On May 6, 1937 at 19:25 the German zeppelin Hindenburg caught fire and was utterly destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock with its mooring mast at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey. 35 people were killed out of 97 aboard the vessel.
The LZ-129 Hindenburg was the largest aircraft ever. She was a brand-new all aluminium design - 245 m long, 41 m in diameter, containing 211,890 m3 of gas, with a useful lift of 112 tons, powered by four 1100 hp engines giving it a maximum speed of 135 km/hr. She could carry 72 passengers (50 transatlantic) and had a crew of 61. For aerodynamic reasons the passenger quarters were contained within the body rather than in gondolas. She was skinned in cotton, coated in cellulose varnish and then aluminium. Constructed by Luftschiffbau Zeppelin in 1935 at a cost of -L-500,000 she made her first flight in March, 1936 and completed a record double-crossing in five days, 19 hours, 51 minutes in July.
The Hindenburg was intended to be filled with helium but supply problems meant that hydrogen was the lift gas.
The disaster is remembered because of the extraordinary film, photographs and Herbert Morrison's recorded radio coverage from the landing field. Morrison's words were not broadcast until the next day.
The actual cause of the fire is unknown. A possible trigger for the explosion could be an electrostatic spark, caused by static build-up from air friction. The extreme flammable aluminum coating could have cought fire from this, resulting in a leak through which flammable hydrogen gas could escape. Hydrogen burns invisibly, so the visible flames (see photo) could be seen to prove the fire could not have been caused by the hydrogengas. This said, had the ship been filled with the chemically inert helium it could possibly have snuffed the fire before it good and well began, resulting only in a leak.