about 50km/h over a 20-centimetre-high boundary wall. After 30 meters, the car changed its direction of travel to the right and with its passenger side hit a pear tree beyond the wall. Queen Astrid dropped out of the car only to land on the lawn below a tree. The damaged vehicle continued down the embankment, colliding with a second tree and coming to a standstill in the water.

Just minutes later, the alarmed police and two doctors plus an assistant arrived at the accident site, surrounded by onlookers. It was too late for the queen of Sweden, who’d suffered a fractured skull on impact. King Leopold and his chauffeur survived. At the place, a chapel was built to commemorate the much-loved Queen Astrid. 84 years after the accident the Packard, wearing the Belgian registration ‘4649’ is still said to lie on the bottom of the lake at 150- to 200 metres depth. Although the pictures that we found seem to indicate it was at least tried to be pulled from the water. Fact is that the windscreen – or part of it – survived on land. You’d better be careful out there, readers.

Words by Jeroen Booij. Pictures from the archive.

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