In May 1937, the Hindenburg suddenly burst into flames, killing thirty-five and the dream of commercial airship travel.
“Oh, the humanity and all the passengers screaming around here. I told you, I can’t even talk to people whose friends are on there. Ah! It’s–it’s–it’s–it’s … o–ohhh! I–I can’t talk, ladies and gentlemen. Honest, it’s just laying there, a mass of smoking wreckage. Ah! And everybody can hardly breathe and talk, and the screaming. Lady, I–I’m sorry. Honest: I–I can hardly breathe.”
Thus goes one of the most famous radio broadcasts of all time, though typically shortened in pop culture references to simply “Oh, the humanity!” (like The National Interest’s David Axe did, for instance, in his November 23, 2020, article) Those agonized words were uttered by radio broadcaster Herbert Oglevee Morrison as he gave a real-time narration of the catastrophic fire that destroyed Nazi German airship LZ 129, better known as simply the Hindenburg, eighty-eight years ago today, on May 6, 1937.
In addition to claiming thirty-six lives, the Hindenburg disaster essentially killed commercial airship travel. So then, can the concept(s) be revived today?
The Glory Days of Zeppelins
Zeppelins first made their first big impact—both literally and figuratively—during World War I, wherein Imperial Germany conducted fifty-six zeppelin bombing raids on the United Kingdom that ended up claiming over 500 lives. After Germany’s defeat in that war, that country’s post-Kaiser governments—both the democratic Weimar Republic and the Nazi German regime that followed it—converted the zeppelins to peaceful use as luxurious transatlantic airliners carrying mail, freight, and passengers. Among these ritzy pax-carrying blimps were the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin (which coincidentally shared its moniker with Nazi Germany’s lone ill-fated aircraft carrier) and, of course, the Hindenburg.
LZ 129 was designed between 1931 and 1936 and made its maiden flight on March 4, 1936. The star-crossed airship had the following specs:
- Crew Capacity: Forty to sixty-one persons
- Pax Capacity: Fifty to seventy
- Length: 803 feet 10 inches
- Diameter: 135 feet 1 inch
- Volume: 7,062,000 cubic feet
- Max Airspeed: 85 mph
- Cruise Speed: 76 mph, 66 knots
To put the Hindenburg’s length in perspective, the Airbus A380, which is currently the world’s largest airliner, has a fuselage length of a mere 239 feet, though the plane obviously has much greater passenger capacity.
LZ 129 made seventeen successful round trips across the Atlantic—ten to the United States and seven to Brazil—in 1936. It completed one Brazil round trip the following year, but its only U.S. flight that year would be on that fateful May day.
May 6, 1937: Disaster Strikes
The Hindenburg had embarked from the city of Friedrichshafen (the same city where the airship had been constructed) carrying thirty-six passengers and sixty-three crewmen (including twenty-one trainees) under the command of Kapitan Max Pruss.
The flight lasted ninety hours (which isn’t so miserable as it sounds when you contrast the dirigible’s onboard opulence), with the craft making its first entry into U.S. airspace over Boston. At 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Pruss initiated the star-crossed craft’s final approach toward Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey.
Twenty-five minutes later, the Hindenburg suddenly burst into flames, which quickly engulfed the zeppelin and sent it crashing to the ground. Thirteen passengers died, along with twenty-two of the in-flight crew and one of the ground crew. Tragic though those losses were, in spite of the horrific-looking conflagration, 64 percent of the pax and crew alike actually managed to survive the wreck.
What was the cause? Eighty-eight years later, we still don’t know for certain, but the most commonly accepted explanation is that the dirigible became a hotbed of static electricity after passing through a thunderstorm, thus igniting leakage of the blimp’s highly flammable hydrogen content from a leaked gas line.
Unsurprisingly, conspiracy theorists floated the idea of sabotage (not surprising when you consider the craft was a flying Nazi propaganda tool), among them author Michael M. Mooney in his 1972 book The Hindenburg, which was adapted into a 1975 Universal Studios motion picture starring George C. Scott.
Whatever the cause, the sheer volume of publicity surrounding the catastrophe severely undermined the general public’s confidence in the safety of airship travel, which in turn led to a severe decline in passenger numbers and snowballed from there into a decrease in investment in airship technology development.
Can Airships Be Made Viable Again Today?
Of course, airship travel isn’t completely dead today, as any American football fan who has watched TV footage of the game from the Goodyear blimp can attest; however, it’s pretty much a niche market. But can the industry be more fully revived today?
An April 2024 article by Aaron Spray of Simple Flying indicates there may be hope yet, listing five airships under development today:
- British Hybrid Air Vehicles Airlander 10, which can stay airborne for up to five days, carry up to 10 tons of payload, and travel up to 4,000 nautical miles; touted for potential use for luxury tourist flights over the Arctic.
- LTA Pathfinder 1, a U.S.-made proof-of-concept airship, which, at 400 feet in length, will be the world’s largest aircraft to get off the ground since the Hindenburg.
- Russian Aerosmena, envisioned with a flying saucer shape, a 600-ton cargo capacity, and a top speed of 155 mph.
- Flying Whales’ LCA60T, a French airship which is to be a 60-ton heavy-lift airship with a top speed of around 62 mph.
- H2 Clipper, a planned 150-ton payload U.S.-built airship intended as the world’s first point-to-point hydrogen delivery system.
What about military applications? The U.S. Navy actually had an airship program until 1962, in spite of the fatal crashes of the two Akron-class airships that actually predated the Hindenburg fire. The military does, in fact, use aerostats today for surveillance, but those are unmanned. The aforementioned David Axe article cites Kyle Mizokami’s advocacy of using large airships as carriers for unmanned aerial vehicles, but this hasn’t come to fruition yet.
Time will tell.
About the Author: Christian D. Orr
Christian D. Orr was previously a Senior Defense Editor for National Security Journal (NSJ) and 19FortyFive. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch, The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). If you’d like to pick his brain further, you can ofttimes find him at the Old Virginia Tobacco Company (OVTC) lounge in Manassas, Virginia, partaking of fine stogies and good quality human camaraderie.
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
