Hindenburg pics
On May 4th, the Hindenburg left Frankfurt with 97 people on board, 36 of them were passengers.
She had made many trips before, but this was going to be the last of her life. After a slight delay due to stormy weather, the Hindenburg approached to make her landing at Lakehurst. The mooring lines were thrown down to secure the great airship. She remained motionless in the sky. Excited passengers waved at their friends and families below. Suddenly a blue flame (probably St Elmo’s fire – a form of static electricity) shot along the Hindenburg’s tail. The massive airship caught on fire with her outer skin burning like paper. After a few seconds the flames covered the whole ship with gas cell after gas cell burning fiercely. Passengers and crew could see the flames licking up the sides of the ship. Within 30 seconds the gas cells had all burnt. Without hydrogen gas to lift it, the ship’s weight went from nothing to 222 tonnes and crashed to the ground in a metal heap.
3 crew members in the bow escaped by clinging to the wreck until it hit the ground. 19 crew members in the control cabin escaped, some jumped others ran from the wreckage. A 14 year old kitchen hand survived because he was drenched with water from the burst ballast tanks. The fire killed 36 people, including 13 passengers, 22 crew and the Captain who died later from terrible burns. After this disaster, airships were no longer used to carry passengers.
Investigators searched through the wreckage for clues but could not find any hard evidence. Most people thought it was due to leaking hydrogen gas but surviving crew members swore this wasn’t true. Today there are several theories why this terrible disaster happened.
Here are 3.
1: Sabotage. A bomb was planted on board – no strong evidence to support this.
2: Hydrogen gas. A hydrogen gas leak has long taken the blame for the disaster. Following 2 years of laboratory tests, a NASA fuel expert came up with this startling conclusion – hydrogen did not start the fire!! The very bright colour of the flames was not like a hydrogen fire – hydrogen makes no visible flame.
3: The fabric covering. Experiments were done on the fabric that covered the giant airship in the NASA lab. Even after nearly 6 decades the skin has been found to be highly explosive when set alight.
CONCLUSION: I think the 3rd theory is correct. The skin initially ignited due to the St Elmo’s fire or lightening and then the hydrogen gas ignited. The bright flame was the fabric burning. This disaster
was man made.