May 6th 1937

I find myself, in one of those vague time wasting internet searches, returning time and time again to a short, grainy black and white film and the shocked voice of a newsreel reporter as a first hand witness.

I know that it is a morbid fascination but it is one that I have always had, ever since I was a child, and I justify it as being in the interests of finding things out for myself. 

The images which only run for a few minutes start off as a celebration of aeronautical engineering in the form of the gigantic hydrogen filled Hindenburg airship which at that time in 1937 represented the cutting edge of science, technology and global travelling in some splendour and style. 

To visualise the scale of the German achievement the mighty Hindenburg the largest in the world at 245 metres long was equivalent to three Jumbo Jets arranged nose to tail.

The film shows the airship approaching its mooring mast at Lakehurst in New Jersey after a transatlantic flight from the Fatherland.





It is difficult from the aged celluloid to determine the prevailing weather conditions.


There is no real contrast between ground and sky but records show that in that area of the United States there had been thunder and storms which had caused the Hindenburg Captain to take a wider approach to the airfield.

It was the evening of May 6^th when the weather cleared sufficiently for a landing to take place. In the film the Hindenburg looms out of the murky dusk and mooring lines can be seen being dropped in readiness for anchoring below the mast.

There have been many theories and explanations about the cause of the devastating fireball which so tragically captured for posterity the last 30 seconds of this imperious form of flying machine.

The hydrogen gas was flammable enough but later enquiries drew attention to the catalytic effect on combustion of the external skin of the airship and also the type of paint used.

Sabotage was initially suspected given the political situation in Germany where enemies had already been made on a domestic and foreign scale but this has since been discounted.

Hindenburg over New York

There were fatalities, indeed the stark images of people on the ground running for their lives as the skeleton frame of the Hindenburg collapsed suggested a significant level of deaths. Remarkably 62 of the 97 passengers and crew survived, largely down to the bravery and disregard for their own safety of ground crew and witnesses able to help.

Many conspiracy theorists have applied themselves to the cause of the disaster but under rational retrospective investigation an interesting and more probable theory revolves around the prevailing climatic conditions, and in particular, the phenomenon known as St Elmo’s Fire. This is where the highly charged atmosphere that arises in thunderstorms creates a concentration of static electricity around pointed objects.

This was often seen and documented by seafarers as ephemeral blue lights at the top of ships’ masts. In maritime folklore this was regarded as a sign of divine protection from the ravages of storms.

Exactly 80 years ago to the very day the charged upper air atmosphere could feasibly have adhered to the large surface area of the Hindenburg. One eye witness from distance claimed to have seen faint blue flames, similar to a St Elmo’s effect, actually spreading along the highest point of the airship. This in itself may not have been enough to cause the conflagration and some form of leak of the hydrogen will have been necessary possibly from some form of breach, however small, in the outer skin.

The disaster was huge news at the time and Pathe News and other Agencies circulated the footage on the big screen to cinema-goers.

That day in May 1937 marked not a triumph for German technology but the death knell of large commercial airships through loss of confidence amongst the public as potential paying passengers.

The Zeppelins were finished.