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When the zeppelin LZ-129 Hindenburg catches fire at Lakehurst Naval Air Station for landing. The zeppelin explodes into an inferno and crashes, killing 35 of the 97 people on board and one ground crew member.
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00:001937. The Hindenburg, the world's largest flying machine, arrives in the United States with 97 people on board.
00:09It's the end of a successful transatlantic flight.
00:12Moments from landing, a fierce fire erupts. In just 34 seconds, the mighty airship is destroyed.
00:2036 people perish. Many suffer agonizing burns.
00:25But what caused the devastating fire?
00:30Now, a 21st century air crash detective reexamines one of the most famous air disasters in history.
00:37Using advanced computer simulations, we reveal what really destroyed the Hindenburg.
00:43Disasters don't just happen. They're a chain of critical events.
00:48Unravel the clues and count down those final seconds from disaster.
01:01Europe. Germany. Frankfurt. May 3, 1937.
01:12The LZ-129 Hindenburg, the largest flying machine ever built, emerges from its hangar.
01:19Its destination, Lakehurst, New Jersey.
01:23This is no ordinary crossing. It's the launch of the world's first scheduled flight service across the Atlantic.
01:29Since rolling out of the hangar in March 1936, the airship has made a series of 62 successful trial and
01:36publicity flights.
01:39Built by the Zeppelin company, the Hindenburg is 245 meters long, as big as an ocean liner, and stands as
01:47tall as a 13-story building.
01:51The 36 passengers boarding tonight will spend the flight on the passenger deck towards the airship's nose.
02:01Most, a high-profile businessman, but also on the passenger list, is one of the first families ever to fly
02:07in the Hindenburg.
02:07Hermann and Matilda Doerner, and their three children, Irena, Walter and Werner.
02:14The wealthy family live 11,000 kilometers away in Mexico, and are returning from a vacation in their German homeland.
02:23For eight-year-old Werner, flying in an airship is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
02:28The Zeppelin, in general, was the word of the day, and it was the fancy way to go.
02:36Airships are considered the cruise liners of the future, but for now they are the sole preserve of the seriously
02:42wealthy.
02:43A one-way ticket costs $400, that's over $5,000 in today's money.
02:49It buys the ultimate luxury travel experience, a restaurant serving cordon bleu cuisine and the finest wines,
02:57fashionably designed lounge areas, and of course, spectacular views from the promenade deck.
03:05Then a sister, Irena, is 14. For her, the voyage is a chance to leave childhood behind, and mix in
03:12sophisticated adult circles for the first time.
03:15It was sort of special for her. Somehow, during this trip, she grew up enough so that she asked her
03:22blades to be cut, and she had a new hairdo.
03:25And, well, she was now a young lady.
03:31Down on the ground, a crowd gathers to watch the launch. For many, just seeing this massive flying machine up
03:38close is a thrilling experience.
03:42As passengers board, all their lighters and matches are confiscated, and they are expressly forbidden from straying outside the designated
03:50passenger areas, with good reason.
03:54The airship's outer skin is made of strong cotton and linen, waterproofed and tightened with a chemical paint called dope.
04:03Inside the skin are 16 gas bags, over 30 meters tall, holding nearly 200,000 cubic meters of hydrogen, a
04:12highly flammable, lighter-than-air gas that gives the airship its lift.
04:20Forward of the passenger deck, slung beneath the airship, is its nerve center, the control car.
04:26In command is Max Preuss. He's one of the company's most experienced captains with over 20 years' flying experience.
04:34And he's captained the Hindenburg on 22 flights.
04:388.15 p.m.
04:41Right on schedule, Captain Preuss orders the ground crew to release the landing ropes.
04:47The flight crew dumps 590 kilograms of water ballast, and the airship begins to rise.
04:57When it reaches 60 meters, the crew starts up the four 1100 horsepower diesel-fueled propeller engines.
05:13On the passenger deck, the Dörners waved goodbye to friends and family below.
05:18For Matilda Dörner, leaving her homeland once again, it's a poignant moment.
05:23I remember my mother had tears in her eyes when the ship lifted.
05:28That was so seldom for her, I can hardly remember her seeing tears in her eyes any time.
05:38Within minutes, the Hindenburg reaches its top speed of 125 kilometers per hour.
05:44The 6,500-kilometer voyage should take just two and a half days, just over half the time taken by
05:51a ship.
05:51Its flight path will take it over Holland, down the English Channel and across the Atlantic to America's east coast.
05:58The Zeppelin company is sending its head of operations, Ernst Lehmann, to oversee this critical flight.
06:04Lehmann is an enthusiastic supporter of Germany's ruling Nazi party.
06:10He's on board to ensure the Hindenburg stays on schedule.
06:13Any delays would be deeply embarrassing.
06:17But as Lehmann knows, the Hindenburg has an Achilles heel. Bad weather.
06:23Strong winds can blow the airship off course.
06:26They also make its complex landing maneuvers more difficult.
06:30A bad storm could even put the airship in danger.
06:35In 1930, the pride of the British Empire, the R101 airship, was en route to India.
06:41It hit a storm over France and went down nose first.
06:44The resulting crash killed 48 of the 54 people on board.
06:48The tragedy ended the British airship program.
06:53Between 1925 and 1935, the US Navy lost three of its airships in severe weather.
07:00By 1937, only one, the Los Angeles, is still in service.
07:06Assistant cabin steward Werner France isn't worried.
07:09The Zeppelin company has a 100% safety record in 27 years of flying passenger airships.
07:16And 14-year-old Werner knows that in hard times like this, he's lucky to have a job.
07:25I was very proud to be part of the crew and to go on all those journeys.
07:30To see all those countries.
07:31My father was out of work at the time and we had very little money.
07:39To be part of this, it was incredible.
07:45But there's a new threat facing passengers and crew on the Hindenburg today.
07:51Under Germany's dictator, Adolf Hitler, the Nazis are rearming for war.
07:55They are also brutally suppressing all opposition at home.
07:59The Hindenburg's construction was part funded by Hitler.
08:03And it's become a powerful Nazi propaganda tool.
08:06But the airship's iconic status also makes it the target for opponents of the Nazi regime.
08:12In 1933, the Reichstag, the Nazi-controlled German parliament, was burned to the ground.
08:17The authorities blamed saboteurs.
08:20And now, just days ago, German authorities warned Ernst Lehmann that they'd received a specific threat to this crucial flight.
08:28Could saboteurs posing as innocent passengers or even crew members be on board with a deadly mission?
08:35To destroy the Hindenburg?
08:38Wednesday, May 5th. Day 3.
08:42Ernst Lehmann, Zeppelin head of operations, and Captain Pruce are worried.
08:47The Hindenburg should be making 125 kilometers per hour.
08:51But strong headwinds mean the schedule is slipping.
08:54At this rate, they'll be 12 hours late.
09:01Joseph Spahr, a German living in Long Island, New York, is just a day away from a reunion with his
09:06family.
09:07He's been touring Germany with his music hall act of acrobatics and slapstick comedy.
09:12His next performance will be at Radio City Music Hall in New York.
09:18He's taking a dog home as a surprise for his children.
09:21It's spending the flight in the freight area on a lower deck.
09:26Spahr needs to feed the dog regularly, but it's in a restricted area.
09:30So he's been warned that he has to be escorted by a crew member.
09:38Ernst Lehmann, Captain Pruce, and a Zeppelin company observer are the only three on board aware of the sabotage threat
09:45to the Hindenburg.
09:46It's not the first time the airship has been threatened, so they treat it as a false alarm.
09:51And reassuringly, there are plain-clothes intelligence officers on board, on the lookout for anyone acting suspiciously.
10:00But Captain Pruce has another problem.
10:02They're still battling against strong headwinds, so they're still 12 hours behind schedule.
10:08Arriving late is bad enough, but the return flight to Frankfurt the following night is an important one, and it's
10:14fully booked.
10:15The airship will be packed with high-society passengers flying to attend the coronation of King George VI in London.
10:22It's the event of the year.
10:24If the Hindenburg doesn't get the guests to Europe in time, Lehmann faces a PR disaster.
10:30The passengers finish their after-dinner drinks and retire to their cabins.
10:35It's their last night on the Hindenburg.
10:37In a few hours, they'll be in New Jersey.
10:41Werner France grabs a few hours sleep.
10:44Tomorrow he's going to be busy preparing the airship for its return trip.
10:50Thursday, May 6th, 6 a.m.
10:54The Hindenburg should be landing at Lakehurst Naval Base, but it's still 1,130 kilometers away.
11:00The estimated arrival time is 6 p.m., 12 hours behind schedule.
11:07Lehmann and Pruce should have 16 hours to land the airship, disembark the passengers and freight,
11:12and complete refueling and reprovisioning before heading back to Europe at 10 p.m.
11:18Today, they'll only have 4 hours.
11:21It's going to be tight.
11:252 p.m.
11:27Mrs. Derner packs the family's bags.
11:31On the passenger deck, Joseph Spahr can't wait to see his wife and children.
11:36He knows how thrilled they'll be when they see the dog he's bought for them.
11:41The Hindenburg approaches New York, just 80 kilometers northeast of their destination.
11:47Captain Pruce treats the passengers to a bird's-eye view of the Manhattan skyline.
11:53From a crew lookout area at the top of the airship, 14-year-old cabin boy Werner France marvels at
11:59his first glimpse of the new world.
12:06We approached New York, this sea of buildings, the Statue of Liberty, the skyscrapers.
12:14All that was something I'd never seen before.
12:193 p.m.
12:21The Hindenburg appears out of the clouds over the airfield at Lakehurst.
12:26Base commander Charles Rosendahl watches the giant airship pass over the hangar.
12:31He's a veteran airship commander with 13 years flying experience.
12:35And he's worried.
12:36A thunderstorm is developing and winds are picking up.
12:41Landing an airship is a delicate operation requiring accurate maneuvering.
12:45Attempting it in bad weather could end in disaster.
12:50Rosendahl radios Captain Pruce.
12:52He recommends delaying the landing until the conditions improve.
12:56Radio this to the end of our day.
12:58Pruce has no choice but to turn the airship away.
13:01He heads southwest to a way to break in the weather.
13:08Pruce and Lehmann know that any chance of making the 10 p.m. departure is rapidly disappearing.
13:13But first, Pruce must focus on landing the airship.
13:185.12 p.m.
13:20At Lakehurst, the wind eases.
13:22Commander Rosendahl radios the Hindenburg.
13:24He tells Pruce,
13:26Conditions now suitable for landing.
13:28Ground crew is ready.
13:30Captain Pruce turns the airship back towards Lakehurst.
13:34But it encounters increasingly heavy rain, which slows its progress.
13:39The passengers make for the promenade areas for the final moments of the flight.
13:436.11 p.m.
13:47Captain Pruce swings the airship round to land into the wind, the safest way of landing.
13:536.13 p.m.
13:56Suddenly, the wind veers to the southeast.
14:00Pruce has to think fast.
14:01He can abort and go round the airfield to line up with the wind.
14:05But this will lose precious time.
14:09Captain Pruce decides to land straight away.
14:12But this means he must turn the airship into the wind fast.
14:17He orders the crew to make a sharp left turn.
14:226.17 p.m.
14:25Now Captain Pruce notices the ship is heavy at the rear.
14:28He must balance the airship before landing or he risks damaging the tail.
14:33He orders over 1,000 kilograms of ballast from the ship's water tanks to be jettisoned.
14:416.19 p.m.
14:43Pruce orders a final sharp right turn to line up with the mast.
14:47The airship is still sloping to the rear.
14:51Pruce orders six crew members from their mess hall in the rear to come to the nose of the ship
14:56to add more weight at the front.
15:006.20 p.m.
15:01The airship finally arrives at the landing area.
15:04They slow and hover over the airfield.
15:08A crowd gathers to witness the Hindenburg's first landing in America this year.
15:13Newsreel teams record the arrival hoping to get some exciting pictures of the airship's landing procedure.
15:21Now all that remains is for the crew to lower a cable from the nose to the mooring mast.
15:26The ground crew will then winch the Hindenburg down to the mast.
15:31Before lowering the mooring cable, Pruce must first drop two anchor ropes.
15:35These are held by the ground crew to stop the airship drifting.
15:396.21 p.m.
15:42The first anchor rope drops to the ground, closely followed by the second.
15:496.25 p.m.
15:52Suddenly, the crowds on the ground see flames appear around the fin.
15:58Then the airship's nose rears up.
16:007.25 p.m.
16:01Tables and chairs slide backwards.
16:027.25 p.m.
16:03Passengers tumble down.
16:057.25 p.m.
16:05Verna Derna feels the air turn to a furnace-like heat.
16:107.25 p.m.
16:11Suddenly, the air was on fire.
16:13In an instant, the whole thing was on fire.
16:167.25 p.m.
16:17The world's largest flying machine is now a blazing inferno.
16:2097 people, including the three Döner children, are trapped inside the Hindenburg, 60 meters above the ground.
16:3036 passengers are just moments from disembarking from the Hindenburg when disaster strikes.
16:36In the control car, the crew feel a massive jolt.
16:39An officer shouts, the ship's on fire.
16:42The nose rears up over 100 meters above the ground.
16:47The fire roars through the airship.
16:50Within seconds, the Hindenburg is engulfed in flames.
16:55Verna Franz is trapped on the walkway on the lower deck.
16:58He must find a way out before the flames reach him.
17:03Right away, this bang told you that a major catastrophe had happened.
17:07You knew right away the airship was lost.
17:10The airship was burning and couldn't be saved.
17:14Verna stumbles along the gangway, looking for a way out, but he trips and falls.
17:22He grabs the rope handrail and holds on.
17:29As I was hanging onto these ropes, everything I had experienced in my life came back as if it were
17:34a film.
17:40Verna sits on the gangway and kicks through the canvas.
17:43He jumps out of the blazing airship and onto the ground five meters below.
17:48Gripped with fear, he runs away into the arms of a fellow crew member.
17:55I lost control and started screaming, and he put me right again, saying,
17:59what's the matter? You're all right, aren't you? Control yourself.
18:03Go and see if you can help someone.
18:07But Verna is too terrified to return into the flaming wreckage.
18:14These half-burned creatures came running past me.
18:19Nothing could persuade me to go back into the airship.
18:27The fire rushes up the airship.
18:30The Dernas are still in the passenger lounge.
18:32If they don't get out now, they'll burn.
18:35But they're still nine meters up.
18:40Matilda Dernas shouts to her 14-year-old daughter, Irena, to jump out of the window.
18:44But the girl is too frightened.
18:50Mrs. Dernas picks up her eight-year-old son, Verna.
18:52She tries to throw him out of the window, but he falls back.
18:56Somehow, she finds the strength to lift him again.
19:01This time, she succeeds, and Verna falls to the ground with his brother.
19:06She turns to her daughter again, pleading with her to jump.
19:12But Irena is paralyzed with fear.
19:16And instead, turns away towards the flames, looking for her father.
19:25In desperation, Mrs. Dernas jumps out after her sons.
19:32Acrobat Joseph Spahr also jumps from the passenger lounge.
19:36He rolls onto the grass, picks himself up, and limps away.
19:40But he's unable to rescue his dog, which perishes in the fire.
19:4634 seconds after the first flame appears, the Hindenburg is consumed by the inferno.
19:53The wreckage crashes to the ground. It's totally destroyed.
19:58Ambulances rush survivors to hospital.
20:02Verna Dernas and his mother are severely injured.
20:04His brother, Walter, suffers minor burns.
20:07But his father dies inside the airship.
20:10A crewman rescues Verna's sister, Irena, from the burning wreckage.
20:14But she's close to death.
20:16My sister's condition was so bad that they had taken her to a different place.
20:22Inside the hospital, probably in intensive care.
20:25My mother very much complained about being separated from her daughter.
20:32In the morning, doctors bring Matilda Dernas news.
20:36Her daughter Irena died in the night from her burns.
20:39She was just 14 years old.
20:42My mother was very much upset with the authorities in the hospital, that she never got to see her again.
20:48But that was probably the best thing, because she must have been in very bad shape.
20:54Captain Proust survives, but is badly burned.
20:58Ernst Lehmann is fatally injured.
21:01Of the 97 people on board, 29 are dead.
21:06One ground crewman perishes.
21:07Another six people die in hospital.
21:11But what caused this tragedy?
21:14The Germans have a 100% safety record operating passenger airships.
21:19And the Hindenburg was a state-of-the-art aircraft.
21:22The pride of the Third Reich.
21:26The United States and Germany open a joint inquiry.
21:29They interview the surviving crew members and passengers.
21:33They take testimonies from over 90 eyewitnesses.
21:37But in 1937, there is very little cockpit technology to conduct a conclusive crash investigation.
21:44And in the 68 years since the disaster, many different theories, some highly controversial, have emerged.
21:51Debate still rages today over what really downed the celebrated airship.
21:58Now, Seconds from Disaster reexamines the investigation into the loss of the Hindenburg.
22:04Using modern-day forensics and scientific experiments, we will finally solve the mystery.
22:10What was it that started the fire aboard the Hindenburg?
22:14Could it have been an act of sabotage?
22:16And what really fueled the blaze so that it consumed the whole ship in 34 seconds?
22:22Advanced computer simulation will take us where no camera can go, into the heart of the disaster zone.
22:30Greg Fyfe is one of the United States' most experienced crash detectives.
22:35He has 20 years of service with the National Transportation Safety Board.
22:40For eight of those, he was the investigator in charge of the team that attends every major crash site in
22:45America, known as the Go Team.
22:48He's worked on some of the world's most complex and baffling air crashes.
22:52And so far, he's solved every one of them.
22:55But there's one disaster he's always wanted to explore.
23:00The Hindenburg mystery has intrigued me just because you had this magnificent flying machine
23:06that fell into a major disaster, a very cataclysmic disaster, and nobody really had an idea of what caused it.
23:14But Fyfe brings a modern crash investigator's expertise and forensic skills to the disaster.
23:20He must keep an open mind as he investigates every possible reason for the crash.
23:26In any major explosion in a modern aircraft, all eyes immediately turn to terrorism.
23:32Any time you have an in-flight fire, you have to think the worst.
23:36You have to try and determine what led to that in-flight fire.
23:39You go to the extreme, and the extreme is sabotage.
23:45Fyfe learns that the Hindenburg received many sabotage threats in its one year of operations.
23:50But who would want to destroy it?
23:53Rick Ziderosa is vice president of the Lakehurst Historical Society and a specialist in the Hindenburg era.
24:00As the Nazi regime became increasingly unpopular throughout the world,
24:05it was also going to face a new set of security concerns.
24:08And there were heightened fears that perhaps an act of sabotage could be carried out against the airship.
24:15Greg Feith examines the original report for evidence of sabotage warnings.
24:20He finds that Ernst Lehmann received intelligence from the German authorities warning of a specific threat.
24:26But who had a motive?
24:28Hitler and his Nazi party had many enemies in Germany.
24:31They carried out a brutal policy of repression against Jewish people, socialists, communists and outspoken writers.
24:39Any one of these people might have been happy to see the Hindenburg destroyed.
24:44Feith checks the official reports and finds the one passenger who could have had the opportunity to destroy the Hindenburg.
24:51Joseph Spahr.
24:53After the crash, Spahr comes under intense scrutiny.
24:56He lives in America with his wife and family, but he is German.
25:01And for the last few months, he's been traveling all over Europe.
25:05This is just the sort of background that rings alarm bells with German intelligence.
25:10According to the FBI report, Joseph Spahr did act suspiciously.
25:15In fact, Spahr accessed high security areas where no passengers were allowed, apparently, to visit his dog.
25:22The fact that Spahr is an acrobat with great agility means he could easily climb in and around the Hindenburg's
25:28narrow passageways.
25:30Could Spahr have used his dog as a cover to plant a bomb?
25:34Was this music hall clown really a ruthless terrorist responsible for the destruction of the Hindenburg and the deaths of
25:4136 people?
25:45Air crash investigator Greg Feith is trying to get to the bottom of one of aviation's great mysteries.
25:51Why did the Hindenburg airship burst into flames and crash at Lakehurst Naval Base in 1937?
25:59Many of the crew and officers of the Hindenburg were convinced the cause was sabotage.
26:05Feith wants to see if the theory stands up.
26:09He finds an intriguing statement in the report about one of the passengers.
26:15Acrobat Joseph Spahr did disappear into unauthorized areas where the fuel tanks were kept on several occasions on his own.
26:24He told the crew he was going to check on his dog.
26:28Could he actually have been looking for somewhere to plant a bomb?
26:33Feith knows that the FBI investigated Spahr and was unable to find any motive.
26:37But he wants to put Spahr's actions aboard the airship under the microscope himself.
26:43He studies the film footage.
26:46He reads eyewitness reports.
26:49They state that the fire started at the top of the airship near the vertical fin.
26:54For Spahr to reach this area he would have to climb up a 30 meter shaft.
27:00Even with his acrobatic agility this would take several minutes.
27:06And he would have to somehow avoid being challenged by the many crewmen patrolling this area.
27:12And if he were caught he could hardly claim to be feeding his dog when it was stored in the
27:16freight area at the foot of the airship.
27:20Why would he have taken so many risks when he had ample opportunity to plant a bomb here which would
27:26have had just as deadly an effect?
27:29Feith decides it's too far fetched and rules Spahr out as the potential saboteur.
27:36So, if it's not a terrorist act what else could set the airship on fire?
27:43The joint reports state that a spark ignites leaking hydrogen that consumes the airship in 34 seconds.
27:51Hydrogen certainly seems the obvious culprit.
27:54It's highly flammable when mixed with air and the Hindenburg had 16 gas cells with a total of 200,000
28:00cubic meters of hydrogen.
28:03But in nearly 70 years since the accident many experts have cast doubt on the idea that hydrogen was the
28:09fatal accelerant in the fire.
28:11The Germans were aware of the dangers of hydrogen so they took every possible precaution.
28:16All passenger cigarette lighters and matches are confiscated at the start of the voyage as a fire precaution.
28:22And hydrogen can only ignite when mixed with air.
28:27Feith shifts his attention to some recent theories.
28:30Some experts claim that leaking diesel fuel caught fire first and only then hydrogen once the fire had spread.
28:38Feith studies the Hindenburg blueprints.
28:40There are 88,000 liters of diesel stored in tanks at the bottom of the airship.
28:46The fuel lines run from the tanks to the four exterior mounted engines.
28:52Could there have been a fuel leak in one of these lines?
28:56Looking back through the Hindenburg's flying history, he comes across a statement made by an American observer.
29:03Harold Dick, an engineer working for the U.S. airship company Goodyear, was invited by the Germans to attend the
29:09trial flights in 1936.
29:11On one of these, he noticed a strong smell of diesel in the keel or bottom of the airship.
29:18Greg Feith finds that on a later flight, Dick notes that the main fuel lines do not seem to be
29:23particularly tight.
29:25This fuel leak theory now looks attractive to Feith.
29:28But he needs to know, if there was a fuel leak, what ignited it?
29:32The most likely cause would be a short circuit and the electrical cables creating a spark.
29:39But Feith isn't convinced that a spark would ignite diesel.
29:42He knows that diesel has a high flash point.
29:45It must reach nearly 65 degrees Celsius before it will catch fire.
29:49If there were a diesel leak, it would have to be heated up to that point before a spark could
29:55ignite it.
29:58Feith studies the airship plans to see if there is any point where diesel comes into contact with a heat
30:03source.
30:04He finds just one, the engine roads.
30:08This is the hottest point the fuel passes through before feeding the 1100 horsepower engines.
30:13But there's a problem.
30:15The engines are all externally mounted, suspended below the airship.
30:20If a fire had started here, then eyewitnesses on the ground would have clearly seen it.
30:26Instead, they all report that the fire started at the top of the ship.
30:30To have a fire ignite on the bottom of the airship, propagate through the entire diameter of the airship,
30:37and then exit out the top in a very short period of time without anyone noticing, is very remote.
30:45Greg Feith rules out a diesel leak as the cause of the blaze that engulfed the Hindenburg.
30:49Now he turns to the other prominent theory for the blaze.
30:53Not something inside the ship, but its outer skin.
30:58The outer covering is a cotton linen material painted with a chemical known as dope,
31:03that waterproofs the airship and protects the gas bags from the heat of the sun's rays.
31:08The dope used on the Hindenburg was a new type of paint called cellulose acetate butyrate.
31:15This dope is more flammable than previous paints.
31:22The paint theory states that somehow the skin of the airship caught fire.
31:28The Hindenburg burned fast.
31:31The footage reveals that the fire swept through the entire airship in just 34 seconds.
31:36Would the doped outer cover really be so flammable?
31:40When you look at the fabric that was used to cover the Hindenburg, it's a cotton linen material.
31:45So on its own, of course, it's flammable.
31:47But it was impregnated with this doping material.
31:50And while it too has some flammable capability or characteristics to it,
31:55can it burn that fast is the big question.
31:58Fyfe decides to conduct an experiment to test the paint theory.
32:01He prepares a sample of the outer cover.
32:04It's made from exactly the same type of linen cotton material.
32:08The cloth is doped with a mixture of iron oxide powder and aluminium powder,
32:13just like the skin of the Hindenburg.
32:15If the material is the accelerant, this experiment will prove it.
32:21For safety, the test is done outside.
32:24If there's any wind, it's likely to push the flame in one direction faster than the other.
32:30So to compensate for this, he uses two stopwatches to time the burn.
32:35Go.
32:38As soon as the flame reaches the edge of the inner circle, he starts the clocks.
32:44When the flames reach the outer edge, he stops the clocks.
32:49One minute for the wind-assisted side.
32:52And one minute and eight seconds for the flame to travel against the wind.
32:56Both much too slow.
32:58The Hindenburg, all 245 meters, burns in 34 seconds.
33:04At the burn rate Feith's time, the Hindenburg would have taken 40 hours to be destroyed.
33:10Greg Feith concludes the outer skin cannot be the fatal accelerant.
33:15So what did burn the Hindenburg?
33:18Was the original report right after all?
33:20Was it the hydrogen?
33:23From the investigative standpoint, you have to wonder what can burn that quickly and literally take an 800-foot tube
33:31and destroy it in a matter of seconds.
33:34Feith Commission's Professor Nick Syred, a mechanical engineer with 30 years experience specializing in combustion rates, to calculate if it
33:43was hydrogen that burned the Hindenburg.
33:46The airship was 245 meters long.
33:50Professor Syred knows from scientific study that hydrogen can burn at a rate of 9 meters per second.
33:56I made calculations of the flame speed of hydrogen and it's perfectly consistent then within about 30 seconds or so
34:04that a flame can engulf the whole of the Hindenburg.
34:08There is nothing else on the airship which can burn that quickly and cause the Hindenburg to be destroyed in
34:15the same period of time.
34:18Greg Feith concludes that hydrogen is the fatal accelerant for the fire that tore through the Hindenburg, consuming it in
34:2434 seconds.
34:26But the hydrogen would have had to escape to mix with air before it could become flammable.
34:33Trolling through the witness testimonies, he finds something that could suggest a hydrogen leak.
34:40Eyewitnesses on the ground notice a fluttering at the top of the airship, near the vertical fin, just before the
34:45fire starts.
34:47Could they be seeing escaped hydrogen pushing against the outer envelope?
34:53The original report concluded this may have been the case.
34:58But Feith wants to find out how the hydrogen could leak out.
35:01He studies the composition of the gas cells.
35:04They're made of a special plastic film, sandwiched between two layers of thick cotton.
35:10It would take considerable force to rupture these cells.
35:14Is there anything on the airship capable of causing such damage?
35:18Next, Feith focuses on the Hindenburg's bracing wires.
35:22Thousands of cables that are vital to the overall strength of the machine.
35:27There are over 200 kilometers of wire bracing the airframe.
35:32They're each about 3 millimeters thick, made of steel, similar to piano wire, with a braking stress of 450 kilograms.
35:40Is it possible for one of these wires to snap?
35:43He checks the maintenance records and finds out that bracing wires have snapped on airships in the past.
35:51Feith examines the Hindenburg's final journey to find out if anything could have put the airship under structural stress.
35:57He first checks the weather conditions.
36:00The airship battled strong headwinds all the way across the Atlantic.
36:04But according to the flying logs, it had flown through worse conditions in the past.
36:09But, examining the last moments of the flight, Feith finds a critical clue.
36:15Shortly before the fire, the Hindenburg makes its final approach.
36:19Then, suddenly, the wind changes direction, and Captain Prus orders the crew to make a sharp left turn.
36:26Finally, Prus orders another sharp turn, this time to the right, to line up with the mooring mast.
36:32But would these tight turns snap a bracing wire?
36:36Feith checks the design plans and finds that the Hindenburg wasn't designed to make sharp turns.
36:43As the airship turns, it generates sideways pressure on the tail fin.
36:48The Hindenburg is 245 meters long.
36:51If it turns too sharply, it could put too much stress on the airframe.
36:55A bracing wire could snap under this kind of tension.
37:01In a tight turn, the greatest stress on the airship is just forward at the tail fin.
37:07And Feith knows, from eyewitness reports, that this is where the fire probably started.
37:14If a wire did snap, the whiplash effect would be so violent, it could slash through the gas bag's protected
37:20covering.
37:23And Feith also realizes that the airship may have been leaning to the rear as a result of hydrogen leaking
37:29from a cell.
37:31They did have some support tension wires that had broken in the past,
37:35and because the captain was making very hard turns left and right,
37:38it could have caused one of those tension straps to break,
37:41sliced a hole in that gas bag to allow the hydrogen to leak out.
37:46Greg Feith concludes that a snapped bracing wire caused the fatal leak of hydrogen.
37:51But this doesn't explain what could have ignited the escaping hydrogen.
37:56He studies the weather conditions at the time of the accident.
38:00The report states there was light rain over the airfield.
38:04A thunderstorm had recently passed by.
38:08There was lightning still visible to the south of Lakehurst.
38:13Although no one saw lightning strike the airship,
38:16these conditions create a highly charged electrical atmosphere.
38:21Could this have somehow caused the critical spark?
38:25It was well understood at the time that as an airship passes through the air,
38:29it gathers tens of thousands of volts of static electricity,
38:32just like a party balloon being rubbed on a sweater.
38:35The effect is increased in thundery conditions.
38:39While it remains aloft, the ship is in no danger,
38:42since the entire machine, the aluminium skeleton and the outer skin are all at the same level of charge.
38:48But all that changes when one part of the ship touches the ground.
38:53And Feith can see from the film footage exactly how that happened.
38:58In the final stages of landing, the crew drop the first mooring ropes.
39:03The rain makes the ropes wet.
39:05And once they're wet, the charge from the airship's metal frame now rapidly flows through the ropes to the ground.
39:11Instantly, the airframe voltage falls to zero.
39:16But the airship's outer cover is made of a linen-cotton mixture that does not conduct electricity so easily.
39:22And it remains at high voltage.
39:24The perfect conditions for generating a spark between the skin and the frame.
39:31Greg Feith now knows how the spark that ignited the hydrogen was generated.
39:36He can now unravel what happened aboard the Hindenburg in those final, fateful seconds from disaster.
39:45Fourteen minutes before the fire.
39:48The Hindenburg begins its final approach.
39:51Static electricity builds up on the ship, spread evenly throughout the structure.
39:57Eleven minutes to go.
40:00Without warning, the wind changes direction.
40:03Instead of going around the airfield in a wide sweep, Captain Preuss, anxious to land the airship as soon as
40:09possible, makes a sharp left turn.
40:13Stressed by this sudden maneuver, somewhere near gas cell four, a bracing wire snaps.
40:19The gas cell ruptures and hydrogen begins to leak out.
40:27Eight minutes before the catastrophe, Captain Preuss notices that the ship is tail heavy.
40:33He orders the crew to dump water to balance the ship.
40:38Then Preuss orders another sharp turn, this time to the right, to line up with the mooring mast.
40:44The ship is still tail heavy.
40:46Captain Preuss orders six crew members to walk to the nose to try to counterbalance the sloping tail.
40:53But Preuss is too concerned with landing to realize that the airship may be leaning as a result of hydrogen
40:59leaking.
41:01Four minutes left.
41:03The Hindenburg comes to a stop and the crew drop the mooring ropes.
41:09Eyewitnesses on the ground notice a fluttering effect near the tail fin.
41:13They don't know it, but what they're seeing is leaking hydrogen pouring out of the doomed machine.
41:20By 6.25pm, due to falling rain, the ropes are now wet.
41:26The electrical charge flows from the metal parts of the airship to the ground.
41:31The aircraft's skin, less conductive than the metal, is still highly charged from a combination of the journey and the
41:38atmospheric conditions.
41:39It's now at a dangerously high voltage.
41:43Seeking the quickest way to the ground, a spark jumps from the outer skin to the metal, igniting the leaking
41:49hydrogen.
41:51The fire roars through the airship as 200,000 cubic meters of hydrogen in the 16 cells catch fire.
41:5934 seconds later, the mighty Hindenburg is destroyed.
42:0436 people are killed.
42:07But Greg Feith still has one piece of the puzzle to solve.
42:11How could the Hindenburg fire have been bright orange when hydrogen burns with an invisible flame?
42:20Greg Feith has concluded that the Hindenburg was destroyed after a spark caused by the thunderstorm conditions in the atmosphere
42:27ignited leaking hydrogen.
42:29But he still has one question.
42:31He knows that hydrogen burns with an invisible flame.
42:35And yet eyewitnesses stated that the Hindenburg burned with a bright orange glow.
42:43How could hydrogen burn this way?
42:46Feith sets up another experiment.
42:48He sets light to a stream of hydrogen.
42:51There's no visible flame.
42:54But as soon as he places some cloth in the hydrogen flame, the fire is visible.
43:01Hydrogen burns clear.
43:02That's not what the folks saw when they were observing the actual fire.
43:07The fire that they saw was the material, that covering material that finally ignited and burned.
43:13Going through the papers, Greg Feith realizes the tragedy could have been averted.
43:18He finds that the Zeppelin company had strict regulations governing landing procedures.
43:24In fact, in their training, crews were warned against landing in thunderstorm conditions.
43:31He learns that Dr. Eckener, the chairman of the company, blamed Captain Preuss and Ernst Lehmann for the accident.
43:39Dr. Eckener felt very much that it was pilot error.
43:42When he learned of the landing conditions, he was appalled and he was infuriated.
43:48He unequivocally held that the landing never should have been carried out as it was under those conditions.
43:54But Preuss is under pressure to land as fast as possible, to try and make up time on the schedule.
44:00He also has Ernst Lehmann, Zeppelin's director of operations, in the control car with him.
44:05He too is anxious to keep to the schedule.
44:11Instead of aborting the landing and waiting for better weather, they try to land in dangerous atmospheric conditions.
44:18Lehmann most definitely did influence Preuss in his decisions regarding the flight, which of course was increasingly held up by
44:25headwinds and then the delayed landing.
44:29The Hindenburg disaster spells the end of the commercial airship age.
44:33Germany grounds her other passenger airship, the Graf Zeppelin, until they can use the non-flammable helium as a lifting
44:39gas.
44:41But with Europe on the brink of war, the United States, the only country with helium supplies, refuses to sell
44:48the gas to Germany.
44:49And when war does break out, the Nazis cancel the airship program completely.
44:56But valuable lessons are learned from the disaster.
44:59Hydrogen has never been used again to lift passenger airships.
45:03Today, all airships are filled with helium.
45:06Directly after the Hindenburg crash, the Zeppelin company design a thunder car.
45:12This machine, located at their Frankfurt airfield, measures the electrical activity in the atmosphere.
45:18It's a breakthrough in collecting accurate data on thunderstorm conditions.
45:24And today, understanding of weather is at the forefront of all aviation safety.
45:31Nearly 70 years later, there are just two known remaining survivors from the tragedy.
45:37Cabin boy Werner Franz is now 83 years old.
45:40After the crash, he trained as an engineer.
45:43But the memories of that day stayed with him.
45:46It took quite some time to calm down again.
45:51Those impressions stayed with me for a long time.
45:54I did suffer from it for a long time.
45:57To have been confronted with this.
46:03Werner Doerner returned to Mexico with his family.
46:06Now aged 75, he lives in the United States.
46:09Although he lost his father and sister, he believes the crash had a positive effect on him.
46:17I wonder what my life would have been without it.
46:21I was a spoiled brat.
46:23It made me probably a better person than what I would have been without it.
46:29The Hindenburg is still the largest flying machine ever built.
46:34Today's air travelers may fly across the Atlantic in a few hours.
46:38But the luxury and style the Hindenburg passengers experienced will probably never be surpassed.
46:58der.
46:58Before that, Ben Ali pushed back to the Ali.
47:00Come back when I loved the city.
47:02You
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