Myth: Hindenburg Fire In 1937 Proves That Hydrogen Is Too Dangerous For The Public To Use.
Excerpted from "The Philosopher Mechanic" by Roy McAlister

 

Often repeated remarks concerning the Hydrogen Economy go something like the following: Hydrogen would answer the pollution question ... When hydrogen is produced in sufficient amounts to achieve the economies of scale it will be the cheapest renewable fuel ... But "Remember the Hindenburg" ... It is often suggested that the Hindenburg disaster ended the chance for practical applications of hydrogen.

The Hindenburg was a rigid "airship" with a stretched outer shell of streamlined silver-colored fabric. It was lighter than air because it contained giant bags of hydrogen. Some 236 tons of air was displaced by the Hindenburg. This displaced air created a lifting force and buoyed the Hindenburg upward with a force of 236 tons.

Graf Zeppelin, a smaller hydrogen airship, had made 650 flights. More than 18,000 passengers were delivered safely during the nine years that the Graf Zeppelin flew. It flew 144 flights nonstop to and from Berlin across the Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro or New York.

The Graf Zeppelin traveled more than one million miles or 40 times around the world including a 20 day cruise around the world in 1929 on a publicity flight and it made a trip to the North Pole in 1931. This older Zeppelin, which was launched in 1928, carried sixteen giant "sausage" casings filled with hydrogen. One of the better German technologies that had been years in development was sausage casings. German engineers expanded this technology to make gigantic lightweight lifting bags. These bags were reinforced with cotton fabric and filled with hydrogen to atmospheric pressure. Over 800,000 ox-guts were required for the liners of these lifting bags.

The newer Hindenburg had crossed the Atlantic 21 times and used a Goodyear-formula for a gelatin-latex membrane to contain the hydrogen in the gas cells. Much attention was paid to the silver airship image that displayed giant swastikas on the tail section. The silver appearance of the Hindenburg was due to a surface varnish of powdered aluminum in a paint formula that resembles the chemistry of modern solid booster rocket fuel.

In fact we should remember the Hindenburg and carefully study this mishap. An eye-witness passenger reported events as follows on the fateful evening that the Hindenburg burned while attempting to dock at an elevated altitude to a tall mast at Lakehurst, New Jersey: "With my wife I was leaning out of a window on the promenade deck. Suddenly there occurred a remarkable stillness. The motors were silent, and it seemed as though the whole world was holding its breath. One heard no command, no call, no cry. The people we saw (on the ground) seemed suddenly stiffened. I could not account for this. Then I heard a light, dull detonation from above, no louder than the sound of a beer bottle being opened. I turned my gaze toward the bow and noticed a delicate rose glow, as though the sun were about to rise. I understood immediately that the airship was aflame ...

Photo Courtesy of Addison Bain and the National Hydrogen Association

For a moment I thought of getting bed linen to soften our leap (from 120 feet) but in the same instant, the airship crashed to the ground ... We leaped from the airship ... my wife called to me; ... took me by the hand; (and) led me away." (From the book "The Last Trip of the Hindenburg" by Leonard Adelt.) This account is substantially verified by the newsreel film of the fire. This was an eyewitness report of the burning of an airship that carried a crew of 59. It had capacity for 50 passengers in individual cabins or for 70 passengers on day flights. On the evening it burned, the Hindenburg carried 97 persons.

Passengers had ornate individual cabins with shower baths, a clubroom for all with an aluminum grand piano, and a carefully insulated smoking room. The kitchen stocked two luxurious tons of the finest foods. Passengers received the best food and drinks, the most modern conveniences, and the envy of other travelers because the Hindenburg sped past ocean liners, outran trains, and remained airborne for days or weeks after other aircraft had to land and refuel. Telephones, electric lighting, and modern appliances served the crew and passengers. Public rooms were large, decorated in the style of ocean liners of the day and they had windows that could be kept open for fresh-air viewing of the grand scenes that unfolded as the giant airship sped along at the cruise speed of 78 mph.

After being launched in 1936, the Hindenburg had completed ten and one-half round trips between Germany and the United States before burning in 1937. Cruising across the Atlantic took 50 to 60 hours under constant power form four 1,200-H.P., V-16 Mercedes-Benz Diesel engines. Wooden propellers 20 feet in diameter were turned by the V-16 engines. The fully loaded range was about 10,000 miles or about 5 to 6 days at cruise speed. It was the largest airship ever built, with an 813-foot long aluminum frame filled with 7,200,000 cubic feet of hydrogen contained in 16 bags made of two layers of woven fabric with a gelatin-latex plastic film cemented between. Two 30-kilowatt diesel-powered generators carried the regular loads and a stand-by unit could deliver additional electric power if needed.

Germany's Nazi Third Reich provided funding to build the Hindenburg. It was run by the Nazi Minister of Propaganda. Huge swastikas were painted on the tail fins and loudspeakers made Nazi propaganda announcements when the giant ship toured cities that it passed. Thousands of small Nazi flags were dropped to float down like tiny parachutes to thrill school children and others that watched the giant Zeppelin pass. Although observation balloons were used in the U.S. Civil War, Germany was the first to widely exploit the military possibilities of dirigibles in World War I.

The Hindenburg type of airship represented considerable technical advancement and posed a much larger threat because it could fly to virtually any target, drop bombs, saboteurs, or propaganda, and fly back to Germany without stopping. After the Hindenburg burned, much speculation about sabotage entered the investigation. Was the disaster caused by lightening or sabotage? Nazi investigators were never convinced that the fire was caused by natural sources.

Before World War II, certain natural gas wells in the United States were the only significant source of helium. Helium was extracted from natural gas produced from wells around Hugoton, Kansas. Although the Hindenburg was designed to use inert helium as the lifting gas, U.S. military authorities prevented exportation of helium to Germany. The U.S. Government still holds strategic reserves of helium and closely monitors production and export programs but the reasons for doing so have shifted from dirigibles and centered on the relative scarcity of helium and its myriad of applications ranging from use as an inert cover gas for welding to various heat-transfer applications.

On the fateful evening, camera crews gathered expecting to see a "high docking" in which the Hindenburg would be moored near the top of a mast and secured with ground lines. Their cameras recorded what happened as the Hindenburg dropped lines to waiting crews and the events after the flames appeared. If the Hindenburg would have been filled with helium, would it have burned and crashed at Lakehurst, New Jersey?

Regardless of much speculation, translation of a letter handwritten in German on June 28, 1937, by Hindenburg investigator and electrical engineer Otto Beyersdorff states "The actual cause of the fire was the extreme easy flammability of the covering material brought about by discharges of an electrostatic nature ..." Recently, NASA investigator Dr. Addison Bain has verified this finding by scientific experiments that duplicated the vigorous ignition by static discharge to the aluminum powder filled covering material. Spectacular colors of this type of combustion were produced from the burning skin of the giant airship. Dr. Bain concluded that the Hindenburg would have burned and crashed even if helium would have been used as the lifting gas. Dr. Bain noted that the particular type of aluminum powder particles, which are flake like in shape, are particularly sensitive to electrical discharge.

Hydrogen is about fifteen-times lighter than air. After ignition by the violently burning surface varnish, flames from hydrogen combustion traveled upward, far away from the crew and passengers in the cabins below. What fell to the ground with the passengers were burning shrouds from the exterior fabric, a large inventory of diesel fuel, and combustible materials that were in the cabins. Thirty-three persons were killed in the Hindenburg fire. The flames that continued to be supported by heavier-than-air materials, fabric and diesel fuel continued for hours.

Sixty-two persons from the Hindenburg lived through the disaster by being fortunate enough to ride the Hindenburg down and escape the flames and wreckage that fell to the ground. Many of these survivors were relatively unharmed.

"Remember the Hindenburg" should bring thoughts of the 200 persons in the landing-assist team that were below the Hindenburg that were holding or reaching for mooring ropes when the Hindenburg caught fire. If the Hindenburg had carried the same amount of gasoline as the energy released by burning the 7,200,000 cubic feet of hydrogen ... the loss of life would have surely included many more of the crew, passengers, and the 200-member landing team.

CONCLUSIONS:

Careful investigation of the Hindenburg disaster verified the opinion of the engineers on the Hindenburg and proved that it was the flammable aluminum powder filled paint varnish that coated the infamous airship, not the hydrogen that started the fateful fire.

The Hindenburg repeated the famous experiment of Ben Franklin regarding collection of electric charge on an object in the sky. Ben Franklin flew a kite in a storm to learn about lightening. The captain of the Hindenburg provided the 800' long, 236 ton, aluminum-powder varnish covered airship as a much larger electric charge collector. As the Hindenburg was grounded by dropping landing lines, the experiment was complete and electrical discharge in the Hindenburg's skin started the fire. The Hindenburg would have burned and crashed if it had been filled with helium or simply held in the air by some other force.

As eyewitnesses noted, the hydrogen fire started considerably after the Hindenburg’s surface skin started to burn and was over in less than one minute. The diesel fuel and other heavier-than-air components of the Hindenburg continued to burn many hours on the ground.