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Enjoy an elegant dinner at the Ritz Paris. Drive past the city’s floodlit treasures after midnight. Then, tragedy.s story Princess Diana’s The 36-year-old death in that catastrophic accident in a Paris traffic tunnel continues to be shocking, even 25 years later.
Twenty-five years later, the Associated Press will publish coverage of Diana’s final hours in the French capital on September 5, 1997, just days after the August 31 crash. (The account has been slightly trimmed and edited based on reports, interviews, and news stories available at the time.)
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Enter the Pont de l’Alma traffic tunnel at night and the last thing you see is the floodlit Eiffel Tower.
Its iron lattice gleamed like lace against the black sky, and it was probably one of the last things Princess Diana saw.
The tower’s lights went out at 1 a.m. every night until Sunday, Aug. 31, as rescuers frantically tried to treat a dying Diana trapped in the crumpled wreckage of a Mercedes Benz as they cut through the metal roof.
The short drive from the Ritz Hotel to the tunnels is stunning and offers views of the city’s other floodlit treasures: the Obelisk at Place de la Concorde, the Arc de Triomphe to the right, the wounded across the river to the left of the Golden Dome Hotel.
There were four people in the car: the driver and bodyguard in the front, the princess and her boyfriend in the back. Behind them – not sure how far – were several motorcycles and maybe two cars with paparazzi.
Walk along the Seine and approach the tunnel, the shining tower is on the left. Even through the tinted windows of a luxury sedan, it’s hard not to look.
Seconds later, there was a massive crash – what witnesses said was like an explosion. It would soon reverberate around the world, but for a few minutes of the silent night there was only the constant roar of car horns from the driver’s collapsed body, followed by the click of the camera shutter.
For the princess, after the spectacular city lights, there is only darkness.
10pm: In the evening, Diana and Dodi Fayed had dinner in the living room of the Royal Suite at the Ritz Hotel. It’s the best suite in the hotel, and no wonder: the hotel is owned by Fayed’s father, Mohamed Al Fayed.
Food comes from the hotel’s 2-star restaurant, Espadon, which means swordfish. It is famous for its 100,000-bottle wine cellar.
Diana reportedly ordered an appetizer of mushrooms and asparagus, and then the only one; dodi, turbot.
Dodi may have a surprise in his pocket: News reports cite a Parisian jeweler who sold him an “extraordinary” solitaire diamond ring for $205,000, which Dodi may have picked up at the Ritz to Diana.
Is it an engagement ring? No one will know for sure.
But the days have been tense. The couple have been plagued by paparazzi since arriving in Paris at noon. First, they followed Diana and Dodi from Le Bourget Airport outside Paris to visit Windsor House – a mansion once home to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor that Dodi’s father bought and renovated. Their driver managed to shake the photographer.
Then, after a failed attempt to enjoy a 9:30pm dinner at the chic Parisian bistro Chez Benoit, the paparazzi found clues again. After giving up, Diana and Dodi decided to dine at the more secure Ritz Hotel.
Video from the hotel shows the car returning to the Ritz, with Diana’s eyes drooping and looking distressed as the flashes go off as she walks through a revolving door.
They walked along the gold-trimmed blue carpet of the Ritz toward the dining room. Ten minutes later, they walked back into the hallway — “because of the attention in the dining room,” Paul Handley-Greaves, head of Alfayed’s security team, said later in London — and followed the spiral staircase to the Royal Suite.
Inside, the luxury hotel has rust-colored marble columns and Persian-carpeted floors for peace and tranquility. But outside the entrance, on the elegant Place Vendôme, the paparazzi have gathered again.
10:08 PM: At 10 p.m., Henri Paul, the Ritz’s No. 2 security officer, arrived at the hotel after being called on his cell phone. He parked his car outside, chatted with some people, and shook hands with a night manager friend and the concierge. Their claim, Handley-Greaves said, was that “he was sober, had no alcohol smell, and had a steady gait.”
Paul spent the next two hours in the lobby area. At one point, he walked into the hotel bar and sat with two other security guards at a table on the edge of the bar area. There are no security cameras in the bar, but both Handley-Greaves and Alfayed family spokesman Michael Cole said interviews with hotel staff showed no evidence Paul was drinking.
12:70 AM: After dinner, as they left the royal suite, Diana and Fayed stopped to discuss the paparazzi “and what the princess was worried about,” Handley-Greaves said. “Earlier in the day,” he told a news conference in London, “she had expressed concern to bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones about the reckless behaviour of the motorcyclist, not the vehicle she was in. She expressed concern that their erratic driving style could cause one of them to fall under the wheel of the car in front or behind.”
Diana and Fayed will head to an apartment he owns on the Champs-Élysées, near the Arc de Triomphe. Knowing the paparazzi were out, they decided to use two decoy vehicles – a Range Rover and a Mercedes. They posted a Range Rover outside the main entrance of the Ritz Hotel, driven by Fayed’s regulars.
They needed a third car, so a rented Mercedes was called to service. Rented from the Etoile Limousine Company, the pitch-black car is known for its silky smooth ride, but due to its weight, it’s not the best vehicle to get in and out of traffic. “It’s not the kind of car you use for slalom,” said Jean-Pierre Bretton, a limousine driver who regularly hosts wealthy clients at the Ritz.
Diana and Dodi also needed a driver, which is why Paul was called back from home. Paul, 41, a native of France’s Brittany region, reportedly received special training in Germany to drive an armored Mercedes. Police said Paul did not have a special license to drive the car; the Alfayed family denies this.
Paris prosecutors said an autopsy blood test showed Paul was legally intoxicated, while judicial sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the blood alcohol level was at least three times the legal limit.
Despite reports of Paul drinking heavily, at least two bartenders who knew him told The Associated Press they had never seen such signs.
Tony Ball, who worked as a bartender at Willie’s Bar near the Ritz, said Paul was a regular there, but only drank beer.
“I’ve never seen him get drunk,” said Ball, who is now the manager of a San Francisco nightclub. “He even took me home a few times. I don’t worry about anything.”
Alain Bousseau, owner of Mazarin Bar not far from the Ritz, said that while Paul was reportedly a regular there, he had only seen him two or three times in the past few years. Once, he drank only a small chevron; another time, he drank coffee.
12:19 AM: Dodi and Diana stood in an area near the back door of the hotel, mingling with security personnel who were about to leave. Surveillance footage from the Ritz Hotel shows Dodi wrapping his arms protectively around Diana’s waist.
12:20 AM: The couple left the Ritz through the back door and climbed into the Mercedes. Diana is wearing a black top, black jacket and white belted trousers. Her hair was neatly combed and red lipstick was applied.
Dodi looked more casual in a tan jacket and long grey shirt with an open neckline and hung loosely over stonewashed jeans.
Video from the hotel shows no paparazzi outside the back door, but the bait ruse apparently didn’t work.
Pursued by the paparazzi, Mercedes drives along Rue Cambon, turning right into the boutique-lined rue de Rivoli with colonnades and Tuileries Gardens on the left. Arriving at Place de la Concorde, turn left past the Obelisk, you can see the Champs Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe on the right, while heading towards the banks of the Seine.
Here, some photographers said, Paul was already driving dangerously. Jacques Langevin said he was told by other photographers that at Place de la Concorde the Mercedes roared to take off at the green light when they were stopped at the red light.
The photographer has told Jiefang Daily that “Mercedes was fishing dangerously and the driver didn’t seem to be in control.”
Neither Diana nor Fayed were wearing seat belts; only Reese Jones, the bodyguard in the front passenger seat, wore one.
The Mercedes is now driving down the river, following the Cours de la Reine, then the Cours Albert 1st, which is where the tunnel goes.
around 12:25 am: Mercedes entered the 660-foot-long tunnel, presumably to avoid traffic on the congested Plaza de la Alma. The tunnel is brightly lit, with neon bulbs reflecting off the white tiled walls.
This method is dangerous at high speed. The road turns slightly to the right, then to the left; then there is a quick descent.
The speed limit is 30 mph. One taxi driver said he once tried a tunnel at 70 mph and was terrified. “That thing is cramped and dangerous,” said Jacques Gaultier. “You have to be crazy to accept it quickly.”
How fast does Paul accept it?
The car’s speedometer was found at 196 kilometers per hour, or 121 mph, the police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. They called it an almost certain indicator of impact velocity, but the Alfayed family disputed that, saying the speedometer was stuck in zero. A Mercedes expert said the speedometer would automatically move to 0 or top speed when there was a power outage.
Witnesses also said the car was going over 90 mph, possibly closer to 120 mph.
In addition, police said the car was equipped with anti-lock brakes, which left a 53-foot slide mark — another sign of high-speed travel.
It’s unclear how many paparazzi were following the car, and at what distance. A lawyer for Al Fayed said an “entourage” of paparazzi was “flooding” the car. But one photographer, Lazlo Veres, said they were at least 550 yards behind.
The car lost control seconds after entering the tunnel in the left westbound lane, hitting the 13th concrete column dividing the tunnel, rolling over and bouncing off the right wall. Then it will spin. When the car is stopped, it faces east – the direction it came from.
The driver’s body collapsed on the horn. The impact was so great that parts of the radiator were reportedly found embedded in his body. Fayed, on the left side of the car behind him, was also killed instantly.
Tourists from Long Island, New York, Jack and Robin Firestone, were walking near a tunnel when they heard a horrific noise. They ran in. In the interview, they also described photographers as “swarming” the wreck.
However, a doctor said he had driven through the tunnel in the other direction after the accident and arrived earlier than rescuers, saying he was not hindered by photographers.
Dr Frederic Mailliez said Diana was “unconscious, moaning and gesturing in all directions” when she struggled to breathe.
“There are 10 or 15 photographers around and they keep taking pictures, but I can’t say they get in the way of my work,” he said.
12:27 AM: Firefighters received the first distress call.
about 12:40 AM: Police and firefighters arrived. Diana and bodyguard Rhys-Jones are still alive. A car is a crumpled mass of metal and glass.
Police arrested six photographers and a motorcyclist and confiscated their film and mobile phones.
Rescuers needed to cut the roof of the car to get the victim out. They finally rescued Diana from behind. Meanwhile, emergency doctors have been treating her at the scene.
midnight 2 O clock: When Diana arrived at the hospital La Pitié Salpêtrière with her bodyguards, she was bleeding profusely from her chest. She soon went into cardiac arrest.
Doctors closed the wound on the left pulmonary vein and then tried to rejuvenate her with a two-hour chest massage – first externally and then directly to the heart. it fails.
4 am: Diana was pronounced dead.
6 am: “The passing of the Princess of Wales,” British Ambassador Michael Jay told the doctors at a hospital news conference, “is shocking and deeply saddened by all of us.”
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