1937
The Hindenburg Disaster
The airship Hindenburg, the largest dirigible ever built
and the pride of Nazi Germany, bursts into flames upon touching its mooring
mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36 passengers and crewmembers.
Frenchman Henri Giffard constructed the first successful airship
in 1852. His hydrogen-filled blimp carried a three-horsepower steam engine that
turned a large propeller and flew at a speed of six miles per hour. The rigid
airship, often known as the “zeppelin” after the last name of its innovator,
Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, was developed by the Germans in the late 19th
century. Unlike French airships, the German ships had a light framework of
metal girders that protected a gas-filled interior. However, like Giffard’s
airship, they were lifted by highly flammable hydrogen gas and vulnerable to
explosion. Large enough to carry substantial numbers of passengers, one of the
most famous rigid airships was the Graf Zeppelin, a dirigible that
traveled around the world in 1929. In the 1930s, the Graf Zeppelin
pioneered the first transatlantic air service, leading to the construction of
the Hindenburg, a larger passenger airship.
On May 3, 1937, the Hindenburg left Frankfurt, Germany,
for a journey across the Atlantic to Lakehurst’s Navy Air Base. Stretching 804
feet from stern to bow, it carried 36 passengers and crew of 61. While
attempting to moor at Lakehurst, the airship suddenly burst into flames,
probably after a spark ignited its hydrogen core. Rapidly falling 200 feet to
the ground, the hull of the airship incinerated within seconds. Thirteen
passengers, 21 crewmen, and 1 civilian member of the ground crew lost their
lives, and most of the survivors suffered substantial injuries.
Radio announcer Herb Morrison, who came to Lakehurst to record a
routine voice-over for an NBC newsreel, immortalized the Hindenberg
disaster in a famous on-the-scene description in which he emotionally declared,
“Oh, the humanity!” The recording of Morrison’s commentary was immediately
flown to New York, where it was aired as part of America’s first
coast-to-coast radio news broadcast. Lighter-than-air passenger travel rapidly
fell out of favor after the Hindenberg disaster, and no rigid airships
survived World War II.