Death Of A Princess

The life of Princess Diana came to an end just after midnight on the morning of August 31st, 1997 in a tragic accident that could so easily have been avoided…

On the evening of August 30th, 1997, Princess Diana and Dodi had booked to eat at a restaurant on Paris’s Left Bank, but changed their plans to avoid photographers and dined at the Ritz instead. While they were having dinner in the Imperial Suite, Dodi made the fateful decision to try to dodge the Paparazzi by leaving the hotel via the rear entrance while a decoy car remained out the front.

In a telephone call to his father, Dodi specifically requested that Henri Paul should be their driver, despite the fact that Paul was not a qualified chauffeur.

Bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones ushered Princess Diana into the right rear seat of the Mercedes 600 and Dodi sat beside her on her left. Rees-Jones got in the front passenger seat alongside driver Henri Paul. Rees-Jones was the only one to fasten his seat belt.

Just before 12.20 a.m. Paul drove off down the rue Cambon and a small crowd of photographers set off in pursuit.

When he reached the Place de la Concorde, Paul made the decision not to turn right onto the busy Champs Elysee, where he would undoubtedly have been held up at traffic lights. Instead he took the back route down the Cours La Raine/Cours Albert 1er, a stretch of dual carriageway leading to the tunnel beneath the Place d’Alma, which would enable him to pick up speed and escape the pursuing press pack.

He approached the tunnel travelling at between 74 and 97mph, overtaking a much slower travelling white Fiat Uno in the right hand lane, brushing its left-hand rear with his right wing just as they passed over a hump in the road. Paul lost control of the car as it reached a dip at the mouth of the tunnel and at 12.23 a.m., just three minutes after leaving the Ritz, the Mercedes slammed into the thirteenth concrete pillar dividing the roadway from the tunnel.