"Newly released film of Hindenburg disaster" Topic

"On May 6, 1937, newsreel crews were at the Lakehurst Naval Station to record the arrival of the pride and joy of the German airship fleet, the Hindenburg. The newsreel cameras were all clustered in a mooring area facing the bow of the dirigible, so when it suddenly burst into flames claiming the lives of 35 passengers, crew and one member of the ground crew, all of the footage of the disaster captured it from the front.

The investigation into the disaster relied primarily on witness statements. The Hindenburg itself was obliterated in the conflagration, so there was no physical evidence to go on to explain the cause of the fire. German officers, including Captain Ernst Lehmann who would die of his injuries the next day, blamed the disaster on sabotage. Others speculated that power from a radio transmitter on the field was responsible; one witness bruited the possibility that high-frequency radio induction had ignited the gas. The Commerce Department report could only conclude that a gas leak in the stern of the airship had created a combustible mixture of hydrogen and air that was ignited by electrostatic discharge of some kind, but they could not determine the source of it.

An amateur videographer was also on the field that day. Harold Schenck was standing next to Hangar One with his trusty Kodak 8-millimeter camera. Unlike the news cameras, Schenck was positioned to get a broad view of the airship as it attempted to land. The film for this little cam could only record two minutes, so he took short clips that he would later put together with explanatory intertitles. He captured the Hindenburg's approach first and filmed its full length as it burned. It is the only known footage that shows the nose and tail at the same time…"
See more here
link

Armand

"There'll be a hot-hot time in Lakehurst New Jersey,
When the Hindenburg lands today!

Oh, the band is gonna play,
And we'll all shout 'Hip-Hoo-Ray!'
When the Hindenburg lands today!

All the way from Germany you've flown it to us,
And we know that your motto was 'New Jersey, Or Bust!'

"There'll be a hot-hot time in Lakehurst New Jersey,
When the Hindenburg lands today!"

From "Great Song Flops"

TVAG

(smile)

Armand

There was a PBS Nova episode that showed the film. They also replicated a possible way the fire sparked (basically the outer skin of the airship turned into thousands of square feet of potentially sparking capacitors…)