The giant silvery airship turned to make its final approach. Two hundred feet over the field its powerful engines growled into reverse. The ship stopped and hovered motionless. Lines were dropped to the ground. The ground party rushed to pick them up.
That is how the giant zeppelin Hindenburg came into Lakehurst, New Jersey, on the evening of May 6, 1937. Its arrival had been delayed for nearly ten hours by bad weather. But the weather had cleared, and the approach looked smooth and natural.
The Hindenburg had flown all the way from Germany. The trip had taken seventy-seven hours. Aboard were a total of ninety-seven passengers and crewmen. The Hindenburg was the fastest and most luxurious way to cross the Atlantic Ocean in 1937. It had already made ten crossings without a single mishap.
The giant zeppelin was still a novelty. Its arrival always made news. Among those waiting on the ground for the arrival were many photographers and radio men. One of the radio men was Herb Morrison of Station WLS. He was describing the moment for his listeners. He told them how gracefully the great silver ship glided in. Then suddenly his voice registered shock. “It’s burst into flames!” he shouted into the microphone. “Oh my . . . it’s burning, bursting into flames . . . Oh, the humanity and all the passengers.” The radio announcer’s voice broke into sobs. He couldn’t go on.
That is how many people in America first learned that the Hindenburg had exploded and burned. Within less than forty seconds the entire ship was ablaze. People on the ground were stunned for a moment. Then they began to run for their lives, as the flaming giant crashed toward them. In a few terrible seconds thirty-five people had died as a result of the tragedy. Others were horribly burned or badly injured trying to jump to the ground. Remarkably, more than half of those aboard survived the disaster.
As a result of the Hindenburg explosion and fire zeppelin travel was completely abandoned. All remaining passenger-carrying zeppelins were grounded, permanently.
Airplanes were being developed in 1937. But they could not yet carry as many passengers as a zeppelin, and no passenger plane could fly the Atlantic. Ship crossings took days or weeks. But despite the comfort and speed of zeppelin travel, no one was willing to risk his life anymore.
Just exactly what caused the Hindenburg explosion no one knows. No one may ever know. Both the United States and Germany conducted investigations. Everybody who might possibly know anything about the explosion was interviewed. The official conclusions were that some sort of electrical spark had set off the explosion. No one could agree what caused the spark.
There were a lot of unofficial rumors as well. Some said that a bomb had caused the explosion. The Germans had been afraid of a bomb. Before the Hindenburg left Germany, all the passengers and crew had been searched carefully. The entire zeppelin was examined from top to bottom. No bomb was found. Still, two German air force officers rode along on the trip as a special precaution.
There are many theories about who might have planted a bomb and why. In 1937 Germany was firmly in control of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party. There were a lot of people who had good reason to hate the Nazis.
The bomb theory is still discussed today. But no one has ever been able to find any solid evidence to support it. So the question of exactly what caused the Hindenburg explosion remains open.
But whatever started the explosion, everyone agrees that the real villain was hydrogen gas. Basically a zeppelin is a balloon. There is a motor that makes the ship go forward. But it is held up because it is lighter than air. The eight-hundred-foot long Hindenburg was filled with hydrogen gas. The inside of the ship contained sixteen gigantic bags or lifting cells containing a total of seven million cubic feet of hydrogen. Hydrogen is a gas that is lighter than air. It was the hydrogen that lifted the huge craft into the air. But hydrogen has one great drawback, it is highly flammable and explosive.
Zeppelins were not a new invention in 1937. They had been flown for years. The dangers of hydrogen gas were well known. There had already been several hydrogen-caused zeppelin disasters. There was a gas that could be used in place of hydrogen. Helium is another lighter-than-air gas, but it is not flammable and does not explode. Helium is the gas that is used to inflate the balloons that you buy at the zoo or a parade. It is quite safe to use.
In 1937 many zeppelins were already using helium. The Hindenburg itself had been built to use helium. But helium also has a drawback. It is expensive and hard to get compared to hydrogen. In 1937 there was only one source for that much helium, the United States. To fill the Hindenburg with helium from the United States would have cost the Germans about $600,000. Besides, Hitler’s Germany and the United States were not on the best of terms. The Germans thought that they could do without American helium.
The Germans were not the only country that had zeppelins, though they had pioneered in the development of this particular type of airship. Other countries also tried to develop their own zeppelins. For a while the United States had an ambitious zeppelin program. But most zeppelins were plagued with many different problems. Even the zeppelins that used non-explosive helium had problems. There were many crashes, and most countries, including the United States, either gave up zeppelin development or cut back on it.
The German zeppelins, however, worked beautifully. So the Germans began to think that no one else knew how to build or operate the giant ships. They also figured that hydrogen would not be dangerous if handled by experts, and they considered themselves the greatest experts in the world.
On May 6, 1937, over Lakehurst, New Jersey, they found out that they were wrong.