Death of Diana, Princess of Wales

Events preceding the crash S-Class), similar to the one involved in the crash|left On Saturday, 30 August 1997, Diana travelled from 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 his father's yacht Jonikal on the French and Italian Riviera. They had intended to stay there for the night. His father was the 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 (3 July 1956 – 31 August 1997), deputy head of security at the Ritz, had been instructed to drive the hired black 1994 armoured 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 thirty photographers waiting in front of the hotel. The Mercedes driven by Paul was travelling at an estimated speed of more than twice the speed limit of the tunnel. The vehicle 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 mitigate collisions. Witnesses arriving shortly after the crash reported smoke. They also reported that photographers on motorcycles "swarmed the Mercedes sedan before it entered the tunnel". Aftermath The photographers had been driving slower and were some distance behind the Mercedes. When they reached the scene, some rushed to help, trying to open the doors and help the victims, while some of them took pictures. Police arrived around ten minutes after the crash at 00:30, and an ambulance was on site five minutes later, according to witnesses. France Info radio reported that one photographer was beaten by witnesses who were horrified by the scene. Rees-Jones sustained multiple serious facial injuries and a head contusion, but was conscious. The front airbags had functioned normally. Some media reports claimed that Rees-Jones was the only occupant wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash, but it was later determined that "no one inside the car had been wearing" one. Her ribs and arm were fractured and her right collar bone was dislocated, and she suffered from swelling and bruising to the brain. In June 2007, the Channel 4 documentary Diana: The Witnesses in the Tunnel claimed that the first person to touch Diana was off-duty physician Frederic Mailliez, who chanced upon the scene. Mailliez reported that Diana had no visible injuries but was in shock. She was reported to have been extremely disturbed and removed an intravenous drip while shouting incoherently. Diana was moved to the ambulance at 01:18, left the scene at 01:41, and arrived at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital at 02:06. Fayed was in the rear passenger seat on the left-hand side and was pronounced dead at the scene shortly afterwards. Paul was also pronounced dead at the scene on removal from the wreckage. Both were taken directly to the Institut Médico-Légal (IML), the Paris mortuary. Paul was later found to have a blood alcohol level of 180milligrams per 100millilitres of blood, or 3.6 times the legal limit in France. Diana died at the hospital at 04:00. Anaesthetist Bruno Riou announced her death at 06:00 at a news conference held at the hospital. Later that morning, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and Interior Minister Jean-Pierre Chevènement visited the hospital. At around 17:00, Diana's former husband then-Prince Charles and her two older sisters Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes arrived in Paris. The group visited the hospital along with French president Jacques Chirac and thanked the doctors for trying to save her life. Charles accompanied Diana's body to the UK later the same day. They departed from Vélizy – Villacoublay Air Base and landed at RAF Northolt, and a bearer party from the Queen's Colour Squadron transferred her coffin to the hearse. The coffin was draped with the royal standard with an ermine border. Her body was finally taken to the Hammersmith and Fulham mortuary in London for a post-mortem examination later that day. Initial media reports stated that Diana's car had collided with the pillar at , and that the speedometer's needle had jammed at that position. The driver of the Fiat was never conclusively traced, although many believed that the driver was Le Van Thanh. Thanh was questioned by French detectives in 1997, who ruled him out as a suspect but friends and family members have noted inconsistencies in his story. Thanh has since refused interviews or inquiries from investigators. The specific vehicle was not identified. An 18-month French judicial investigation concluded in 1999 that the crash was caused by Paul, who lost control at high speed while intoxicated. == Mourning ==

Members of the public were invited to sign a book of condolence at St James's Palace. A book of condolence was also set up by the British embassy in the US. All 11,000 light bulbs at Harrods department store, owned by Mohamed Al-Fayed, were turned off and not switched on again until after the funeral. More than one million bouquets were left at her London residence, Kensington Palace, while at her family's estate of Althorp the public was asked to stop bringing flowers as the volume of both visitors and flowers in the surrounding roads was said to be causing a threat to public safety. By 10 September, the pile of flowers outside Kensington Gardens was deep in places and the bottom layer had started to compost. The people were quiet, queuing patiently to sign the book and leave their gifts. Fresh flowers, teddy bears, and bottles of champagne were later donated and distributed among the sick, the elderly and children. Cards, personal messages and poems were collected and given to Diana's family. ==Funeral and burial==

Early on, it was uncertain that Diana would receive a ceremonial funeral, since she had lost the status of Her Royal Highness following her divorce from Prince Charles in 1996. and her funeral at Westminster Abbey on 6 September drew an estimated 3 million mourners and onlookers in London. Outside the Abbey and in Hyde Park crowds watched and listened to proceedings on large outdoor screens and speakers as guests filed in, including representatives of the many charities of which Diana was patron. Attendees included US First Lady Hillary Clinton and French First Lady Bernadette Chirac, as well as celebrities including Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti and two friends of Diana, George Michael and Elton John. John performed a rewritten version of his song "Candle in the Wind" that was dedicated to her, known as "Goodbye England's Rose" or "Candle in the Wind 1997"; the single became the best-selling single since UK and US singles charts began in the 1950s, with total sales exceeding 33 million units. Protocol was disregarded when the guests applauded the speech by Earl Spencer, who strongly criticised the press and indirectly criticised the Royal Family for their treatment of her. The funeral is estimated to have been watched by 31.5 million viewers in Britain. Precise calculation of the worldwide audience is not possible, but it was estimated to be around 2.5 billion. The ceremony was broadcast in 44 languages. After the end of the ceremony, Diana's coffin was driven to Althorp in a Daimler hearse. Mourners cast flowers at the funeral procession for almost the entire length of its journey, and vehicles even stopped on the opposite carriageway of the M1 motorway as the cars passed. In a private ceremony, Diana was buried on an island in the middle of a lake called The Oval, which is part of the Pleasure Garden at Althorp. The coffin bore a weight of a quarter of a tonne (250 kg / approx. 550 lb) as it was lined with lead, as is tradition with British royalty. Her body was buried wearing a black Catherine Walker dress and black tights, and holding a rosary in her hands. The rosary had been a gift from Mother Teresa of Calcutta, a confidante of Diana, who had died the day before her funeral. A visitors' centre is open during summer months, with an exhibition about Diana and a walk around the lake. All profits were donated to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. ==Reactions==

Royal family regarding Diana's death Queen Elizabeth II expressed her dismay at Diana's death. Then-Prince Charles woke his sons before dawn to share the news. Upon announcement of the death, the website of the Royal Family temporarily removed all its content and replaced it with a black background, displaying a picture of Diana accompanied by her name and dates of birth and death. An online book of condolence was also made available on the website for the public to post their personal tributes. On Sunday morning after Diana's death, Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles, William and Harry all wore black to church services at Crathie Kirk near Balmoral Castle. Princes Andrew and Edward met the mourners outside Kensington Palace as a precautionary measure to test the public mood, On their way from Crathie Kirk to Balmoral, Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Charles, William and Harry viewed the floral tributes and messages left by the public. Charles and his sons returned to London on Friday, 5 September. They made an unannounced visit to see the floral tributes left outside Kensington Palace. Queen Elizabeth II, who returned to London from Balmoral accompanied by Prince Philip, the Queen Mother, and Princess Margaret, agreed to a television broadcast to the nation. Diana's brother, Earl Spencer, and her former sister-in-law, Sarah, Duchess of York, also visited St James's Palace. In particular, the refusal of Buckingham Palace to fly the Royal Standard at half-mast provoked angry headlines in newspapers. The Palace's stance was one of royal protocol: no flag could fly over Buckingham Palace, as the Royal Standard is only flown when the monarch is in residence, and the Queen was then in Scotland. The Royal Standard never flies at half-mast as it is the Sovereign's flag and there is never an interregnum or vacancy in the monarchy, as the new monarch immediately succeeds his or her predecessor. Finally, as a compromise, the Union Flag was flown at half-mast as Queen Elizabeth II left for Westminster Abbey on the day of the funeral. A rift between Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth II's private secretary, Sir Robert Fellowes (Diana's brother-in-law), was reported in the media over the nature of the funeral, with Charles demanding a public funeral and Fellowes supporting the Queen's idea of a private one. The Palace later issued a statement denying such rumours. The funeral committee at Buckingham Palace wanted William and Harry to have a bigger role in their mother's funeral and Downing Street officials suggested that they could walk in the funeral cortège, but faced opposition from Prince Philip, who reportedly stated "They've just lost their mother. You're talking about them as if they are commodities." He later stated that what he experienced after his mother's death "was very much" post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). William was 15 and Harry was 12 when Diana died. The boys received locks of their mother's hair from their aunt Lady Sarah McCorquodale once she returned from Paris according to Harry. Years later, William and Harry defended their father and grandmother's actions in the aftermath of their mother's death. Describing his father's role, Harry said: "[Our dad] was there for us — he was the one out of two left, and he tried to do his best and to make sure that we were protected and looked after." Speaking about his grandmother, William stated: "At the time, my grandmother wanted to protect her two grandsons and my father as well. Our grandmother deliberately removed the newspapers and things like that so there was nothing in the house to read." US president Bill Clinton said that he and his wife, Hillary Clinton, were "profoundly saddened" when they found out about her death. In a telegram of condolences, German chancellor Helmut Kohl expressed the view that Diana had also become the victim of an "increasingly brutal and unscrupulous competition on the part of some of the media". In Australia, the Deputy Prime Minister, Tim Fischer, condemned the paparazzi for their overzealous coverage of Diana. Russian president Boris Yeltsin praised Diana's charity work in a statement saying, "All know of Princess Diana's big contribution to charitable work, and not only in Great Britain". Among other politicians who sent messages of condolences were Australian prime minister John Howard, South African president Nelson Mandela, Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien, New Zealand Prime Minister Jim Bolger, and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Government of Canada, as well as individual provinces in the country, set up online and in-person books of condolences in their parliament buildings and memorial services were held across the country. Following her death, delegates at an international conference in Oslo to ban landmines paid their tributes to Diana, who was an avid campaigner for banning the explosive devices. The Ottawa Treaty, which created an international ban on the use of anti-personnel landmines, was adopted in Oslo, in September 1997 and signed by 122 states in Ottawa on 3 December 1997. Diana's work on the landmines issue has been described as influential in the signing of the treaty. Public In London, thousands of people carried bouquets and stood outside Buckingham Palace after the news of her death. Sporting events in the UK were rearranged, with demands for Scotland's Football Association chief executive to resign due to their delayed response to reschedule Scotland's World Cup qualifier. People in the US were shocked at her death. In San Francisco, around 14,000 people marched through the city in a procession on 5 September to pay tribute to Diana, honouring her for her work on behalf of AIDS patients. In Los Angeles, more than 2,500 people transformed a baseball field into a candle-lit altar in a memorial service prepared by an AIDS organisation. People brought flowers and also attempted to visit the Hotel Ritz. Following her death many celebrities including actors and singers blamed the paparazzi and condemned their reckless behaviour. Mother Teresa, who met Diana a few months before her death, expressed her sorrow and prayers were held at the Missionaries of Charity for Diana. Jonathan Sacks led prayers by the Jewish community at the Western Marble Arch Synagogue, and Cardinal Basil Hume presided over the Roman Catholic requiem mass held at Westminster Cathedral. Another research showed that 50% of Britons and 27% of Americans were deeply affected by her death as if someone they knew had died. It also concluded that in general women were more affected than men in both of the countries. The same research showed that Diana's "charitable endeavors" and "ability to identify with ordinary people" were among the main factors that caused her to be admired and respected by the people. Diana's death mostly affected people who were already vulnerable and could identify with her as "a public figure perceived as psychologically troubled but who seemed to have made a constructive adjustment". Another research described Diana's death and funeral as traumatic stressors with psychological impacts that could "be equated with traditional stressors identified in the trauma research literature". In the days after her funeral, an increase in the number of inappropriate hospital admissions was observed, whereas the number of admissions for traumatic injuries decreased for at least three months, showing a possible change in people's driving habits. Her death was also associated with "30% reduction in calls to the police and a 28% drop in public order offences", yet despite its effect on increasing depression and traumatic stress, no significant increase was observed in the number of psychiatric emergencies in Edinburgh. The national grieving for Diana had economic effects. In the short term, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) estimated that retail sales dropped 1% that week. Traffic congestion in central London as crowds went to the palaces to pay homage likewise adversely affected productivity, and the CEBR estimated that would cost businesses £200 million, or a total loss of 0.1% of gross domestic product for the third quarter of 1997. However, in the long run the CEBR expected that to be offset by increased tourism and memorabilia sales. Reception Some criticised the reaction to Diana's death at the time as being "hysterical" and "irrational". As early as 1998, philosopher Anthony O'Hear identified the mourning as a defining point in the "sentimentalisation of Britain", a media-fuelled phenomenon where image and reality become blurred. Oasis bandleader Noel Gallagher responded to the reaction with, "The woman's dead. Shut up. Get over it". These criticisms were repeated on the tenth anniversary of the crash, when journalist Jonathan Freedland of The Guardian expressed the opinion that, "It has become an embarrassing memory, like a mawkish, self-pitying teenage entry in a diary ... we cringe to think about it." The reactions following Diana's death were subject to criticism by Christopher Hitchens. His 1998 documentary Princess Diana: The Mourning After accused the British media of playing an essential role in creating a national, unchallengeable, and at times hysterical cult of personality surrounding Diana, whereas previously they had been extremely critical of her and the monarchy after she had separated and divorced from Charles, and was having an affair with Dodi Fayed. Hitchens claimed the public were behaving irrationally and that many appeared to not even know why they were mourning. He also scrutinised the level of censorship against criticism of Diana and the monarchy but was accused, in a review by The Independent, of exaggerating on this point. Private Eyes sales dropped by one third after it ran a cover titled "Media to Blame", which attempted to criticise the instant switch in the media and the public's opinion of Diana after her death from critical to complimentary. Hitchens's views were later supported by Jonathan Freedland of The Guardian, who also questioned the reason behind the "outburst of mass hysteria" following Diana's death and described it as "an episode when the British public lost its characteristic cool and engaged in seven days of bogus sentimentality, whipped up by the media, and whose flimsiness was demonstrated when it vanished as quickly as it had appeared". Comparing Diana's funeral to that of Winston Churchill, Peter Hitchens (brother of Christopher) observed the "difference in the self-discipline of the people and their attitudes" at the two historical events, with them being more restrained at Churchill's funeral but "un-English" at Diana's. Some cultural analysts disagreed. Sociologist Deborah Steinberg pointed out that many Britons associated Diana not with the Royal Family but with social change and a more liberal society: "I don't think it was hysteria, the loss of a public figure can be a touchstone for other issues." Carol Wallace of People magazine said that the fascination with Diana's death had to do with "the fairy tale failing to end happily – twice, first when she got divorced and now that she died". Reflecting back on the event in the 2021 Apple TV+ docuseries ''The Me You Can't See'', Diana's son Prince Harry said that he was surprised by the extent to which the public reacted to his mother's death. Referring to the day of her funeral, he said: "I'm just walking along and doing what was expected of me, showing the one-tenth of the emotion that everybody else was showing. This was my mum, you never even met her." In his memoir Spare, he mentions meeting members of the public following his mother's death and "Hundreds and hundreds of hands that planted us again and again in front of our faces, with our fingers often wet. Of what? I wondered. Tears, I understood. I disliked the touch of those hands. What's more, I disliked how they made me feel guilty. Why were all of those people crying when I was neither crying nor able to cry?" == Memorials ==

'', the unofficial Diana memorial in Paris, France, the day after the 20th anniversary of her death. The ground is covered with flowers and other tributes, and the chain fence covered with love locks. In the years after Diana's death, many memorials were commissioned and dedicated to her. As a temporary memorial, the public co-opted the Flamme de la Liberté (Flame of Liberty), a monument near the Pont de l'Alma tunnel related to the French donation of the Statue of Liberty to the US. The messages of condolence have since been removed and its use as a Diana memorial has discontinued, though visitors still leave messages in her memory. A permanent memorial, the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain, was opened by the Queen in Hyde Park in London in 2004, followed by a statue in the Sunken Garden of Kensington Palace, which was unveiled by her sons on her 60th birthday in 2021. Following her death, a member of the Millennium Dome's board suggested the project be refashioned and extended "to accommodate, for example, a hospital, businesses, charities, private residences, and the whole thing named 'the Princess Diana Centre. The idea was later scrapped. ==Inquests==

Under English law, an inquest is required in cases of sudden or unexplained death. A French judicial investigation had already been carried out, but the 6,000-page report was never published. On 6 January 2004, six years after Diana's death, an inquest into the crash opened in London held by Michael Burgess, the coroner of the Queen's Household. Forensic scientist Angela Gallop was commissioned to examine the forensic evidence. The police investigation reported its findings in Operation Paget in December 2006. In January 2006, Lord Stevens explained in an interview on GMTV that the case is substantially more complex than once thought. The Sunday Times wrote on 29 January 2006 that agents of the British secret service were cross-examined because they were in Paris at the time of the crash. It was suggested that these agents might have exchanged the blood test from Henri Paul with another blood sample (although no evidence for this has been forthcoming). --> The inquests into the deaths of Diana and Fayed opened on 8 January 2007, with Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss acting as Deputy Coroner of the Queen's Household for the Diana inquest and Assistant Deputy Coroner for Surrey in relation to the Fayed inquest. Butler-Sloss originally intended to sit without a jury; this decision was later overturned by the High Court of Justice, as well as the jurisdiction of the coroner of the Queen's Household. On 24 April 2007, Butler-Sloss stepped down, saying she lacked the experience required to deal with an inquest with a jury. The role of coroner for the inquests was transferred to Lord Justice Scott Baker, who formally took up the role on 13 June as Coroner for Inner West London. On 27 July 2007, Baker, following representations for the lawyers of the interested parties, issued a list of issues likely to be raised at the inquest, many of which had been dealt with in great detail by Operation Paget: The inquests officially began on 2 October 2007 with the swearing of a jury of six women and five men. Lord Justice Baker delivered a lengthy opening statement giving general instructions to the jury and introducing the evidence. The BBC reported that Mohamed Al-Fayed, having earlier reiterated his claim that his son and Diana were murdered by the Royal Family, immediately criticised the opening statement as biased. The inquest heard evidence from people connected with Diana and the events leading to her death, including Rees-Jones, Mohamed Al-Fayed, Paul Burrell, Diana's stepmother, and the former head of MI6. Lord Justice Baker began his summing up to the jury on 31 March 2008. He opened by telling the jury "no-one except you and I and, I think, the gentleman in the public gallery with Diana and Fayed painted on his forehead sat through every word of evidence" and concluded that there was "not a shred of evidence" that Diana's death had been ordered by Prince Philip or organised by the security services. He concluded his summing up on Wednesday, 2 April 2008. After summing up, the jury retired to consider five verdicts, namely unlawful killing by the negligence of either or both the following vehicles or Paul; accidental death or an open verdict. Princes William and Harry released a statement in which they said that they "agree with their verdicts and are both hugely grateful". Mohamed Al-Fayed also said that he would accept the verdict and "abandon his 10-year campaign to prove that Diana and Dodi were murdered in a conspiracy". The cost of the inquiry exceeded £12.5 million, the coroner's inquest cost £4.5 million; a further £8 million was spent on the Metropolitan Police investigation. It lasted 6 months and heard 250 witnesses, with the cost heavily criticised in the media. In his memoir, Diana's younger son Prince Harry mentions how the summary conclusion of investigations into his mother's death was "simplistic and absurd". He writes that even if the driver "had been drunk, he wouldn't have had any problem driving through such a short tunnel." He questions why the paparazzi that had been following her and the people who sent them were not in prison, unless it was all due to "corruption and cover-ups being the order of the day?" Harry claims that he and his brother had been planning on issuing a statement to ask jointly for the investigation to be reopened but "those who decided dissuaded us". == Related lawsuits ==

Nine photographers, who had been following Diana and Dodi in 1997, were charged with manslaughter in France. France's "highest court" dropped the charges in 2002. The photographers, who were part of the "paparazzi", were acquitted in 2003. ==Conspiracy theories==

Although the initial French investigation found that Diana had died as a result of an accident, several conspiracy theories have been raised. Since February 1998, Fayed's father, Mohamed Al-Fayed, has claimed that the crash was a result of a conspiracy, and later contended that the crash was orchestrated by MI6 on the instructions of the Royal Family. His claims were dismissed by a French judicial investigation On 7 April 2008, Lord Justice Baker's inquest into the deaths of Diana and Fayed ended with the jury concluding that they were the victims of an "unlawful killing" by Henri Paul and the drivers of the following vehicles. Additional factors were "the impairment of the judgment of the driver of the Mercedes through alcohol" and "the death of the deceased was caused or contributed to by the fact that the deceased was not wearing a seat belt, the fact that the Mercedes struck the pillar in the Alma Tunnel rather than colliding with something else". ==In the media==

television discussion – After Diana'' – broadcast on Channel 4 on 13 September 1997 Actor George Clooney was critical of several tabloids and paparazzi agencies following Diana's death. A few of the tabloids boycotted Clooney following the outburst, stating that he "owed a fair portion of his celebrity" to the tabloids and photo agencies in question. In September 1997, a number of supermarket chains in the US removed the 9 September issue of the National Enquirer, which bore the title "Di Goes Sex Mad". The paper's editor described the incident as "an unfortunate circumstance", which was not meant to coincide with her death. Another American tabloid, Globe, issued an apology for its headline "To Di For". Historian Nick Barrett criticised this outcome as being "a pretty shocking result". Later in 2004, the CBS programme 48 Hours broadcast photos from the crash scene which were "part of a 4,000-page French government report". They showed an intact rear side and centre section of the Mercedes, including one of an unbloodied Diana with no outward injuries crouched on the rear floor with her back to the right passenger seatthe right rear door is fully open. The release of these pictures was poorly received in the UK, where it was felt that the privacy of Diana was being infringed. Buckingham Palace, Prime Minister Tony Blair and Diana's brother condemned the action, while CBS defended its decision saying that the pictures "are placed in journalistic context – an examination of the medical treatment given to Princess Diana just after the crash". On 13 July 2006, Italian magazine Chi published photographs that showed Diana amid the wreckage of the car crash; the photos were released despite an unofficial blackout on such photographs being published. The editor of Chi defended his decision by saying he published the photographs simply because they had not been previously seen, and he felt the images were not disrespectful to the memory of Diana. The events from Diana's death to her funeral became the subject of a 2006 film, The Queen, with Helen Mirren in the title role. The eight weeks leading up to her death and funeral are dramatised in the first four episodes of season six of the Netflix series, The Crown, in which Diana is portrayed by Elizabeth Debicki. Internet coverage Diana's death occurred at a time when Internet use in the developed world was booming, and several national newspapers and at least one British regional newspaper had already launched online news services. BBC News had set up online coverage of the general election earlier in 1997 and as a result of the widespread public and media attention surrounding Diana's death, BBC News swiftly created a website featuring news coverage of Diana's death and the events that followed it. Diana's death helped BBC News officials realise how important online news services were becoming, and a full online news service was launched on 4 November that year, alongside the launch of the BBC's rolling news channel BBC News 24 on 9 November. Television In the United Kingdom, the BBC were the first to announce the crash, with Martyn Lewis on the air on both BBC1 (interrupting the film Borsalino) and BBC2. Lewis would later announce Diana's death at 6am. On BBC World, Nik Gowing was on duty within a few hours of the crash for rolling coverage alongside Maxine Mawhinney and George Arney. On ITN, Tim Willcox was also on duty for regular news bulletins, announcing the crash at about 1:30am. Dermot Murnaghan would come on the air later, at 4:40am for rolling coverage, later announcing the Princess' death. On Sky News, Kay Burley announced the death of Diana before 5:15am, and stayed for rolling coverage. In the United States, schedules were also scrapped for news coverage. On MSNBC, Brian Williams was on air around 10pm ET, with rolling coverage, before announcing Diana's death at 11:48pm ET. Linden Soles and Jim Clancy, respectively, were on CNN reporting the car crash and Diana's death, with Soles giving the initial announcement, and Clancy continuing coverage. == See also ==