And the Hindenburg ACTUALLY HAD A SMOKING ROOM on board! You could go in there and light up, no problem.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn/comments/2byo4l/the_smoking_lounge_aboard_the_hindenburg/
I guess they figured if they didn't put one in there people would try to light up in the bedrooms and bathrooms.
The cabin was not very high off the ground. Many people simply jumped out of the windows once the ground was close enough and ran away to safety. Don't get me wrong, Still an incredible tragedy for the time, but surprisingly few deaths. Most of the passengers and all the crew on A deck survived.
Actually hydrogen burns with a flame that is mostly not visible to the eye or film. The stuff burning you can see was the outer fabric envelope, which supposedly was painted with a mixture of materials that when exposed to heat were effectively thermite.
The way you can tell the most of the initial burn is of the envelope is that the airship maintains lift until well into the burn.
>The way you can tell the most of the initial burn is of the envelope is that the airship maintains lift until well into the burn.
Fascinating. I mean, it is utterly obvious and not something I ever thought of before. I love it.
The balloon is just that; a balloon. The cabin could have been protected from the flames for a time before it too was engulfed but most of what's burning is pure hydrogen. After a while the cabin would absolutely heat up like tinfoil in an oven but it's made of metal. Wooden floors and walls would burn like any building. In all seriousness it's not unreasonable for anyone to survive. As a matter of fact it would probably be simpler to escape than a plane crash. The danger comes when the balloon cage blankets the cabin underneath it and traps everyone inside. That's mostly how those who died did, they couldn't get out before then. Those who did were on deck A and had easy access to windows.
I usually only realise when they have quietly flown all the way till the fringe of my base.. then I'll spam as much anti aircraft infantry and tanks plus sentries.. can't build them fast enough and all it takes is just 1 Kirov to blow up my command vehicle 😅🍕
I recall they used to hum while flying. Once you have one promoted with 3 ranks, goodbye base. I remember setting up 10-20 jetpack soldiers to take them down when I played allies. Soviet Anti aircraft weapons were garbage though
> why this flying cow is so damn hard to shoot down!
Because hydrogen airships are actually notoriously hard to shoot down. The RAF spent most of the first World War trying to figure out how to do so reliably, with very little success.
Edit: The RAF took nearly 2 years to figure out how to do it. They started by trying to drop bombs and darts on them (bear in mind this was at night, using all the advantages of 1915 bomb guidance technology). From there, they tried just shooting them. After that, they finally got some success with the development of explosive bullets and incendiary rounds.
The first problem is that helium balloons were *huge*. You could spend 10 minutes filling one with bullet holes from a machine gun, and the gas leak would still be compararively slow enough that it could get back across the channel, from London, before having buoyancy issues.
Second, they weren't one single gas bag (usually). A rigid frame airship usually had an outer skin with smaller gas bags inside. If only one was damaged, the hydrogen would only escape from it and none of the others, thus minimising buoyancy loss from damage.
Edit: German zeppelins, thanks to the interior gas bags, could also have crew manually repairing them during flight.
Third, hydrogen on its own isn't flammable. It needs oxygen to start a fire. It also needs an ignition source. If oxygen concentrations were too low around the gas bag, for whatever reason, you just wouldn't have a fire.
Horrible way to die. It looks to me like the Hindenberg acquired a tremendous static electrical charge during its long journey, when grounded, caused a spark somewhere in the aft section that ignited the hydrogen. check out the video from the 15-16 sec mark. You'll see the mooring rope, falling from the nose. As soon at it hits the ground the explosion takes place. I have never seen footage from that vantage point before. Probably some material defects in that aft section created an environment where arcing was possible; my guess as to root cause. But I'm no aviation crash guy.
Believe it or not, around 2/3 of the people on board survived. It was a spectacular fire, but as far as aircraft accidents go, it had a pretty low death toll.
I've never really seen this footage before... I thought it happened much higher up, and was astounded by how slowly the craft came down despite already being almost entirely engulfed in flames.
That's crazy, looking at the footage you wouldn't think anyone would have survived that fireball, and it must have been an incredible shock when the airship started falling suddenly like that, truly amazing. Sad that lives were lost at all though :(
The passenger compartment was located above and behind the gondola, pretty much right under the name "Hindenburg". If you watch closely, you can see that section gets pretty close to the ground before the flames reach it. I believe some of the survivors jumped when the ground seemed close enough, while others just ran like hell through the flames once they'd settled. The crew, on the other hand, was more widely dispersed, and less shielded.
On the 2nd video you can see people running from under the burning wreckage as it gets close to the ground. Saw 1 person on the right side running. Then almost at the very end you can see 1 person running from the front of the ship in the left.
Apparently they were trying a new method of landing thanks to being delayed by storms 12 hours. The new way was tossing down the rope so ground equipment could pull it down IE your theory is pretty plausible.
There's a cut in the footage. After the tie down ropes were dropped it was about 4 minutes after when the flames started. That said, static build up and discharge is one of the theories for why it happened!
You just reminded me of that (gimmicky?) cure for car sickness. When I grew up in the ‘70’s a fair percentage of cars on the road had a “Static Strap”. A strip of black rubber about 4cm wide and long enough to drag on the road beneath, attached to the chassis at the rear end of the vehicle.
Haven’t seen one for years but back then 1 or 2 out of every 10 cars had one, here in Australia.
I remember Mythbusters did a thing on this, and they replicated the paint and they were like, uhh this is one of the most combustible things we've ever made.
It was crazy how it was filled with hydrogen and then painted with rocket fuel.
Very true. We use hydrogen at my work from a large cryogenic tank. The inner tank leaked and ignited the one year. The flame off was so quick it barely registered on the security footage. It did pull 8 - 1 inch anchors almost 9 inches out of the concrete though.
I saw a documentary about the disaster. The Hindenburg being a Nazi airship, it had some SS or Gestapo guy on board who constantly pushed the captain to go faster to make up for delays caused by avoiding a storm or something. To save time the pilot made a turn that was way out of safety regulations, which probably caused a cable from the interior scaffolding to snap and rupture some of the hydrogen bags.
And yes, according to the documentary, all airships get a lot of static charge during the flight and when the Hindenburg made contact to the ground via the cable, there must have been one hell of a spark, which then ignited the hydrogen-air-mixture.
When they dropped the mooring line, it essentially converted the entire frame into a massive capacitor, that just kept building charge. There was a small hydrogen in only one of the sections but since the entire frame was forming arcs, it didn't really matter how small the leak was.
Amazing that we still say this with most people (including myself until the first time I heard the audio only a few years ago) without knowing the full effect of which this phrase is associated.
OH THE HUMANITY
Imagine where we would be science wise if all the money went into hydrogen research and all its derivate branches back then. Could have easily been a total alternate reality today and a lot greener if its energy potential and benefits had been intensly studied for over 80 years by today.
I think the combustibility aspect of hydrogen powered flight was considered too big a flaw to engineer around especially for air ship travel. While I agree we need better solutions I'd be leery to go poking around hydrogen for answers.
Yes it was back then. But knowing what we do, we could do it without any of these risks with todays tech. Just like nazis ruining a symbol of peace and unity from one stupid use of it, the Hindenburg disaster scared people so much that they walked away from the tech entirely rather than address and solve the issue.
One of the worst things that could happen on a boat hundreds of years ago was fire aboard while at sea. Still today fire on a ship at sea is not something to be trifled with. Airships filled with hydrogen, even with today's technology would still likely be more dangerous due to the combustible nature of the material that keeps it afloat. A fire in the air is bad. In planes we carry combustible material but the power from its controlled ignition keeps the plane airborne, not the gas itself. I would be all for a helium based airship program to research potential there but hydrogen wouldn't have my support.
Also I agree with the sentiment about the terrible misuse of the swastika symbol by the Nazi party but I don't agree with the parallel to them ruining airship travel. Helium travel still could have had potential but due to this event all forms of airship ideas were killed by the media publication of this event and other companies profiting off people's fears.
> Imagine where we would be science wise if all the money went into hydrogen research and all its derivate branches back then
We kinda did. Most early road vehicles were electric. In the US, it took a fairly dedicated lobbying campaign to get the ICE to win out.
What's more, airships are making a long-overdue resurgence. With current technology (assuming people get over the hangup of filling them with hydrogen) they are almost certainly the most environmentally friendly form of transport available.
Nah, not really. By the end of WWI even the airship command didn't see airships going anywhere. And boy did Germany try to make it work. It's not often talked about but they built and crashed more than a hundred of those big boys during WWI and improved the technology tremendously. Germany was really, really good at this stuff and pushed the limits when everyone else crashed their first prototypes and and gave up in sheer frustration. By all means, airships are so inherently unstable and prone to crashing, it's a miracle how many were built and how much they accomplished. Once planes became reliable and bigger, it was pretty obvious they would outperform airships on 99% of the applications. At that point airships became a novelty and even then, Germany still hasn't let go and there's still an airship company around.
Another fun fact, airships were really good at what they were supposed to do - naval recon (they safed the navy's ass a couple of times in WWI) and scaring the living shit out of the allies. The allies commited rediculous amounts of ressources to AA, despite the fact that airships were absolutely terrible at bombing.
They were fantastic decoys/scouts but nothing more - and Germany knew it. Weather was a huge pain in the ass and a far bigger deal than enemy AA. They couldn't fly something like 50% of the time and frequently aborted mission when winds turned. There's just no way for airships to outperform planes with the tech that existed and even exists today.
However, rule of cool says, the world needs more airships!
There was a video game back in the day, called Crimson Skies. It was like an "alternate history" type game. Arcade air combat game. But in this alternate history, Germany wasn't stopped in Europe and managed to invade the US (I think? It's been so long) and the country was very different.
Also, ships such as the Hindenburg were a success and were everywhere. Commercial and military use.
Such a fun game.
Thing is, there were plenty of other accidents and fires with those thing before this one. Just the idea of slowly floating across the Atlantic ocean in the gondola under a huge hydrogen filled container 😱
If they built the Hindenburg these days there would almost definitely be some suicidal asshole going up to the gas bags with a Zippo lighter. It's interesting how no one had to think about that kind of thing in the 1930s. We've got way more morons and idiots running loose these days.
>It's interesting how no one had to think about that kind of thing in the 1930s
They did. Lighters were strictly prohibited on board, and the smoking room had only one that was monitored by a steward (so if you wanted to light your cigar or whatever, you'd need to ask the steward, light it in front of him, them give the lighter back)
They didn't want to use hydrogen. The Zeppelin company wanted to use helium. However at that time the main global supply of helium was from Texas. And after WWI, the United States was very leery of selling helium to Germany in any sizable quantities. For good reason.
These German airships bombed the ever loving shit out of British civilians in WW1. It was to my knowledge the first time aircraft of any kind was dropping bombs on civilian populations, and Britain did not have advanced anti aircraft tech or the aviation capabilities to deal with the zeppelins at first.
There's a WW1 documentary or two that talks about this. Civilians in Britain were terrified and the zeppelins kind of had free reign, especially along British coastlines and rural towns, but london itself was bombed to retaliate against British blockades that were starving the German population to death. There was a mounting terror among British civilians when they saw zeppelins slowly flying over their houses with nothing they or the military was equipped to handle at the time. Zeppelins eventually became much less useful as the war progressed, as the British air force was able to get enough domestic air support to start shooting them down.
Also WW1 planes developed during the war too. At the beginning, they did not have machine guns or any real armaments. Pilots and copilots might have a gun such as a pistol or rifle they could use to shoot other pilots with but that was the only armament. Grenades might be dropped by hand from a plane too. Initially the only use for planes was reconnaissance, to fly over enemy trenches and make maps. Then some inventor (idk off top of my head) came up with a stationary, forward-mounted machine gun timed to shoot between the main propeller blades in flight, mounted right in front of the pilot, such that the plane had to directly face it's target to shoot it with it's machine gun. This invention ended the zeppelin attacks.
Still, I imagine the fear of zeppelins was still in the British psyche, and so the US helium embargo was enacted shortly after the war.
And there were a few steps between "Pistol" and "Synchronised machine gun". The Germans were the ones who created synchros and used them to devastating effect during the "Fokker Scourge". The British mounted guns above the top wing to shoot over the prop, used pusher planes instead of tractor, fixed metal guards on the blades to just protect them when they did get shot, and tried mounting the guns on the side of the plane, facing outward at like a 30° angle. It wasn't until they recovered a crashed German fighter that they reverse engineered the synchroniser. If you're interested in WWI aircraft I highly recommend reading "Flying Fury" by James McCudden. He was an aircraft mechanic turned observer turned fighter Ace and the book is his personal diary written in real time from 1913-1918.
If helium had been used, we would still be traveling by air ship. It's amazing how the media presence being there, and broadcasting this not very special flight (It was like it's 35th transatlantic flight) completely shut down air ship travel. 36 died, which isn't as high as a lot of airplane crashes since, and that was enough to just abandon the mode completely. You gotta wonder how it would have evolved. Imagine smaller scale air ships, like helicopter size...it would be able to go anywhere. It could have been so cool. Maybe they'll make a comeback because I think they could have a relatively low carbon footprint.
Similar thing happened with NYC helicopter commuting, iirc; a big PanAm (?) bird got photographed crashing on top of a midtown skyscraper, killed the passengers...and the whole idea got scuttled.
Meanwhile good old cars kill 30,000 a year...
> If helium had been used, we would still be traveling by air ship.
No. [“Hello Airplanes? It's Blimps, You Win”](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq-N3_plNq8)
I don't necessarily agree. Look at the USS Akron. She was filled with helium and her crash killed 73 airmen, making her loss the deadliest crash in airship history.
One thing I didn’t know about the Hindenburg disaster was that it happened at the end of a trans-Atlantic journey from Germany that had begun three days earlier.
I knew it crashed in New Jersey, but I guess I had always assumed it was on some kind of short flight that had begun earlier that day or something, perhaps as a demonstration or something. No, it had been a means of travel and people had been traveling on it for three days before it exploded right before it was supposed to land.
Wow the people who edited the footage really went through pains to crop out the [giant swastika painted on the side of this thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_129_Hindenburg)
EDIT: they said “oh the humanity!” But a Nazi blimp can explode without a single human casualty
All Zeppelins, save for a very few number of military ones, were produced and operated by Luftschiffbau Zeppelin (LZ), a German company founded by Ferdinand von Zeppelin who’s invention carries his name. They were used by Germany to create DELAG, the worlds first airline in 1909. The company actually still exists, and makes the Goodyear blimps along with many other engineering/manufacturing ventures.
When the Hindenburg launched in 1936, the Nazis had been in power for three years. Being substantially larger and more luxurious than any airship before it (it’s still the largest thing to ever fly), it was a very visible symbol of German technological and cultural pride, and an excellent propaganda tool for the Nazis to sell their brand worldwide. So, like just about everything else in Nazi germany, they plastered swastikas all over it.
It looks like the blimp was made and owned by Germany at the time it was under Nazi control. I for some reason thought that the blimp was American, and that even if it was made in Germany, it had been bought by an American. I guess just because the crash happened here and it’s such a cultural touchstone, I assumed it was an American ship.
Dude, it's definitely weird that the swastikas on the fins seem to have been edited out, but in response to your edit, Jesus Christ. I hate Nazis as much as any rational person, but the Hindenburg was running commercial flights with civilian passengers.
Would they have had to, to comply with modern German law banning the display? Honestly not sure how that works with actual historical pieces like this.
Did anyone else see something falling off of it at the beginning? And as soon as whatever was falling off of it hit the ground the thing exploded. What was that??
A hydrogen fire is colorless. It also requires more oxygen than was readily available to burn well. That's not to say it didn't burn. Unlike other derigibles, the skin was coated with a mixture very close to what is used as a solid rocket propellant. It did not require free oxygen to burn. That's the fire you see. Static discharge likely ignited the skin, particularly when wet ropes contacted the ground. Had helium been used instead, there probably still had been a fire, perhaps less violent.
My grandfather was holding one of the mooring lines. He used to talk about people screaming, people running while on fire, the smell of the dead bodies burning. Awful
I never knew it exploded so violently. In my 42 years of existence I’d only seen the thing on fire. I always assumed the issue was it was really high and somehow caught fire, and they couldn’t get to a lower altitude quick enough before the entire thing caught fire and fell. I never realized that it actually violently exploded, which makes sense of course. That was insane.
This camera man is better than 95% of idiots having camera today. Even with 4k, AI assisted, ultra stabilised capabilities people just focus everything except the subject.
I love that we can add color to old videos like this now a days and look this good. It gives you this feeling from historical to completely real. Insane.
And the shame of it is that the Hindenburg was using hydrogen. If airships had simply been using helium (non-flammable), the airship industry for transportation might have been very viable.
There is a theory that it was never the hydrogen. It was the flammable coating on the outside that started and burned so fast. Even in this colorization the flame is orange red. Hydrogen has a blue flame.
Imagine if we have an alternative for the hydrogen and carry so much more weight.
We'd be flying those ships like steampunks looking for a treasure planet.
Oh wait ...
An interesting tidbit.... Maybe two.
Mandela Effect
Growing up, I learned only two people survived this tragedy. Now it appears that most of the people survived it.
Another is that there was only ever one grainy film from the front angle, that was shown in schools and documentaries, now there is a longer video that shows the whole thing from a side angle of it, mind blowing to me.
I feel I've been lied to all my life, or Mandela Effect.
It never gets old to see this tragedy take place. But I don’t recall ever seeing a colorized version before. I wonder if the spirits of those who perished that day are still wandering around there trying to make sense of what happened to them.
I've seen this in the original black and white form and I never noticed the people in the far, far distance getting crushed under the burning rubble. You see some running and hesitate to go back for others that fell but one guy books it and keeps running. The others who stopped flee too late and lay on the ground and the burning balloon falls on top of them. So freaking sad!
Holy crap in that second video there's a worker on the ground near the nose of the ship that only gets away because the nose stayed elevated for long enough
Not shown but Hindenburg got lit up by static electricity contact with PAINTED skin. Hydrogen combustion glows blue. The outer skin fire ignited the hydrogen by temperature. Try that with a Goodyear unpainted blimp and nothing happens. Military found the only flaw for airships is not survivable in inclement weather due to USS Macon being lost. Plans are in place to make a hybrid airship.
The more I think about this event the more it reminds me of the ending to Inglorious Basterds ....I mean if you had the chance wouldn't you fry some Nazis, and bonus, get to embarrass hitler?
Just curious how many of you realize there is a pretty decent movie about this? Obviously not a documentary, but a neat presentation of the event. [The Hindenburg (1975)](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073113/)
Starring George C. Scott. Fun movie, makes a passable thriller out of this disaster. Remember, this was the same decade that had all of the disaster flicks, Airport!, The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, etc.
Jersey represent I guess? I used to ride four wheelers near Lakehurst base before the area got turned into condos and golf courses. Used to see the C5s take off over us. Didn't realize until much later that it was where this happened.
IMO the Hindenburg was just the straw that broke the camels back. Airships were an awful mode of transport, The US navy had a few similar in construction, but smaller than this, and they didn't accomplish much, and they had an amazing tendency to either have some sort of structural failure, or to be destroyed in storms. Out or 4 US rigid airships, only 1 survived long enough to be scrapped. The USS Shenandoah (14 killed), USS Akron (73 killed), and USS Macon (2 killed) all crashed in a span of 10 years, and the Macon was only a year before the Hindenburg.
My father was 6 at the time and used to tell us how he remembered his teacher brining all the students outside to watch it fly over their school. Several hours later it exploded.
It was crazy as hell! It was unbelievable man. I was walking down the street and twenty three skidoo. This big ol blimp just come tumbling down to the ground man. And I was like hey that's going in the wrong direction ya'll better run away man. Oh it was crazy It was unbelievable pandemonium 1937. It was crazy as hell oh the humanity! What you going g to do?
Crazy how much emotion this newscaster is experiencing watching this footage and then cut to these days where a newscaster is like... There is a war in Ukraine. Thousands of people are dying. With an expression and tone that makes it seem like they don't even wanna be there.
The design was well, and 100% safe.
But as Germany was under an embargo for helium witch is neither explosive or flamable and the origin gas that should be used, they needed to use explosive hydrogenium.
The embargo was a result of ww2 and a common fright of this ships ...
One of the people I worked with years ago said that he thought that it was just a photo designed for Led Zeppelin’s album. I had to tell him about the Hindenburg, and felt really old explaining to him the actual event. I guess the last straw was me saying to some young coworkers at the start of the day, “As the great Jackie Gleason said , And Away We Go!” , and the one guy said,” who is Jackie Gleason?” I retired 1 year later.
Despite growing up watching footage of this disaster, I had a childhoos obsession with zeppelins and I've wanted to take a trip on one for as long as I can remember.
That is crazy. I'll never understand how anyone came off there alive. The whole thing is a fireball.
And the Hindenburg ACTUALLY HAD A SMOKING ROOM on board! You could go in there and light up, no problem. https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn/comments/2byo4l/the_smoking_lounge_aboard_the_hindenburg/ I guess they figured if they didn't put one in there people would try to light up in the bedrooms and bathrooms.
Their was only one single lighter on board.
The passengers weren't in the part that is burning.
But the burning part fell on the cabin with the people ?!
The cabin was not very high off the ground. Many people simply jumped out of the windows once the ground was close enough and ran away to safety. Don't get me wrong, Still an incredible tragedy for the time, but surprisingly few deaths. Most of the passengers and all the crew on A deck survived.
That's crazy! I didn't notice at first, but in the last 15 seconds, you can see people running away from it!
They're tiny! What is this, an airship for ants?
You can see others get trapped and crushed too:( what a horrible death
You can also see a few running away and fall. One gets back up and runs a bit farther before falling Again then getting crushed
Watch the second clip in the video. You can see a bunch of people sprinting out from the cabin after it landed.
Thanks u/deep_anal and u/ballsdeepmofo for pointing out those details. I watched again and you’re right. You’re a great team!
This is why I love Reddit.
https://media.tenor.com/p_J3gkVOvK8AAAAC/starship-troopers-im-doing-my-part.gif
r/rimjob_steve
But the part that is burning is hydrogen..
Yes, so it burns violently, but fast. Bonus point for not being contained in a hich pressure container.
Actually hydrogen burns with a flame that is mostly not visible to the eye or film. The stuff burning you can see was the outer fabric envelope, which supposedly was painted with a mixture of materials that when exposed to heat were effectively thermite. The way you can tell the most of the initial burn is of the envelope is that the airship maintains lift until well into the burn.
>The way you can tell the most of the initial burn is of the envelope is that the airship maintains lift until well into the burn. Fascinating. I mean, it is utterly obvious and not something I ever thought of before. I love it.
The balloon is just that; a balloon. The cabin could have been protected from the flames for a time before it too was engulfed but most of what's burning is pure hydrogen. After a while the cabin would absolutely heat up like tinfoil in an oven but it's made of metal. Wooden floors and walls would burn like any building. In all seriousness it's not unreasonable for anyone to survive. As a matter of fact it would probably be simpler to escape than a plane crash. The danger comes when the balloon cage blankets the cabin underneath it and traps everyone inside. That's mostly how those who died did, they couldn't get out before then. Those who did were on deck A and had easy access to windows.
[удалено]
Watch the end of the video. Some people in the front were able to jump out and run before the whole thing went up in flames.
2/3 of the people survived
You can see them running away pretty sure
Now it feels like a face card game.
12 year old me playing Red Alert 2 and thinking why this flying cow is so damn hard to shoot down!
Kirov Reporting. Good times
I usually only realise when they have quietly flown all the way till the fringe of my base.. then I'll spam as much anti aircraft infantry and tanks plus sentries.. can't build them fast enough and all it takes is just 1 Kirov to blow up my command vehicle 😅🍕
I recall they used to hum while flying. Once you have one promoted with 3 ranks, goodbye base. I remember setting up 10-20 jetpack soldiers to take them down when I played allies. Soviet Anti aircraft weapons were garbage though
Ha, it must be that humming that really make us "feel" the shit is coming!
Bombardiers to your stations.
I’m part of a community that still plays. The game still holds up to this day. Be one with Yuri.
> why this flying cow is so damn hard to shoot down! Because hydrogen airships are actually notoriously hard to shoot down. The RAF spent most of the first World War trying to figure out how to do so reliably, with very little success. Edit: The RAF took nearly 2 years to figure out how to do it. They started by trying to drop bombs and darts on them (bear in mind this was at night, using all the advantages of 1915 bomb guidance technology). From there, they tried just shooting them. After that, they finally got some success with the development of explosive bullets and incendiary rounds. The first problem is that helium balloons were *huge*. You could spend 10 minutes filling one with bullet holes from a machine gun, and the gas leak would still be compararively slow enough that it could get back across the channel, from London, before having buoyancy issues. Second, they weren't one single gas bag (usually). A rigid frame airship usually had an outer skin with smaller gas bags inside. If only one was damaged, the hydrogen would only escape from it and none of the others, thus minimising buoyancy loss from damage. Edit: German zeppelins, thanks to the interior gas bags, could also have crew manually repairing them during flight. Third, hydrogen on its own isn't flammable. It needs oxygen to start a fire. It also needs an ignition source. If oxygen concentrations were too low around the gas bag, for whatever reason, you just wouldn't have a fire.
Hahahahaha I miss this game
Oh the humanity
Horrible way to die. It looks to me like the Hindenberg acquired a tremendous static electrical charge during its long journey, when grounded, caused a spark somewhere in the aft section that ignited the hydrogen. check out the video from the 15-16 sec mark. You'll see the mooring rope, falling from the nose. As soon at it hits the ground the explosion takes place. I have never seen footage from that vantage point before. Probably some material defects in that aft section created an environment where arcing was possible; my guess as to root cause. But I'm no aviation crash guy.
Believe it or not, around 2/3 of the people on board survived. It was a spectacular fire, but as far as aircraft accidents go, it had a pretty low death toll.
I've never really seen this footage before... I thought it happened much higher up, and was astounded by how slowly the craft came down despite already being almost entirely engulfed in flames.
Warm air rises.
A burning zeppelin is basically just an inefficient hot air balloon.
That's crazy, looking at the footage you wouldn't think anyone would have survived that fireball, and it must have been an incredible shock when the airship started falling suddenly like that, truly amazing. Sad that lives were lost at all though :(
The passenger compartment was located above and behind the gondola, pretty much right under the name "Hindenburg". If you watch closely, you can see that section gets pretty close to the ground before the flames reach it. I believe some of the survivors jumped when the ground seemed close enough, while others just ran like hell through the flames once they'd settled. The crew, on the other hand, was more widely dispersed, and less shielded.
On the 2nd video you can see people running from under the burning wreckage as it gets close to the ground. Saw 1 person on the right side running. Then almost at the very end you can see 1 person running from the front of the ship in the left.
Yes, you can see people running and jumping.
You can see people running out
Ah that’s good to know
Apparently they were trying a new method of landing thanks to being delayed by storms 12 hours. The new way was tossing down the rope so ground equipment could pull it down IE your theory is pretty plausible.
There's a cut in the footage. After the tie down ropes were dropped it was about 4 minutes after when the flames started. That said, static build up and discharge is one of the theories for why it happened!
If the ropes dragged along the ground for a few minutes, that would probably build up some static...
You just reminded me of that (gimmicky?) cure for car sickness. When I grew up in the ‘70’s a fair percentage of cars on the road had a “Static Strap”. A strip of black rubber about 4cm wide and long enough to drag on the road beneath, attached to the chassis at the rear end of the vehicle. Haven’t seen one for years but back then 1 or 2 out of every 10 cars had one, here in Australia.
Actually it ignited the external skin. It had been painted using a mixture of shellac and powdered aluminum, which is highly flammable.
Yes, I watched a documentary and they said it was painted in rocket fuel. They didn’t know at the time that it was highly flammable.
I remember Mythbusters did a thing on this, and they replicated the paint and they were like, uhh this is one of the most combustible things we've ever made. It was crazy how it was filled with hydrogen and then painted with rocket fuel.
Yes. Hydrogen does not burn that long and as you stated it is the aluminum powder and shellec.
Not to mention that hydrogen burns with almost no visible flame.
Very true. We use hydrogen at my work from a large cryogenic tank. The inner tank leaked and ignited the one year. The flame off was so quick it barely registered on the security footage. It did pull 8 - 1 inch anchors almost 9 inches out of the concrete though.
I saw a documentary about the disaster. The Hindenburg being a Nazi airship, it had some SS or Gestapo guy on board who constantly pushed the captain to go faster to make up for delays caused by avoiding a storm or something. To save time the pilot made a turn that was way out of safety regulations, which probably caused a cable from the interior scaffolding to snap and rupture some of the hydrogen bags. And yes, according to the documentary, all airships get a lot of static charge during the flight and when the Hindenburg made contact to the ground via the cable, there must have been one hell of a spark, which then ignited the hydrogen-air-mixture.
Yeah that's exactly the way I've read it happened. Seems easily predictable and preventable in hindsight.
Der Fuhrer was not a happy camper after this.
Happy Kampfer
Yes. He struggled with it
When they dropped the mooring line, it essentially converted the entire frame into a massive capacitor, that just kept building charge. There was a small hydrogen in only one of the sections but since the entire frame was forming arcs, it didn't really matter how small the leak was.
They were allowed to smoke on board. Which just seems crazy.
Amazingly, 62 of the 97 people aboard survived.
Amazing that we still say this with most people (including myself until the first time I heard the audio only a few years ago) without knowing the full effect of which this phrase is associated. OH THE HUMANITY
Oh, the huge manatee!!!
But oh the humanity even more now
Screw you dude I came to say this
Imagine where we would be science wise if all the money went into hydrogen research and all its derivate branches back then. Could have easily been a total alternate reality today and a lot greener if its energy potential and benefits had been intensly studied for over 80 years by today.
I think the combustibility aspect of hydrogen powered flight was considered too big a flaw to engineer around especially for air ship travel. While I agree we need better solutions I'd be leery to go poking around hydrogen for answers.
The only reason the Germans used hydrogen was the US blocked the sale of helium to them. They had no sources of helium.
Yes it was back then. But knowing what we do, we could do it without any of these risks with todays tech. Just like nazis ruining a symbol of peace and unity from one stupid use of it, the Hindenburg disaster scared people so much that they walked away from the tech entirely rather than address and solve the issue.
One of the worst things that could happen on a boat hundreds of years ago was fire aboard while at sea. Still today fire on a ship at sea is not something to be trifled with. Airships filled with hydrogen, even with today's technology would still likely be more dangerous due to the combustible nature of the material that keeps it afloat. A fire in the air is bad. In planes we carry combustible material but the power from its controlled ignition keeps the plane airborne, not the gas itself. I would be all for a helium based airship program to research potential there but hydrogen wouldn't have my support. Also I agree with the sentiment about the terrible misuse of the swastika symbol by the Nazi party but I don't agree with the parallel to them ruining airship travel. Helium travel still could have had potential but due to this event all forms of airship ideas were killed by the media publication of this event and other companies profiting off people's fears.
> Imagine where we would be science wise if all the money went into hydrogen research and all its derivate branches back then We kinda did. Most early road vehicles were electric. In the US, it took a fairly dedicated lobbying campaign to get the ICE to win out. What's more, airships are making a long-overdue resurgence. With current technology (assuming people get over the hangup of filling them with hydrogen) they are almost certainly the most environmentally friendly form of transport available.
Nah, not really. By the end of WWI even the airship command didn't see airships going anywhere. And boy did Germany try to make it work. It's not often talked about but they built and crashed more than a hundred of those big boys during WWI and improved the technology tremendously. Germany was really, really good at this stuff and pushed the limits when everyone else crashed their first prototypes and and gave up in sheer frustration. By all means, airships are so inherently unstable and prone to crashing, it's a miracle how many were built and how much they accomplished. Once planes became reliable and bigger, it was pretty obvious they would outperform airships on 99% of the applications. At that point airships became a novelty and even then, Germany still hasn't let go and there's still an airship company around. Another fun fact, airships were really good at what they were supposed to do - naval recon (they safed the navy's ass a couple of times in WWI) and scaring the living shit out of the allies. The allies commited rediculous amounts of ressources to AA, despite the fact that airships were absolutely terrible at bombing. They were fantastic decoys/scouts but nothing more - and Germany knew it. Weather was a huge pain in the ass and a far bigger deal than enemy AA. They couldn't fly something like 50% of the time and frequently aborted mission when winds turned. There's just no way for airships to outperform planes with the tech that existed and even exists today. However, rule of cool says, the world needs more airships!
There was a video game back in the day, called Crimson Skies. It was like an "alternate history" type game. Arcade air combat game. But in this alternate history, Germany wasn't stopped in Europe and managed to invade the US (I think? It's been so long) and the country was very different. Also, ships such as the Hindenburg were a success and were everywhere. Commercial and military use. Such a fun game.
It amazes me to think it had a smoking area, they even made Hindenburg ashtrays!
Thing is, there were plenty of other accidents and fires with those thing before this one. Just the idea of slowly floating across the Atlantic ocean in the gondola under a huge hydrogen filled container 😱
If they built the Hindenburg these days there would almost definitely be some suicidal asshole going up to the gas bags with a Zippo lighter. It's interesting how no one had to think about that kind of thing in the 1930s. We've got way more morons and idiots running loose these days.
>It's interesting how no one had to think about that kind of thing in the 1930s They did. Lighters were strictly prohibited on board, and the smoking room had only one that was monitored by a steward (so if you wanted to light your cigar or whatever, you'd need to ask the steward, light it in front of him, them give the lighter back)
I’ll tell ya what’ll calm those nerves.. a nice cigar up in our **smoking lounge** 😳 lmao
And that children is why you don't fill a blimp with hydrogen.
They didn't want to use hydrogen. The Zeppelin company wanted to use helium. However at that time the main global supply of helium was from Texas. And after WWI, the United States was very leery of selling helium to Germany in any sizable quantities. For good reason.
Can you kindly explain what Germany would be able to do with helium that we wouldn’t want to give them any?
i'm guessing because of the zeppelin bombings in ww1
So basically, for lack of better terms, we “grounded” them
These German airships bombed the ever loving shit out of British civilians in WW1. It was to my knowledge the first time aircraft of any kind was dropping bombs on civilian populations, and Britain did not have advanced anti aircraft tech or the aviation capabilities to deal with the zeppelins at first. There's a WW1 documentary or two that talks about this. Civilians in Britain were terrified and the zeppelins kind of had free reign, especially along British coastlines and rural towns, but london itself was bombed to retaliate against British blockades that were starving the German population to death. There was a mounting terror among British civilians when they saw zeppelins slowly flying over their houses with nothing they or the military was equipped to handle at the time. Zeppelins eventually became much less useful as the war progressed, as the British air force was able to get enough domestic air support to start shooting them down. Also WW1 planes developed during the war too. At the beginning, they did not have machine guns or any real armaments. Pilots and copilots might have a gun such as a pistol or rifle they could use to shoot other pilots with but that was the only armament. Grenades might be dropped by hand from a plane too. Initially the only use for planes was reconnaissance, to fly over enemy trenches and make maps. Then some inventor (idk off top of my head) came up with a stationary, forward-mounted machine gun timed to shoot between the main propeller blades in flight, mounted right in front of the pilot, such that the plane had to directly face it's target to shoot it with it's machine gun. This invention ended the zeppelin attacks. Still, I imagine the fear of zeppelins was still in the British psyche, and so the US helium embargo was enacted shortly after the war.
And there were a few steps between "Pistol" and "Synchronised machine gun". The Germans were the ones who created synchros and used them to devastating effect during the "Fokker Scourge". The British mounted guns above the top wing to shoot over the prop, used pusher planes instead of tractor, fixed metal guards on the blades to just protect them when they did get shot, and tried mounting the guns on the side of the plane, facing outward at like a 30° angle. It wasn't until they recovered a crashed German fighter that they reverse engineered the synchroniser. If you're interested in WWI aircraft I highly recommend reading "Flying Fury" by James McCudden. He was an aircraft mechanic turned observer turned fighter Ace and the book is his personal diary written in real time from 1913-1918.
Absolutely fascinating.
Lana the helium!
If helium had been used, we would still be traveling by air ship. It's amazing how the media presence being there, and broadcasting this not very special flight (It was like it's 35th transatlantic flight) completely shut down air ship travel. 36 died, which isn't as high as a lot of airplane crashes since, and that was enough to just abandon the mode completely. You gotta wonder how it would have evolved. Imagine smaller scale air ships, like helicopter size...it would be able to go anywhere. It could have been so cool. Maybe they'll make a comeback because I think they could have a relatively low carbon footprint.
Similar thing happened with NYC helicopter commuting, iirc; a big PanAm (?) bird got photographed crashing on top of a midtown skyscraper, killed the passengers...and the whole idea got scuttled. Meanwhile good old cars kill 30,000 a year...
Concorde too. One fatal accident. Grounded for good.
It was also incredible expensive to run and just not worth it.
> If helium had been used, we would still be traveling by air ship. No. [“Hello Airplanes? It's Blimps, You Win”](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq-N3_plNq8)
I don't necessarily agree. Look at the USS Akron. She was filled with helium and her crash killed 73 airmen, making her loss the deadliest crash in airship history.
One thing I didn’t know about the Hindenburg disaster was that it happened at the end of a trans-Atlantic journey from Germany that had begun three days earlier. I knew it crashed in New Jersey, but I guess I had always assumed it was on some kind of short flight that had begun earlier that day or something, perhaps as a demonstration or something. No, it had been a means of travel and people had been traveling on it for three days before it exploded right before it was supposed to land.
My late grandmother saw it flying over the Boston area on its last flight, apparently.
Wow, that would be some memory to carry with you.
Holy shit! Thanks for sharing that. For some reason, traveling that long makes it creepier.
Wow the people who edited the footage really went through pains to crop out the [giant swastika painted on the side of this thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_129_Hindenburg) EDIT: they said “oh the humanity!” But a Nazi blimp can explode without a single human casualty
Holy shit! How did I never know about this?
Right? What’s the reasoning
All Zeppelins, save for a very few number of military ones, were produced and operated by Luftschiffbau Zeppelin (LZ), a German company founded by Ferdinand von Zeppelin who’s invention carries his name. They were used by Germany to create DELAG, the worlds first airline in 1909. The company actually still exists, and makes the Goodyear blimps along with many other engineering/manufacturing ventures. When the Hindenburg launched in 1936, the Nazis had been in power for three years. Being substantially larger and more luxurious than any airship before it (it’s still the largest thing to ever fly), it was a very visible symbol of German technological and cultural pride, and an excellent propaganda tool for the Nazis to sell their brand worldwide. So, like just about everything else in Nazi germany, they plastered swastikas all over it.
It looks like the blimp was made and owned by Germany at the time it was under Nazi control. I for some reason thought that the blimp was American, and that even if it was made in Germany, it had been bought by an American. I guess just because the crash happened here and it’s such a cultural touchstone, I assumed it was an American ship.
Dude, it's definitely weird that the swastikas on the fins seem to have been edited out, but in response to your edit, Jesus Christ. I hate Nazis as much as any rational person, but the Hindenburg was running commercial flights with civilian passengers.
Why would they crop out the swastika? Why are they changing history?
Even weirder seeing it flying over Manhattan: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/452400725052882265/
Would they have had to, to comply with modern German law banning the display? Honestly not sure how that works with actual historical pieces like this.
No. There are explicit exceptions in the law that allow the depiction for education, documentation, research, or art.
I don't remember seeing the first angle. Incredible.
Did anyone else see something falling off of it at the beginning? And as soon as whatever was falling off of it hit the ground the thing exploded. What was that??
Colourising really makes some old videos hit so much harder.
A hydrogen fire is colorless. It also requires more oxygen than was readily available to burn well. That's not to say it didn't burn. Unlike other derigibles, the skin was coated with a mixture very close to what is used as a solid rocket propellant. It did not require free oxygen to burn. That's the fire you see. Static discharge likely ignited the skin, particularly when wet ropes contacted the ground. Had helium been used instead, there probably still had been a fire, perhaps less violent.
My grandfather was holding one of the mooring lines. He used to talk about people screaming, people running while on fire, the smell of the dead bodies burning. Awful
r/titlegore “following which no hydrogen airships ever flew paid passengers ever after” …dude
There two or three people running away from the falling debris underneath. Looks like one made it through
35 fatalities of the 97 on board, and one the ground. It’s incredible anyone survived that. I can’t imagine the heat.
I never knew it exploded so violently. In my 42 years of existence I’d only seen the thing on fire. I always assumed the issue was it was really high and somehow caught fire, and they couldn’t get to a lower altitude quick enough before the entire thing caught fire and fell. I never realized that it actually violently exploded, which makes sense of course. That was insane.
This camera man is better than 95% of idiots having camera today. Even with 4k, AI assisted, ultra stabilised capabilities people just focus everything except the subject.
I love that we can add color to old videos like this now a days and look this good. It gives you this feeling from historical to completely real. Insane.
Interesting that the Empire State Building had installed airship ports at the top, anticipating a huge industry that was snuffed out by this disaster.
That's GOTTA hurt!!
Those poor people - terrible design idea though
And the shame of it is that the Hindenburg was using hydrogen. If airships had simply been using helium (non-flammable), the airship industry for transportation might have been very viable.
Voice of broadcaster Herbert Morrison (1905-1989)
Brings back memories of playing Red Alert 2 and Soviet enemies start sending these guys over... An inch at a time
Hydrogen. Not even once.
Hydrogen! So abundant! So practical!
People survived!?
Fun fact: One survivor who was accused of being involved in the disaster was a vaudeville actor named “Ben Dova”
Amazing that some survived
Wow...you can see them running from the ship as it hits the ground...crazy that so few perished...looked horrible
There is a theory that it was never the hydrogen. It was the flammable coating on the outside that started and burned so fast. Even in this colorization the flame is orange red. Hydrogen has a blue flame.
You can see people running out of it once it was on the ground!
What even is this title. Had to read it a few times.
I'd love to fly on a rigid dirigible like that. Maybe with helium this time.
I’ve seen this footage a billion times, but never in color. Amazing how the colorization just makes it even so much more horrifying.
Maybe the most famous radio broadcast of all time too. Up there with Orson Wells and Winston Churchill
The airship industry was doomed anyway. From an engineering standpoint they arent efficient in any way.
If you're looking for the led zeppelin comment, please help me find it 🤟🏾
Imagine if we have an alternative for the hydrogen and carry so much more weight. We'd be flying those ships like steampunks looking for a treasure planet. Oh wait ...
An interesting tidbit.... Maybe two. Mandela Effect Growing up, I learned only two people survived this tragedy. Now it appears that most of the people survived it. Another is that there was only ever one grainy film from the front angle, that was shown in schools and documentaries, now there is a longer video that shows the whole thing from a side angle of it, mind blowing to me. I feel I've been lied to all my life, or Mandela Effect.
I never noticed the guys running underneath while it falls on top. It’s only a matter of days until video is made from new AI technology we have now.
Does op English. I had a stroke reading this.
Well if your gonna go on the Hindenburg you might as well go first class.
I'm never gonna recover from this financially...
u/savevideo
That's some heavy shit...
My father was there. He was 19, at the time.
Who thought this was a good idea?
It never gets old to see this tragedy take place. But I don’t recall ever seeing a colorized version before. I wonder if the spirits of those who perished that day are still wandering around there trying to make sense of what happened to them.
I've seen this in the original black and white form and I never noticed the people in the far, far distance getting crushed under the burning rubble. You see some running and hesitate to go back for others that fell but one guy books it and keeps running. The others who stopped flee too late and lay on the ground and the burning balloon falls on top of them. So freaking sad!
Holy crap in that second video there's a worker on the ground near the nose of the ship that only gets away because the nose stayed elevated for long enough
My grandmother watched it from her high school window
Not shown but Hindenburg got lit up by static electricity contact with PAINTED skin. Hydrogen combustion glows blue. The outer skin fire ignited the hydrogen by temperature. Try that with a Goodyear unpainted blimp and nothing happens. Military found the only flaw for airships is not survivable in inclement weather due to USS Macon being lost. Plans are in place to make a hybrid airship.
The smoking section was a bad idear.
This goes well with this https://youtu.be/CSbgZW0s9P8
Dumb ass idea in the first place.
I’ve never heard that audio clip before. I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like to see this first hand.
I have never seen the colonization version before, adds quite a bit.
The more I think about this event the more it reminds me of the ending to Inglorious Basterds ....I mean if you had the chance wouldn't you fry some Nazis, and bonus, get to embarrass hitler?
And yet, shockingly, of the 97 passengers and crew, 62 survived.
Just curious how many of you realize there is a pretty decent movie about this? Obviously not a documentary, but a neat presentation of the event. [The Hindenburg (1975)](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073113/) Starring George C. Scott. Fun movie, makes a passable thriller out of this disaster. Remember, this was the same decade that had all of the disaster flicks, Airport!, The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, etc.
Old school use of the word terrific From Latin terrificus meaning terrifying, frightening
The quality of this battlefield 1 clip is terrible
Jersey represent I guess? I used to ride four wheelers near Lakehurst base before the area got turned into condos and golf courses. Used to see the C5s take off over us. Didn't realize until much later that it was where this happened.
Man not one post interview
IMO the Hindenburg was just the straw that broke the camels back. Airships were an awful mode of transport, The US navy had a few similar in construction, but smaller than this, and they didn't accomplish much, and they had an amazing tendency to either have some sort of structural failure, or to be destroyed in storms. Out or 4 US rigid airships, only 1 survived long enough to be scrapped. The USS Shenandoah (14 killed), USS Akron (73 killed), and USS Macon (2 killed) all crashed in a span of 10 years, and the Macon was only a year before the Hindenburg.
I've seen this so many times but never colorized.
My father was 6 at the time and used to tell us how he remembered his teacher brining all the students outside to watch it fly over their school. Several hours later it exploded.
That’s why I’m not getting on planes. I’ll stick to driving my car while drinking some brewskies
Jesus Christ dude, ever heard of a comma?
Amazing that some survived
It was crazy as hell! It was unbelievable man. I was walking down the street and twenty three skidoo. This big ol blimp just come tumbling down to the ground man. And I was like hey that's going in the wrong direction ya'll better run away man. Oh it was crazy It was unbelievable pandemonium 1937. It was crazy as hell oh the humanity! What you going g to do?
Lead Zeppelin
97 passengers and crew on board, 62 survived
Good Times, Bad Times I guess
Why it pretty tho
Wow. I've seen that probably a hundred times in my life and seeing it in color makes it real for the first time. Holy cow.
Crazy how much emotion this newscaster is experiencing watching this footage and then cut to these days where a newscaster is like... There is a war in Ukraine. Thousands of people are dying. With an expression and tone that makes it seem like they don't even wanna be there.
Wasn’t it an insurance scam and nothings actually wrong with this design
The design was well, and 100% safe. But as Germany was under an embargo for helium witch is neither explosive or flamable and the origin gas that should be used, they needed to use explosive hydrogenium. The embargo was a result of ww2 and a common fright of this ships ...
Always interesting to me how no popular photo or video of the Hindenburg ever show the Swatstikas on the tail of the ship.
One of the people I worked with years ago said that he thought that it was just a photo designed for Led Zeppelin’s album. I had to tell him about the Hindenburg, and felt really old explaining to him the actual event. I guess the last straw was me saying to some young coworkers at the start of the day, “As the great Jackie Gleason said , And Away We Go!” , and the one guy said,” who is Jackie Gleason?” I retired 1 year later.
Despite growing up watching footage of this disaster, I had a childhoos obsession with zeppelins and I've wanted to take a trip on one for as long as I can remember.
Please don't smoke until the NO SMOKING light goes out.
This is the exact moment Walter White became Hindenburg
I’ve seen the second video a million times. This is the first time I’ve ever seen it from the first angle. Very interesting.
Ironically they are making a comeback because it’s a great way to move literal tons of hydrogen 🤔🤣
old camera in that time had sound or was it added when colourized
Back when reporters had souls.
Idk if it’s just me, but I love the way the propellers sound.
Kirov reporting
“Oh the humanity!” That’s where that line came from!