On the night of August 31, 1997, the world held its breath, though it did not yet know it. The final, fateful hour of Diana, Princess of Wales's life began not with foreboding, but with the familiar flash of paparazzi cameras at the rear entrance of the Hôtel Ritz in Paris.
Determined to escape the relentless press pack, a decoy vehicle departed from the front of the hotel. Meanwhile, Diana and her partner, Dodi Fayed, slipped away in a black Mercedes-Benz S280, chauffeured by Ritz acting head of security, Henri Paul. Their intended destination was Dodi's apartment near the Arc de Triomphe.
A Frantic Chase Through Parisian Streets
The vehicle, also carrying Diana's bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, was immediately pursued by photographers on motorcycles. What followed was a high-speed game of cat and mouse through the heart of Paris. Witnesses reported the Mercedes travelling at an extraordinarily high velocity, its engine roaring through the otherwise calm night.
As the car entered the Pont de l'Alma underpass just after 12:20 am, the sequence of events turned catastrophic. The driver, Henri Paul, who was later found to have been intoxicated and on prescription drugs, lost control.
The Point of Impact
The vehicle sideswiped the white Fiat Uno of a peripheral figure, before veering sharply across the road. It then collided head-on with a concrete pillar in the centre of the tunnel, before spinning violently and coming to a rest against the stone wall.
The force of the impact was devastating. The front of the car was completely compressed, and all occupants suffered severe injuries. Henri Paul and Dodi Fayed were killed almost instantly. Trevor Rees-Jones, in the front passenger seat, was critically injured but survived.
The Aftermath and a Nation's Grief
Princess Diana, conscious but gravely wounded in the back, was extracted from the wreckage by emergency services. Despite frantic efforts to save her at the scene and later at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, she succumbed to her internal injuries a few hours later.
The official inquest into her death would later conclude that the crash was caused by the grossly negligent driving of Henri Paul and the pursuing paparazzi. This tragic night in a Paris tunnel not only ended the life of the world's most beloved princess but also irrevocably changed the relationship between the press and public figures forever.
