The Crash of

LZ 129 Hindenburg

Ejaz Gul
Mamoona Ashfaq
Faizan Mahmood
 AIRSHIP
• Airships were the first aircraft to enable
controlled, powered flight, and were widely used
before the 1940s.

• These airship trips were seen as a status symbol.

• For their $400 ticket ($720 round trip), the

passengers could relax in the large, luxurious
common spaces and enjoy fine food.
 WHAT IS AN AIRSHIP
• An airship is a type of aerostat or "lighter-
than-air aircraft" that can be steered and
propelled through the air using rudders and
propellers or other thrust mechanisms.
 BASIC TYPE OF AIRSHIPS
• Non-rigid
– These are small airships without internal skeletons.

• Semi-rigid
– Semi-rigid airships are slightly larger and have some form
of internal support.

• Rigid
– Rigid airships with full internal skeletons.
 LZ 129 Hindenburg
• It was a large German commercial passenger-
carrying rigid airship, the lead ship of the
Hindenburg class.
• It was 245 meters(803.8 feet) long.
• Longest class of flying machines of any kind
and the largest airship by envelope volume.
 LZ 129 Hindenburg
• It was longer than 3 Boeing 747.
• It consist of 16 cells(bags) containing 200,000m3
of hydrogen gas.
• It has useful lift of 247,100 pounds.
• Powered by four 890kW diesel engines.
• Has maximum speed of 135km/h.
• It was skinned in cotton, doped in iron oxide with
cellulose acetate butyrate impregnated with
aluminum powder. Both elements used in rocket
fuel.
 THE DISASTER
• The Hindenburg disaster took place on Thursday,
May 6, 1937, as the German passenger airship LZ
129 Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed
during its attempt to dock with its mooring mast
at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station, which is
located adjacent to the borough of Lakehurst.

• Of the 97 people on board, 35 people died. There

was one additional fatality on the ground.
 DETAILS OF ACCIDNET
On May 3, 1937, the captain of the Hindenburg
(on this trip, Max Pruss) ordered the zeppelin
out of its shed at the airship station in
Frankfurt, Germany. This trip was the first of the
1937 season for passenger service between
Europe and the United States and it wasn't as
popular as the 1936 season. In 1936, the
Hindenburg had completed ten successful trips
(1,002 passengers) and was so popular that
they had to turn away customers.
 DETAILS OF ACCIDNET
A storm was brewing over the Lakehurst Naval Air Station
(New Jersey) on the afternoon of May 6, 1937. After
Captain Pruss had taken the Hindenburg over Manhattan,
with a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty, the airship was
nearly over Lakehurst when they received a weather
report which stated that winds were up to 25 knots. In a
lighter-than-air ship, winds could be dangerous; thus,
both Captain Pruss and Commander Charles Rosendahl,
the officer in charge of the air station, agreed that the
Hindenburg should wait for the weather to improve. The
Hindenburg then headed southward, then northward, in
a continuing circle while it waited for better weather.
 DETAILS OF ACCIDNET
At 6 p.m. it began to really rain and soon after began
to clear. At 6:12 p.m., Commander Rosendahl
informed Captain Pruss: "Conditions now considered
suitable for landing." The Hindenburg had traveled
perhaps a little too far and was still not at Lakehurst at
7:10 p.m. when Commander Rosendahl sent another
message: "Conditions definitely improved recommend
earliest possible landing.“
While Captain Pruss brought Hindenburg around the
field, First Officer Albert Sammt valved 15 seconds of
hydrogen along the length of the ship to reduce
Hindenburg’s buoyancy in preparation for landing.
 DETAILS OF ACCIDNET
As Pruss reducing, and then reversing, the power
from the engines, Sammt noticed that the ship was
heavy in the tail and valved hydrogen from cells 11-
16 (in the bow) for a total of 30 seconds, to reduce
the buoyancy of the bow and keep the ship in level
trim. When this failed to level the ship, Sammt
ordered three drops of water ballast, totaling 1,100
kg (2,420lbs), from Ring 77 in the tail, and then
valved an additional 5 seconds of hydrogen from the
forward gas cells. When even these measures could
not keep the ship in level trim, six crewmen were
ordered to go forward to add their weight to the
bow.
 DETAILS OF ACCIDNET
At 7:21 p.m., the Hindenburg was still about 1,000
feet away from the mooring mast and
approximately 300 feet in the air. Most of the
passengers stood by the windows to watch the
onlookers grow larger as the airship decreased its
altitude and to wave at their family and friends.
The five officers on board (two were just
observers) were all in the control gondola. Other
crewmen were in the tail fin to release mooring
lines and to drop the rear landing wheel.
 DETAILS OF ACCIDNET
At 7:25 p.m., witnesses saw a small, mushroom-
shaped flame rise from the top of the tail section
of the Hindenburg, just in front of the tail fin. The
crewmen in the tail of the airship said they heard a
detonation which sounded like the burner on a gas
stove turn on. Within seconds, the fire engulfed
the tail and spread quickly forward . The mid-
section was completely in flames even before the
tail of the Hindenburg hit the ground.
It took only 34 seconds for the entire airship to be
consumed by flames.
DETAILS OF ACCIDNET
 DETAILS OF ACCIDNET
The passengers and crew had only seconds to react.
Some jumped out of the windows, some fell. Since the
Hindenburg was still 300 feet (roughly equal to 30 stories)
in the air when it caught fire, many of these passengers
did not survive the fall. Other passengers and crew
jumped from the ship once it neared the ground.
Considering the quickness of the catastrophe, it is
amazing that only 35 of the 97 men and women on
board, plus one member of the ground crew, died in the
Hindenburg disaster. This tragedy - seen by so many via
photographs, news-reels, and radio - effectively ended
commercial passenger service in rigid, lighter-than-air
crafts.