The Hindenburg disaster, 80 years on:
a 'perfect storm of circumstances'
On 6 May 1937, the zeppelin caught
fire and crashed in New Jersey, killing more than 30 people. Disaster could
have been averted, experts say
Joanna Walters in New York
@Joannawalters13
Sunday 7 May 2017 09.00 BST Last modified on Sunday 7 May
2017 09.01 BST
The huge airship had circled three times around the Empire
State Building. It was on its way to land in New Jersey. From her home in
southern Pennsylvania, Libby Magness Weisburg watched the Hindenburg glide by.
“It was amazing how beautiful it was,” she told the Guardian
on Saturday. “The silver airship against a clear blue sky. How enormous. It was
the most exquisite thing I had ever seen.”
Then the zeppelin turned. Its tail swung into view. On it,
stark and black, were swastikas.
“We had no inkling of
what Hitler was really doing to the Jews already, but I knew Germany was the
enemy,” said Weisburg, 89. “I was startled, and that beauty up there turned
into fear.”
Her neighbors, she said, gesticulated angrily at the sky.
Not long after, on 6 May 1937, as it was coming in to moor
at the naval base at Lakehurst, New Jersey, the Hindenburg caught fire and
crashed. Of the 97 people on board, 62 miraculously escaped the burning
wreckage. But 22 crew members, 13 passengers and one worker on the ground were
killed.
After the disaster, President Franklin Roosevelt and King
George sent telegrams of condolence to Hitler.
•••
Eighty years on, as the spectacular crash is remembered with
ceremonies and in retellings, its precise cause remains unknown. What is
certain is that it could have been avoided, or at least minimized, if not for a
“perfect storm” of unfortunate events and errors.
“The landing was rushed and they took shortcuts on some of
the safety procedures,” Rick Zitarosa, a historian with the Navy Lakehurst
Historical Society, said.
The Hindenburg crash was the first major transport disaster
captured on film, in dramatic footage ever since paired with recorded
commentary by a radio reporter who reacted in horror to the shocking scene
before him.
Few people directly connected to the disaster are still
alive. The lone remaining survivor from the airship itself, Werner Doehner, is
now an 88-year-old resident of Colorado.
“Suddenly the air was
on fire,” he said this week, speaking to the Associated Press.
The Hindenburg was about 200ft off the ground when it
combusted – not “exploded”, as some have since described it. It burned from
tail to nose in just 34 seconds but as it collapsed to Earth, Doehner’s mother
threw him and his 10-year-old brother from the craft. All three survived.
Just before the fire broke out, however, Werner’s father had
gone to the family cabin.
“We didn’t see him again,” Doehner said.
His 14-year-old sister escaped the wreck but rushed back
into it to look for their missing father. After emerging without him, she did
not survive her burns.
•••
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Footage of the disaster.
Speculation about sabotage was rife, as this archive news
report from the Guardian shows. There had been reports of bomb threats to the
transatlantic passenger airship program, the pride of Nazi Germany.
Investigations, however, concluded that a spark of static
electricity had most likely ignited leaking hydrogen as, in Zitarosa’s words,
“they brought the ship in for landing under thunderstorm conditions”.
It is most widely believed that the leak came from one of
the ship’s rear gas containers. What caused the leak is not known. Zitarosa
surmised that a broken length of wiring or other piece of hardware somehow
ripped the container, which was made of a tough cotton fabric with a film of
early latex-type material.
Other factors may have contributed. The Hindenburg was 12
hours late to Lakehurst, having been delayed by strong headwinds across the
north Atlantic before spending several hours flying around the area, waiting
for storms to clear.
Zeppelins normally took two and a half days to reach the US
from Germany, moving twice as fast as an ocean liner. Although the Hindenburg
had taken three days, it had plenty of diesel fuel left. It could have flown
further.
But passengers, among them dignitaries heading for England
and the coronation of King George VI, were waiting. The airship was due to turn
around in record time.
Its pilots attempted a so-called high landing, in which ropes
were tossed to the ground from around 200ft, for ground crew to pull the giant
craft down and secure it to a mooring mast.
This would be quicker than a more usual low landing, by
which the airship approached long and low until it touched the ground and could
be dragged to the mooring mast. A low approach carried less risk, but took more
men on the ground and more time.
Either way, it was known to be extremely dangerous to land
in thundery weather. Ground crew members were soaked and there was electricity
in the air.
A London news vendor, carries posters promoting coverage of
the Hindenburg disaster in local newspapers in London. Photograph: Hulton
Archive/Getty Images
“When the ship dropped its landing ropes, they got wet and
acted as conductors,” said Zitarosa. “The ship became grounded and that’s why
we think the static electricity made a spark and caught the leaking hydrogen.”
In a flash, the craft was shooting flames for hundreds of
feet, its burning skeleton collapsing.
A Chicago radio reporter, Herbert Morrison, bore witness to
the raging inferno.
“It burst into flames, it burst into flames!” he cried. “And
it’s falling, it’s crashing …it’s crashing terrible … Oh, the humanity … oh,
ladies and gentlemen …”
If the Hindenburg had caught fire after a low landing, many
more would probably have escaped with their lives. The fire may also have been
avoided completely, because the forward motion of the airship, as opposed to
hovering, would have given the leaking hydrogen more chance of being flushed
away through louvered vents.
“It was a perfect storm of circumstances,” said Zitarosa.
“The late schedule, the weather, the leak, the decision to make the landing at
that time and in that way and the use of hydrogen in general. The disaster
could have been avoided on several counts, but caution was thrown to the wind.”
Despite the US maintaining a monopoly on commercial supplies
of helium, an inert gas that would make airship travel much safer, news reports
after the crash suggested that a bullish Germany was going to keep the zeppelin
program going. In reality, thanks to the advent of the passenger plane, the
airship business was already sliding towards obsolescence.
Zeppelins never landed at Lakehurst again. Before long,
American dirigibles were taking off from there instead, searching for German
submarines.
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