The Hindenburg was a luxury airship, from nazi Germany. This “Titanic of the skies” (no pun intended) was destroyed by a flash fire in 1937 while landing in New Jersey after making its 10th transatlantic crossing. Thirty-five of the 97 people aboard and one ground crew member were killed when the blimp burst into flames and was rapidly consumed by the fire. The Hindenburg was filled with hydrogen gas which is lighter than air. The gas was stored in sixteen large gas cells inside the ship. Like all gases, hydrogen expands when heated.
If the hydrogen gas in the Hindenburg were to overheat, the gas could expand enough to burst the gas cells and send the ship plummeting to earth. The Hindenburg’s engineers knew about this potential danger and came up with a solution to the problem; they painted the surface of the airship with a chemical “doping compound” that contained powdered aluminum and iron oxide. This compound was chosen because it did a good job of reflecting the rays of the sun, therefore ensuring that the gas cells inside the ship would not overheat.
There have been three main theories as to what happened to cause such a disaster. The official story has always been that the Hindenburg disaster was caused by the ignition of the flammable hydrogen gas used to lift the zeppelin. This has been over and over proven to be incorrect because witnesses of the explosion proclaim that it was like a fire works display, ummm… hydrogen burns without color…. Even pictures depicting the explosion show that the blaze from it contains pigment! The second theory is that the cause of the explosion was an electrical conductor.
The doping compound that was used to prevent the hydrogen from heating up was extremely flammable. On the night before the Hindenburg was landing their was an electrical storm, and the surface of the ship became electrically charged. Engineers had already planned for this however, they attached mooring lines, ropes, that would go down to the ground and take the static charge to the ground with them as the ship landed. There were, however, panels that remained charged. Eventually, this built-up electricity inside the remaining panels took the form of a spark.
Since the charged panels were covered with the doping compound’s highly reactive metal powders, this spark caused them to ignite and burn very rapidly. It soon heated up the airship, causing the hydrogen to expand and burst out of the gas cells. The result was one of the worst disasters of modern time. But the most common theory believed today was SABOTAGE! The Hindenburg was nazi ship flying to America during a time when tensions against Germans where high. The Hindenburg was the pride and joy of the nazis and what a better way to embarrass hitler then to have his pride and joy accidentally combust?
It is believed that either a passenger by the name of, Joseph Spah or a crew member by the name of, Erich Spehl planted a time bomb was placed along the catwalk in cell 4. If such is the case, it is assumed that loss of life was hardly the intent, with a timer being set to destroy the ship after everyone had disembarked. But the device either triggered prematurely, or the person responsible didn’t count on the ship being so late because it couldnt land in the electrical storm.
In studying the bomb theory, the Federal Bureau of Investigation considered several suspects but could find no conclusive evidence. The official statement of the United States of American was that the Hindenburg blew up when a hydrogen leak was ignited by a spark of static electricity. The German government responded with hitler saying it was an “act of God. Yet, it is clear that both countries started a cover-up: the Americans were anxious to avoid an international incident, and the Germans ordered surviving crew members to keep their testimony to a minimum.