the ceremony, on 9 October, making Georg Donatus the new head of House of Hesse-Darmstadt. Under these circumstances, the marriage of Prince Louis was postponed to 20 November, in order to give his family time to organize the funeral of Ernest Louis, which took place on 12 October. Death With Prince Louis' wedding approaching, Cecilie and her family went to Frankfurt on 16 November 1937 to get on board a plane of the Belgian company Sabena which was to take them to London, via a stopover in Ostend where it was planned to pick up two other passengers. The small group, which consisted of Cecilie (eight months pregnant), Georg Donatus, their two sons Ludwig (aged 6) and Alexander (aged 4) and the Dowager Grand Duchess Eleonore, was accompanied by Baron Joachim von Riedesel, chosen by Louis to be his witness, and Alice Hahn. According to Philip Eade, Cecilie hated taking the plane and she always dressed in black when she made a trip like this. The journey started under normal weather conditions, but a thick fog developed as the plane approached the North Sea. Despite the poor visibility, the pilot followed the flight plan and attempted to land at Ostend-Steene airport. However, during the maneuver, the aircraft struck the chimney of a factory, causing the destruction of a wing and an engine of the aircraft. It then crashed against the roof of a building, before being thrown several metres away and catching fire. The accident caused the immediate death of all passengers including a newborn baby whom Cecilie seemed to have given birth to in the middle of the flight. Funeral Despite the death of his family, Prince Louis married Margaret Campbell Geddes, in London, the day after the plane crash. After the wedding, which took place in a climate of extreme gloom, the couple went to Belgium to collect the remains of Cecilie and her family, kept until then at the civil hospital in Ostend. Once back in Darmstadt, Louis and his wife adopted their niece Johanna, the only child of Cecilie and Georg Donatus not to have taken part in the plane trip due to her very young age. Johanna, however, died of meningitis two years later, on 14 June 1939. The funeral of Cecilie and her relatives took place in Darmstadt on 23 November 1937. The event gave rise to a mass gathering but also served as