Did Anyone Survive the Explosion of the Hindenburg? Oh, the Humanity!
Did Anyone Survive the Explosion of the Hindenburg? Oh, the Humanity!
On May 6th, 1937, when the luxury German airship Hindenburg burst into flames midair, 36 people lost their lives. But it’s wrong to assume that no one survived the disaster.
When the Zeppelin Company completed the 242-ton Hindenburg in 1936, the airship had the distinction of being the largest ever made. At 804 feet long and 135 feet wide, the dirigible was approximately 4 times larger than modern Goodyear blimps and managed a top speed of more than 80 miles per hour.
On May 3, 1937, 36 passengers and a crew of 61 boarded the airship in Frankfurt, Germany, for the first transatlantic flight of the season. The craft’s landing on May 6th, three days later, at New Jersey’s Lakehurst Naval Air Station was delayed for several hours because of a storm. When weather conditions finally improved, the Hindenburg began its widely publicized and highly anticipated approach for landing.
When the zeppelin was about 200 feet above the ground, horrified onlookers noticed a small burst of flame on the ship’s upper fin. Less than 30 seconds later the flame had ignited the Hindenburg’s 7 million cubic feet of hydrogen gas. Some passengers jumped from the windows, others fell, and the rest were trapped in the burning cabin.
Herbert Morrison, reporting for a radio station WLS in Chicago, uttered the words, “Oh, the humanity!” as he watched the fiery vessel hit the ground. The recording remains one of the most famous in broadcast history.
Despite the speed at which the airship incinerated, only 35 of 97 passengers and crew onboard died in the disaster, along with one member of the 200 strong ground crew. The cause of the fire has never been explained with certainty, though it is believed to have been the result of a highly combustible varnish used to treat the fabric on the outside of the Hindenburg. Other theories have cited foreign sabotage, sparks from static electricity, and lightning strikes.
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