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The Cause Nobody Proved: Hydrogen, Helium, and Who Was Really to Blame
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
The 1937 Hindenburg crash killed 36 people in 34 seconds — but the exact cause of ignition has never been officially settled. This chapter examines the hydrogen decision, the American helium embargo, and why the conditions for catastrophe were locked in long before Lakehurst.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Nobody knows exactly what started the fire. That's the uncomfortable truth sitting underneath one of the most documented disasters in history.
To understand the disaster, you need to understand the scale of what burned. The Hindenburg was eight hundred and four feet long.
Here's the thing about the Hindenburg that the public largely didn't scrutinize at the time. It was filled with hydrogen.
The fire started near the tail. At approximately seven fifteen in the evening, witnesses on the ground saw a flicker of flame at the rear of the ship.
Herbert Morrison was a radio reporter for WLS Chicago. He and his engineer, Charles Nehlsen, were at Lakehurst to cover the arrival of the Hindenburg.
The cause of ignition has been argued ever since. The most widely supported explanation involves an electrical discharge.
The Hindenburg wasn't the deadliest airship disaster in history. Four years earlier, in nineteen thirty-three, an American helium-filled airship called the USS Akron crashed into the Atlantic.
Thirty-four seconds. That's how long it took to eliminate lighter-than-air commercial aviation as a viable industry.
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