What killed the Hindenburg?

I was in a discussion the other day with someone who was saying that it had been proven that 200,000 cubic meters of hydrogen lifting the Hindenburg was not responsible for the fiery accident that effectively brought the age of passenger airships to a close. This, he claimed, had been proved by NASA. The site here repeats this claim. But then you look at what site this is – one that promotes hydrogen-fuelled cars, and therefore has a vested interest in keeping the public believing the idea that hydrogen is a safe way to power vehicles.

At the time my friend made this claim, I didn’t have the facts in front of me to refute this, but I have since discovered a few links which make it perfectly obvious (to me) that the NASA scientist quoted was talking out of his exhaust port.

Technorati Tags: airship, disaster, technology, zeppelin

First, let’s look at Dan’s excellent airship site, where he explodes the arguments (sorry about that!) for hydrogen not being responsible for the disaster. He also takes a piece written by Dr Karl Kruszelnicki (who is often featured on BBC Radio 5) and rips his article to shreds. If you have any interest in airships at all, do take the time to visit the rest of this site – there are some superb resources and pictures of the golden age of dirigibles there.

Some more scientific evidence involving controlled tests can be seen here, which would definitely seem to rule out the idea that “rocket fuel dope” was responsible for the Hindenburg’s demise.

And if that’s not enough for you, maybe the whole PDF of the scientific article may convince you.

If you want an alternative theory, and one which I find very plausible, the one presented by former NTSB crash investigator Greg Feith works for me. Sharp cross wind turns in high winds caused bracing wires within the ship to snap, puncturing a gasbag. The captain (pro-Nazi Pruss, not the anti-Nazi Eckener on this flight) ordered weight to be shifted forward. Static electricity caused a spark when the mooring line was dropped and grounded, and this spark set off the leaking hydrogen.

We will probably never know exactly what killed the Hindenburg, but to my mind, suggesting hydrogen was not in any way responsible for the Hindenburg fire is an act of corporate criminality, equal only to the Japanese Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation showing a cartoon character named Pluto-kun (Kid Pluto) drinking plutonium to show the Japanese public how safe plutonium was (actually, plutonium is not safe at all – children, do not try this at home)!