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The Hindenburg disaster recently marked its 89th anniversary, and [The History Guy] marked the event with a video that dispels many of the myths surrounding the airship. Example: the disaster did not actually occur on the airship’s maiden voyage. That isn’t true. The ship was on its 63rd voyage. However, it was the first flight of the 1937 season.
The giant ship burned because of the hydrogen gas inside, but the cause of the fire remains debatable and was likely not solely due to hydrogen. In fact, from a technical standpoint, the ship didn’t explode. It only burned.
Some of the myths are just from sloppy reporting or the tendency of people to misunderstand things. Others are a blurring in the common consciousness of the Hindenburg and the Titanic.
It is easy to think of the necessity for safe engineering when you are building, say, a bomb or a spacecraft. But anything capable of wreaking havoc requires careful design and testing. However, ships like the Hindenburg had made many trips without incident. Sure, the Hindenburg was a spectacle, but even the fatality rate was fairly low. Many of those who died jumped to the ground — they might have survived if they had waited a minute.
There are many myths around [Herb Morrison]’s famous “Oh the humanity!” report. We’ve noted before that it was played back at the wrong speed for decades. Airships have a stranger history than you might imagine.
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