# data[].attributes.body
Alex

Atley

Jack H.

Jacob

Eder

# data[].attributes.body
Jack C.

Eli

Kirtan

Ethan

Jeremiah

# data[].attributes.body
Maya

Shreya

Lauren

Liam

# data[].attributes.body
Maeve

Maia

Kiya

Sasha

Camille

Emi

# data[].attributes.body
Claim:

The Hindenburg disaster was most likely caused by a small electrostatic shock that lit the large quantity of hydrogen contained within the airship's large gas cells. This caused the nazi airship to crash, killing 36 of the 96 people on board. Most of the evidence for the crash was burned in the fire.

Evidence:

The most possible source of the eventual burning and crash of the Hindenburg was from a spark. There probably was a build-up of static electricity caused by friction between the exterior material of the ship and the moving outside air. Hydrogen combined with air is very flammable and the amount of energy needed to set off such a large amount of hydrogen as was in the Hindenburg is tiny.

Reasoning:

Therefore, the spark from the blimp and air contact combined with the entire blimp full of hydrogen is likely the origin of the disaster. The static discharge from a static electricity charge reacting with the flowing gas (hydrogen) causes it to ignite and explode outwards bringing the airship down. Although these are all hypotheses and no one really knows what happened to the Hindenburg, this is the most logical conclusion.

Follows, M. (2023, June 6). What ignited the Hindenburg?. RSC Education. https://edu.rsc.org/feature/what-ignited-the-hindenburg/2000137.article

# data[].attributes.body
Static electricity from atmospheric conditions (stormy weather) caused a spark to ignite the cover of the airship. After this, Hydrogen (being released to help the ship descend) fueled the fire.

Evidence: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/historys-mysteries-caltech-professor-helps-solve-hindenburg-disaster

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ7ALNkyz4o

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/80th-anniversary-hindenburg-disaster-mysteries-remain-180963107/

Explanation:

This source explains that an electrical current built up on the cover of the ship due to rainy conditions. After the ship was grounded, more electricity built up as the ropes were conductive. The cover then caught fire as it contained components found in rocket fuel. This ignition was then fueled by hydrogen being released as the ship was descending.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
History’s Mysteries: Caltech Professor Helps Solve Hindenburg Disaster

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Konstantinos Giapis delves into the science of the iconic accident for a PBS special.

# data[].attributes.body
claim:

The Hindenburg disaster was caused

because some isolated cover panels didn't drain their electricity, causing a spark from the charged cover panels to the frame. That ignited the outside fabric that was made up of iron oxide and powdered aluminum (rocket fluid).

evidence/resource:

https://www.airships.net/hindenburg/disaster/#:~:text=Almost%2080%20years%20of%20research,spark)%20that%20ignited%20leaking%20hydrogen.

https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/historys-mysteries-caltech-professor-helps-solve-hindenburg-disaster

explanation (2-5 sentences):

"The spark was most likely caused by a difference in electric potential between the airship and the surrounding air"

-airships.net

“The basic idea is that as the Hindenburg moved in the stormy atmosphere, its skin built up a static charge.”

- Caltech university

In conclusion after the ship's initial ignition, the fire started to spread to the tail end of the ship. The heat caused the hydrogen in cell 1 and 2 to heat and blow up which only fueled the fire more. The flames began to engulf the ship and soon after, the ship fell.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Hindenburg disaster at Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 6, 1937 brought an end to the age of the rigid airship.

The disaster killed 35 persons on the airship, and one member of the ground crew, but miraculously 62 of the 97 passengers and crew survived.

After more than 30 years of passenger travel on commercial zeppelins - in which tens of thousands of passengers flew over a million miles, on more than 2,000 flights, without a single injury - the era of the passenger airship came to an end in a few fiery minutes.

The Last Word in Speed and Luxury

Hindenburg was the last passenger aircraft of the world's first airline - her chief steward was the first flight attendant in history - and she was the fastest way to cross the Atlantic in her day.

Hindenburg's passengers could travel from Europe to North and South America in half the time of the fastest ocean liner, and they traveled in luxurious interiors that would never again be matched in the air; they enjoyed meals in an elegant dining room, listened to an aluminum piano in a modern lounge, slept in comfortable cabins, and could even have a cigarette or cigar in the ship's smoking room.

All that came to an end in 32 seconds because above the elegant passenger quarters were 7 million cubic feet of hydrogen gas.

The Cause of the Hindenburg Disaster, in Brief

Almost 80 years of research and scientific tests support the same conclusion reached by the original German and American accident investigations in 1937: It seems clear that the Hindenburg disaster was caused by an electrostatic discharge (i.e., a spark) that ignited leaking hydrogen.

The spark was most likely caused by a difference in electric potential between the airship and the surrounding air: The airship was approximately 60 meters (about 200 feet) above the airfield in an electrically charged atmosphere, but the ship's metal framework was grounded by its landing line; the difference in electric potential likely caused a spark to jump from the ship's fabric covering (which had the ability to hold a charge) to the ship's framework (which was grounded through the landing line). A somewhat less likely but still plausible theory attributes the spark to coronal discharge, more commonly known as St. Elmo's Fire.

The cause of the hydrogen leak is more of a mystery, but we know the ship experienced a significant leakage of hydrogen before the disaster.

No evidence of sabotage was ever found, and no convincing theory of sabotaged has ever been advanced.

One thing is clear: the disaster had nothing to do with the zeppelin's fabric covering being "highly flammable" for one simple reason: it wasn't. In fact, Hindenburg was just one of many hydrogen airships destroyed by fire because of their flammable lifting gas, and suggestions about the alleged flammability of the ship's outer covering have been repeatedly debunked. The simple truth is that Hindenburg was destroyed in 32 seconds because it was inflated with hydrogen.

The Last Flight of the Hindenburg

Hindenburg began its last flight on May 3, 1937, carrying 36 passengers and 61 officers, crew members, and trainees. It was the airship's 63rd flight.

The ship left the Frankfurt airfield at 7:16 PM and flew over Cologne, and then crossed the Netherlands before following the English Channel past the chalky cliffs of Beachy Head in southern England, and then heading out over the Atlantic shortly after 2:00 AM the next day.

Hindenburg followed a northern track across the ocean [view chart], passing the southern tip of Greenland and crossing the North American coast at Newfoundland. Headwinds delayed the airship's passage across the Atlantic, and the Lakehurst arrival, which had been scheduled for 6:00 AM on May 6th, was postponed to 6:00 PM.

By noon on May 6th the ship had reached Boston, and by 3:00 PM Hindenburg was over the skyscrapers of Manhattan in New York City (view photograph).

The ship flew south from New York and arrived at the Naval Air Station at Lakehurst, New Jersey at around 4:15 PM, but the poor weather conditions at the field concerned the Hindenburg's commander, Captain Max Pruss, and also Lakehurst's commanding officer, Charles Rosendahl, who sent a message to the ship recommending a delay in landing until conditions improved. Captain Pruss departed the Lakehurst area and took his ship over the beaches and coast of New Jersey to wait out the storm. By 6:00 PM conditions had improved; at 6:12 Rosendahl sent Pruss a message relaying temperature, pressure, visibility, and winds which Rosendahl considered "suitable for landing." At 6:22 Rosendahl radioed Pruss "Recommend landing now," and at 7:08 Rosendahl sent a message to the ship strongly recommending the "earliest possible landing."

The Landing Approach

Hindenburg approached the field at Lakehurst from the southwest shortly after 7:00 PM at an altitude of approximately 600 feet. Since the wind was from the east, after passing over the field to observe conditions on the ground, Captain Pruss initiated a wide left turn to fly a descending oval pattern around the north and west of the field, to line up for a landing into the wind to the east.

While Captain Pruss (who was directing the ship's heading and engine power settings) brought Hindenburg around the field, First Officer Albert Sammt (who was responsible for the ship's trim and altitude, assisted by Watch Officer Walter Ziegler at the gas board and Second Officer Heinrich Bauer at the ballast board), valved 15 seconds of hydrogen along the length of the ship to reduce Hindenburg's buoyancy in preparation for landing.

As Pruss continued the slow left turn of the oval landing pattern, reducing, and then reversing, the power from the engines, Sammt noticed that the ship was heavy in the tail and valved hydrogen from cells 11-16 (in the bow) for a total of 30 seconds, to reduce the buoyancy of the bow and keep the ship in level trim. When this failed to level the ship, Sammt ordered three drops of water ballast, totaling 1,100 kg (2,420lbs), from Ring 77 in the tail, and then valved an additional 5 seconds of hydrogen from the forward gas cells. When even these measures could not keep the ship in level trim, six crewmen were ordered to go forward to add their weight to the bow.

(That Captain Pruss personally directed the ship's heading and power settings during the landing evolution was an exception to the usual German operating procedure. Typically, during the landing of Hindenburg or Graf Zeppelin, the rudder and power were under the direction of one senior watch officer, while the elevators, ballast, and gas were under the direction of another senior watch officer; the ship's captain observed all operations, but only intervened in the case of difficulty or disagreement with the actions of his officers. The German procedure was noted frequently by American naval observers, perhaps because it differed so greatly from the practice followed by the United States Navy. During Hindenburg's final landing maneuver, however, Captain Pruss personally directed the rudder and power, while Albert Sammt directed the elevators, ballast, and gas. Perhaps Pruss was simply used to this arrangement from his time as a watch officer, or perhaps a re-ordering of roles occurred because of the presence of senior captain and DZR flight director Ernst Lehmann on the bridge, but as far as this author knows, Captain Pruss never commented on the matter publicly, nor did Pruss ever try to evade his responsibility as commander by suggesting that Captain Lehmann was in actual operational control at the time of the accident.)

While Sammt was working to keep the ship in trim, the wind shifted direction from the east to the southwest. Captain Pruss now needed to land into the wind on a southwestly heading, rather than the easterly heading he had originally intended when he planned his oval landing pattern. Hindenburg was now close to the landing area, however, and did not have a lot of room to maneuver before reaching the mooring mast. Anxious to land quickly, before weather conditions could deteriorate, Captain Pruss decided to execute a tight S-turn to change the direction of the ship's landing; Pruss ordered a turn to port to swing out, and then a sharp tight turn to starboard to line up for landing into the wind. (Some experts would later theorize that this sharp turn overstressed the ship, causing a bracing wire to snap and slash a gas cell, allowing hydrogen to mix with air to form a highly explosive combination.)

After the S-turn to change the direction of landing, Pruss continued his approach to the mooring mast, adjusting power from the two forward and two rear engines, and at 7:21, with the ship about 180 feet above the ground, the forward landing ropes were dropped.

The Fire

A few minutes after the landing lines were dropped, R.H. Ward, in charge of the port bow landing party, noticed what he described as a wave-like fluttering of the outer cover on the port side, between frames 62 and 77, which contained gas cell number 5 . He testified at the Commerce Department inquiry that it appeared to him as if gas were pushing against the cover, having escaped from a gas cell. Ground crew member R.W. Antrim, who was at the top of the mooring mast, also testified that he saw that the covering behind the rear port engine fluttering.

At 7:25 PM, the first visible external flames appeared. Reports vary, but most witnesses saw the first flames either at the top of the hull just forward of the vertical fin (near the ventilation shaft between cells 4 and 5) or between the rear port engine and the port fin (in the area of gas cells 4 and 5, where Ward and Antrim had seen the fluttering).

For example, Lakehurst commander Rosendahl described a "mushroom shaped flower" of flame bursting into bloom in front of the upper fin. Navy Lt. Benjamin May, the assistant mooring officer, who was atop the mooring mast, testified that an area just behind the rear port engine (where Ward and Antrim reported the fluttering) "seemed to collapse," after which he saw streaks of flame followed by a muffled explosion, and then the entire tail was engulfed by flame. Navy ground crew member William Bishop described seeing flames "inside" the ship a little above and aft of the rear port engine car.

Several witnesses inside the ship also saw the beginning of the fire. Helmsman Helmut Lau, who was stationed at the auxiliary control stand in the lower fin, heard "a muffled detonation and looked up and saw from the starboard side down inside the gas cell a bright reflection on the front bulkhead of cell No. 4."

Lau described the flames he saw at cell 4 at the inquiry: "The bright reflection in the cell was inside. I saw it through the cell. It was at first red and yellow and there was smoke in it. The cell did not burst on the lower side. The cell suddenly disappeared by the heat.... The fire proceeded further down and then it got air. The flame became very bright and the fire rose up to the side, more to the starboard side, as I remember seeing it, and I saw that with the flame aluminum parts and fabric parts were thrown up. In that same moment the forward cell and the back cell of cell 4 also caught fire [cell 3 and cell 5]. At that time parts of girders, molten aluminum and fabric parts started to tumble down from the top. The whole thing only lasted a fraction of a second."

The fire quickly spread and soon engulfed the tail of the ship, but the ship remained level for a few more seconds before the tail began to sink and the nose pointed upward to the sky, with a blowtorch of flame erupting from the bow where twelve crew members were stationed, including the six who were sent forward to keep ship in trim.

In the port and starboard promenades on the passenger decks, where many of the passengers and some of the crew had gathered to watch the landing, the rapidly increasing angle of the ship caused passengers and crew to tumble against the walls, the furniture, and each other; passenger Margaret Mather recalled being hurled 15-20 feet against the rear wall of the dining room and being pinned against a bench by several other people.

Survival and Death

The fire spread so quickly - consuming the ship in less than a minute - that survival was largely a matter of where one happened to be located when the fire broke out.

Passengers and crew members began jumping out the promenade windows to escape the burning ship, and most of the passengers and all of the crew who were in the public rooms on A Deck at the time of the fire - close to the promenade windows - did survive. Those who were deeper inside the ship, in the passenger cabins at the center of the decks or the crew spaces along the keel, generally died in the fire.

One passenger, John Pannes (the New York manager for the Hamburg-America Line, which handled passenger reservations for the Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei), was in the dining room when the fire broke out; encouraged to jump by ship's photographer Karl Otto Clemens, who escaped through one of the windows and survived, Pannes instead left the dining room to find his wife Emma, who had returned to their cabin for her coat. Both died in the fire.

Mr and Mrs Hermann Doehner and their three children (Irene, 16; Walter 10; and Werner, 8 ) were also in the dining room watching the landing, but Mr Doehner left before the fire broke out. Mrs Doehner and her two young sons jumped to safety, but Irene left the dining room in search of her father, and both died as a result of the crash.

Given the speed with which Hindenburg burned, survival for the crew was also largely a matter of luck. As the diagram below illustrates, those who were close to a means of exit at the time of the fire generally survived, including 9 of the 11 men in the engine cars, and 10 of the 12 men in the control car. Those who were deep inside the ship, such as the electricians in the power room along the keel, or Max Schulze in the smoking room bar on B Deck, or those on the starboard side (since the flaming ship rolled slightly to starboard as it hit the ground) were generally trapped in the wreck. And the men stationed in the bow - who were exposed to the column of flame that rose through the ship as the bow pointed skyward - had the least chance; the 9 men who were closest to the front of the ship at the time of the fire all died.

As the ship settled to the ground, less than 30 seconds after the first flames were observed, those who had jumped from the burning craft scrambled for safety, as did members of the ground crew who had been positioned on the field below the ship.

Natural instinct caused those on the ground to run from the burning wreck as fast as they could, but Chief Petty Officer Frederick J. "Bull" Tobin, a longtime airship veteran and an enlisted airship pilot who was in charge of the Navy landing party, cried out to his sailors: "Navy men, Stand fast!!" Bull Tobin had survived the crash of USS Shenandoah, and he was not about to abandon those in peril on an airship, even if it meant his own life. And his sailors agreed. Films of the disaster (see below) clearly show sailors turning and running back toward the burning ship to rescue survivors; those films are a permanent tribute to the courage of the sailors at Lakehurst that day.

The Final Toll

Hindenburg left Frankfurt with 97 souls onboard; 62 survived the crash at Lakehurst, although many suffered serious injuries. Thirteen of the 36 passengers, and twenty-two of the 61 crew, died as a result of the crash, along with one member of the civilian landing party (Allen Hagaman).

The End of the Airship Era

The public seemed remarkably forgiving of the accident-prone zeppelin prior to the Hindenburg disaster, and the glamorous and speedy Hindenburg was greeted with public enthusiasm despite a long list of previous airship accidents.

But while airships like USS Akron (on which 73 died) crashed at sea, and the British R-101 (on which 48 were killed) crashed in the darkness of night - both far from witnesses or cameras - the crash of the Hindenburg was captured on film. Millions of people around the world saw the dramatic inferno which consumed the ship and its passengers. Oh, the Humanity!

At least, that's the conventional wisdom about why the age of the zeppelin died that rainy day at Lakehurst.

But perhaps after 35 years of accidents and disasters - the crashes of LZ-4, LZ-5, Deutschland, Deutschland II, Schwaben, R-38, R-101, Shenandoah, Akron, Macon, and the list goes on - perhaps the public had just had enough.

And more importantly, despite its romance and grandeur, Hindenburg was obsolete before it ever flew.

On November 22, 1935 - three months before Hindenburg first took to the air - Pan American Airways' M-130 China Clipper made the first scheduled flight across the Pacific. The M-130 could have crossed the Atlantic with ease; its 2,400-mile route San Francisco to Honolulu was longer than distance required to cross the North Atlantic. In fact, Pan Am's M-130 was designed for the Atlantic, and it was only political (not technological) considerations that prevented Pan Am from inaugurating transatlantic airline service in 1935; the British refused to grant Pan Am landing rights until Britain had a plane that could make the same flight, but Britain was far behind America in the development of a long-distance airliner.

Between the cost of its infrastructure and crew, inherent safety issues, and the development of better technology, the rigid passenger airship was doomed long before Hindenburg landed at Lakehurst that fateful day in May.
More information about the Disaster:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Hindenburg disaster at Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 6, 1937 brought an end to the age of the rigid airship. The disaster killed 35...

# data[].attributes.body
Claim: We believe that the Hindenburg disaster was caused by a static electric charge due to atmospheric conditions.

Evidence:

https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/historys-mysteries-caltech-professor-helps-solve-hindenburg-disaster

Explanation: As the Hindenburg moved through the stormy atmosphere, its outer layer built up a static charge. After the mooring ropes were dropped, electrons moved up to the ship's frame. This gave the ship a positively charged outer layer and a negatively charged frame. This charge then created many different sparks across the ship, including where the hydrogen leak was.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
History’s Mysteries: Caltech Professor Helps Solve Hindenburg Disaster

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Konstantinos Giapis delves into the science of the iconic accident for a PBS special.

# data[].attributes.body
We agree that the spark was caused by the charge of electricity of the atmosphere and that the hydrogen fueled the fire. We also used the same source(caltech)!

# data[].attributes.body
We respectfully disagree with your claim. We don't think that the initial spark lit the hydrogen immediately, we believe that after the spark the flammable covering caught on fire and the heat from the covering's fire made the hydrogen cell burst. And then the hydrogen fueled the fire.

# data[].attributes.body
We somewhat agree that the storm played a significant part in the explosion. however you FAILED to mention the importance of the panels and the flammable materials that made up the outer cover of the aircraft. We used the same source as you and agree with the material in the source.

# data[].attributes.body
We disagree with this claim. We disagree with this because in your claim you say that the fire was caused by sparks igniting the outer fabric of the zeppelin. However according to the Caltech article that you used for evidence "One thing is clear: the disaster had nothing to do with the zeppelin’s fabric covering being 'highly flammable' for one simple reason: it wasn’t.". Therefore the outer layer of the zeppelin could not have been the causing factor of the fire.

# data[].attributes.body
i agree with this reasoning because i like that you did lots of evidence from the source and how the ignition and how it was spread, I also like that you used a very reliable source and use it well to explain why this supports your claim.

# data[].attributes.body
We agree to some point. We agree that the panels on the outside cover couldn't drain its electricity which caused a spark. We think that in addition to the outside cover igniting the hydrogen inside the tank, the pilots had been releasing the hydrogen to decent.

# data[].attributes.body
We agree with this comment because it matches the evidence and claim that we used in ours.

# data[].attributes.body
We agree that electricity built up on the cover of the airship due to stormy conditions and that the mooring ropes further contributed to the buildup. This then caused a spark. However, we don't think there was a Hydrogen leak. Rather, we think the Hydrogen which was purposefully being released to help the airship descend was ingited by the spark. The cover of the airship was also flammable which was not mentioned in your explanation. We used the same source as you (Caltech).

# data[].attributes.body
We agree with this explanation, we agree that the origin of the Hindenburg was likely an electrostatic shock building up on the airship that caused the hydrogen filled gas cells to ignite and start a chain reaction throughout the entire airship. (Only disagreeing point we have is that we believe the fire spread from the back of the ship towards the front, and not the other way around)

# data[].attributes.body
CER

Claim: We believe that the Hindenburg disaster was caused by a static electric charge due to atmospheric conditions that ignited hydrogen within the zeppelin.

Evidence:

https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/historys-mysteries-caltech-professor-helps-solve-hindenburg-disaster

Explanation: As the Hindenburg moved through the stormy atmosphere, its outer layer built up a static charge. After the mooring ropes were dropped, electrons moved up to the ship's frame. This gave the ship a positively charged outer layer and a negatively charged frame. This charge then created many different sparks across the ship, including where the hydrogen leak was.

# data[].attributes.body
We disagree because you guys said that the shock lit the hydrogen inside the gas cell, while most sources say either the fabric caught fire or hydrogen being released from the ship caught fire. We think that the fabric caught fire and was then fueled by the hydrogen being released and still inside the fuel cells. The hydrogen inside the fuel cells was not the origin of the fire.

# data[].attributes.body
We agree with your claim that an electrostatic shock caused by the atmosphere was the reason for the disaster to occur. The thing that we feel separately about is you did not mention anything hydrogen. Our group feels as if the spark lit the hydrogen which is what led to the fire spreading throughout the zeppelin and taking it down.

# data[].attributes.body
We agree with your claim, and appreciate that you include the stormy weather conditions and show how that sparked the hydrogen. One thing you could do to improve is specifically cite the evidence and write about interpretation of the information. So far you just have links to the websites that you used as research.

# data[].attributes.body
We agree with this explanation, we agree that the origin of the Hindenburg was likely an electrostatic shock building up on the airship that caused the hydrogen filled gas cells to ignite and start a chain reaction throughout the entire airship.