The death of Princess Diana
- Paige Phillips
- Feb 2, 2019
- 7 min read
In the early hours of Sunday 31st August 1997, news of the death of Princess Diana shocked the world. She and her alleged lover, Dodi Al-Fayed, had been killed in a car crash as they sped through a Paris tunnel during the night. The driver of the car, Henri Paul, was also killed and Diana’s bodyguard, Trevor Rees Jones, was seriously injured.
Shortly after midnight, Diana and Dodi left the Ritz hotel in Paris, owned by Dodi, by a back entrance, heading for an apartment in Paris owned by Mohamed Al-Fayed. They were travelling in a black Mercedes limousine driven by Henri Paul, who was the deputy head of security at the hotel. They were accompanied by Jones, Diana’s bodyguard, who was sitting in the front passenger seat. Some paparazzi had been waiting at the hotel’s back entrance, and pursued Diana and Dodi’s black Mercedes through Paris in a number of cars and motorbikes. The limo was travelling at a considerable speed, attempting to evade the press, when Paul allegedly lost control of the car as it was entering Place de l’Alma tunnel. It swerved across the road and crashed head-on into a concrete pillar at a speed later estimated to have been around 65mph. It then spun around and careered backwards into the wall of the tunnel.
Dodi and Henri Paul were pronounced dead at the scene, whilst Diana and Trevor survived the initial crash, but had both sustained serious injuries and were rushed to a nearby hospital. Rees-Jones survived, but Diana had major internal injuries and died later that night. The media initially reported that the pursuing press cars and bikes had been the cause of the accident, but a later enquiry established that the press vehicles had been too far away from the Mercedes to have caused it. Henri Paul was also found to have alcohol and prescription medicines in his bloodstream, which could have impaired his driving ability and judgement, leading to the conclusion his reckless driving had been the primary cause of the incident. The enquiry also noted that none of the occupants of the car had been wearing seat belts, which had been a contributing factor to their death.
Mohamed Al-Fayed, Dodi’s father, has claimed since that that their deaths were no accident, but instead were caused by the MI6 on Prince Philip’s orders. He claimed that Diana was planning on getting engaged to his son, and was also pregnant. He claims that the reasoning behind her death was due to the embarrassment the British royal family would face if Diana married an Egyptian Muslim, and so claimed they wanted to get rid of her. He also suggested Henri Paul had been involved with MI6.
Unexplained phenomena regarding the case:
Fiat Uno:
Analysis of the Mercedes after the wreckage, showed it had traces of white paint on the bodywork, which was suspected to have been caused by a collision with a white Fiat Uno, potentially the initiator of the incident. Although no witnesses had seen the Fiat in the tunnel, some reported to see an Uno exiting it. Mohamed Al-Fayed alleged that the car was being used by MI6 as a means of causing the Mercedes to swerve and thereby crash into the side of the tunnel. He claimed that the Fiat Uno was owned by a French photojournalist called Jean-Paul James Andanson, a security services agent according to Fayed, who had photographed Diana whilst she was at his villa in St. Tropez in July 1997. In May 2000, Andanson committed suicide by lighting his car on fire in the south of France. It is speculated by theorists his suicide was due to guilt over the case, or that he was assassinated by the French or British security services to try and silence him. However, his wife Elizabeth, told police that her husband had been at home with her in bed at the time of the accident, and his suicide was down to his own personal life struggles.
Another suspect who has been suggested to be the possible driver of the Fiat is Le an Thank, a taxi driver who was 22 at the time of the accident. Thanh owned a white Fiat Uno identical to the one that struck the Mercedes, and two witnesses identified Thanh as “the agitated man they may have seen driving the car”. Thanh has always denied interview requests regarding the incident. In 2006, Thanh’s dad said his son had re-sprayed his white Uno red hours after the accident, allegedly waking up his mechanic brother in the night to help him. Tests were conducted on his car, and it was concluded that it could have been involved in the accident, however Thanh claimed to be at work the night of the accident and was therefore ruled out as a suspect.
A bright flash:
Three eyewitnesses at the scene of the crash claimed to have seen a bright flash of light just before the incident. One witness made a clear, specific claim that he saw a bright flash just before the crash, but his three statements to the police conflicted each other. He claimed the Mercedes was behind him, and he saw the flash in his rear-view mirror and recounted other elements of what he saw whilst he was negotiating the difficult bend out of the tunnel. It is believed that this flash caused the driver of Diana’s car to become disorientated, which led to him losing control of the vehicle and it slamming into the pillar within the tunnel.
Formed Mi5 agent Annie Machon in her memoir, Spies, Lies and Whistleblowers, claimed British intelligence paid to have Diana killed by shining a bright light at the car after it entered the tunnel, to prevent Paul seeing. The operation would have borne similarities to an identical Mi6 plot aimed at assassinating Slobodan Milosevich during the 1990’s.
Security Camera fail:
There is an absence of CCTV images showing the Mercedes’s journey from the hotel to the crash site, which has sparked the idea of an organised conspiracy.
There were more than 14 CCTV cameras in the Pont d’Alma underpass, yet none have recorded footage of the fatal collision. Sources have claimed that they were turned to face the wall, or were simply switched off. The official French judicial enquiry into the crash was told that none of the cameras were working at the time of the accident. However, one motorist received a speeding ticket after being caught on a nearby camera just 15 minutes before the accident.
Seat Belt:
It is reported Diana was a faithful seat belt user and therefore the fact that both her and Dodi’s seatbelts either failed or were not used, is used by theorists to claim it was an inside job. CNN conducted an analysis of the crash in early September of 1997, and concluded that if all passengers had been wearing seatbelts, the injuries from the accident would have been minor.
Analysis of the wreckage of the car after its return to England in 2005 found that all the seat belts were in good working order except for the right rear one, which was attached to the seat Diana was sat in. Follow up enquires reported that the damage was caused by the accident, and would not have been there before-hand.
The Ambulance:
The first call to the emergency services switchboard was logged at 12:26am, however, the ambulance carrying Diana did not arrive at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital until 2:06am. The ambulance departed the crash scene at 1:41am, and was reported to have been driving significantly slowly for an ambulance containing such a high-profile patient in a critical condition. The ambulance also decided not to take Diana to the Hôtel-Dieu, the closest hospital to the tunnel, and instead by-passed it to take her to the further away hospital of Pitié-Salpêtrière. The ambulance also stopped on route to the hospital for 10 minutes. It was later explained that this was due to one of the doctors needing to give a shot of Adrenaline to Diana as she was beginning to flatline, but many medical professionals have claimed this could have been administered whilst the vehicle was moving.
Embalming:
Controversially, Diana’s body was partially embalmed before it was flown back to Britain, whilst Dodi’s was not, meaning a post-mortem could never be conducted on her body to determine the exact cause of death. The formaldehyde used in the embalming could also taint any blood samples retrieved from the body, for example, it is known to give false indications of pregnancy, which could have been used as a tactic so dismiss any signs of genuine pregnancy.
Jean Monceau, the man who carried out the embalmment, later revealed he knew what he was doing was illegal, as French law requires consent from the family before the deceased can be embalmed, but said he didn’t realise he was doing anything wrong at the time.
Mohamed Al-Fayed claims the early embalming was done to prevent any investigation into Diana’s death and reduce any suspicion regarding her pregnancy.
Not usual driver:
An odd, and still unexplained event regarding the incident, is why Dodi asked Paul to drive the couple home, instead of using his usual driver, Philippe Junot.
The blood sample:
A post-mortem examination of Henri Paul suggested that he was drunk, as his blood contained 1.74ml of alcohol per ml of blood, more than three times the French drink-drive limit. However, Al-Fayed claims that the blood samples taken from his body were swapped with those of someone else to cover up a murder plot. CCTV footage of Paul leaving the Paris Ritz with the couple doesn’t indicate he was intoxicated, and he had passed a medical test for his pilot’s licence just three days earlier, so was not an alcoholic.
Images of Diana, Paul and Dodi hours before the accident
Henri Paul:
Henri Paul was later investigated and it was revealed he had been in the pay of the French intelligence services. More than £100,000 was tracked, of which he’d spread across 14 bank accounts. Additionally, French sources have claimed that in the hours leading up to the crash, Paul received a further £2,000 from an agent of the Gallic equivalent of Mi5. No payments have been linked to Diana’s death though, and the cash may have bought inside-information.
Diana’s note:
According to Paul Burrell, Diana’s former butler and close friend, Diana wrote a note to him 10 months before her death. The note revealed how she said her “husband is planning an ‘accident’ in my car, brake failure and serious head injury to make the path clear for him to marry”
There is speculation as to the authenticity of the note, as some have claimed Burrell was capable of imitating Diana’s handwriting. Yet, many handwriting experts have claimed the note was written by the princess herself.
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