Hindenburg Burns: The Airship Era Ends

Thirty-six seconds. That is how long it took for the largest flying object ever built to transform from a symbol of technological triumph into a burning skeleton of aluminum framing over the landing field at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey. The Hindenburg disaster on May 6, 1937, killed 36 of the 97 people aboard and one ground crew member, and it destroyed public confidence in rigid airship travel permanently. The LZ 129 Hindenburg was 804 feet long, nearly the length of the Titanic, and held 7 million cubic feet of hydrogen gas in sixteen cells within its duralumin frame. The Zeppelin Company had wanted to use nonflammable helium, but the United States, the only commercial producer, had embargoed helium exports to Nazi Germany. Hydrogen was lighter and provided better lift, but it was catastrophically flammable. The airship had completed ten successful round trips between Frankfurt and Lakehurst in 1936. On this flight, its first of the 1937 season, the Hindenburg arrived over Lakehurst on the evening of May 6 carrying 36 passengers and 61 crew. Captain Max Pruss circled the field for over an hour waiting for a thunderstorm to pass before beginning his approach. At 7:25 PM, as ground handlers grabbed the mooring lines, witnesses saw a small flame near the top of the tail section. Within seconds, the hydrogen ignited in a chain reaction that consumed the ship from stern to bow. Radio broadcaster Herbert Morrison, recording a routine arrival for WLS Chicago, captured the destruction in real time. His anguished narration, "Oh, the humanity!" became one of the most recognized phrases in broadcast history. The cause remains debated. Leading theories include static discharge igniting a hydrogen leak, a structural bracing wire snapping and puncturing a gas cell, or the flammability of the outer fabric's aluminum-doped coating. Whatever the ignition source, the disaster ended the age of rigid airships. Every major airline that had considered zeppelin service abandoned its plans within weeks.