In service for less than two years, the Macon was damaged in a storm and lost off California's Big Sur coast in February 1935, though most of the crew were saved.

Less than 20 ft (6.1 m) shorter than the Hindenburg, both Macon and her sister ship Akron were among the largest flying objects in the world in terms of length and volume.

Inside the hull, the ship had eight German-made Maybach VL II 12-cylinder, 560 hp (418 kW) gasoline-powered engines that drove outside propellers.

[9] The airship first flew on 21 April, aloft over northern Ohio for nearly 13 hours with 105 aboard,[11] just over a fortnight after the loss of Akron in which Admiral Moffett and 72 others were killed.

[6] On 24 June 1933, Macon left Goodyear's field for Naval Air Station (NAS) Lakehurst, New Jersey, where the new airship was based for the summer while undergoing a series of training flights.

The commanders of Macon developed the doctrine and techniques of using her on-board aircraft for scouting while the airship remained out of sight of the opposing forces during exercises.

[14] It became standard practice to remove the landing gear of the Sparrowhawks while aboard the airship and then replace it with a fuel tank, thus giving the aircraft 30 percent more range.

[16] The airship left the East Coast on 12 October 1933, on a transcontinental flight to her new permanent homebase at NAS Sunnyvale (now Moffett Federal Airfield) near San Francisco in Santa Clara County, California.

As with the Akron in 1932, Macon had to fly at or above pressure height when crossing the mountains, especially over Dragoon Pass, Arizona, at an elevation of 4,629 ft (1,411 m).

Then, in the West Texas heat, the sun raised the helium temperature, and the expanding gas was automatically venting as the airship again reached pressure height.

Rapid damage control, led by Chief Boatswain's Mate Robert J. Davis, repaired the girders within a half hour.

Over the course of nine days, more permanent repairs were made to the damaged girders; however, the addition of duralumin channels to reinforce frame 17.5 at its junction with the upper fin was not completed.

[23] On 12 February 1935, the repair process was still incomplete when, returning to Sunnyvale from fleet maneuvers, Macon ran into a storm off Point Sur, California.

During the storm, the ship was caught in a wind shear which caused structural failure of the unstrengthened ring (17.5) to which the upper tailfin was attached.

[25] Eyewitness Dorsey A. Pulliam, serving aboard Colorado, wrote about the crash in a letter dated 13 February 1935:[30] Tuesday it was so rough, and with the rain, we had an awful time getting along.

There was an explosion in the tail and they could not control it.In another letter, dated 16 February 1935, Pulliam wrote:[31] I guess that you all read all about the wreck of the Macon.

[33] The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) succeeded in locating and surveying the debris field of Macon in February 1991, and was able to recover some artifacts.

[40][42][43] The U.S. National Park Service states:[44] When the USS Macon was christened on 11 March 1933, the rigid airship was the most sophisticated of the Navy's lighter-than-air (LTA) fleet.

At 785 feet in length, the airship's size captured American fascination during flyovers of U.S. communities as chronicled in numerous advertisements, articles, and newsreels.

The dramatic loss of the Macon and sister ship Akron within two years of each other contributed to the cancellation of the Navy's rigid airship program.

The archeological remains of the USS Macon lie off California's Big Sur coast in NOAA's Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

[46] Macon is featured toward the end of the 1934 Warner Bros. film Here Comes the Navy starring James Cagney, Pat O'Brien and Gloria Stuart.