The Hindenburg Disaster

On May 6th, 1937, at 7:25 p.m. (local time), the Hindenburg caught fire and quickly became engulfed in flames.

Where the fire started is controversial; witnesses on the port side saw yellow/red flames first just forward of the top fin, around cell 4.

One, with views of the starboard side, saw flames beginning lower and farther aft, near cell 1.

A crew member on board also recalled the flames spreading from cell 4 into starboard. Wherever it started, the flames quickly spread forward.

Almost instantly, a water tank and a fuel tank bursted out of the hull, as seen in the picture on the right. The ship's back broke, though the ship still remained as one piece and the nose was facing upwards.

As the Hindenburg's tail crashed into the ground, a burst of flame came out of the nose, killing three of the six crew members in the bow.

As the ship kept falling with the bow facing upwards (probably because there was more lifting gas still in the nose), part of the port side directly behind the passenger deck collapsed inward, and the gas cell there exploded, erasing the scarlet lettering "Hindenburg" while the ship's bow lowered.

One careful analysis of the flame spread, by Addison Bain of NASA, gives the flame front spread rate across the fabric skin as about 49 ft/s.

The ship's gondola wheel touched the ground, causing the ship to bounce up once more. At this point, most of the fabric had burned away. At last, the ship went crashing on the ground, bow first.

The incident is widely remembered as one of the most dramatic accidents of modern time.

The cause of the accident has never been determined, although many theories, some highly controversial, have been proposed.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• hindenburg
• disaster
• explosion
• fire
• death
• people
• 1937
• crew
• usa
• flames

[cky12qxz]

catastrophic :[

[garrettsambo7]

That was sooo scary!

[boondox3354]

and we get blamed, haha