Secrets of the Dead (2000–…): Season 19, Episode 4 - Hindenburg's Fatal Flaws - full transcript

♪♪♪

-May 6, 1937... The
world's largest airship, the

Hindenburg, explodes.

36 people are killed,

and the entire disaster
is caught on film.

- Oh, my God!
- Shoot it!

-That image of an airship
crashing into the ground,

wreathed in flame,
has become iconic.

-But how did it happen?

Brand-new research and
recently uncovered documents

have exposed a series
of crucial errors



leading up to the
Hindenburg explosion.

From fatal decision making...

-They took shortcuts because
of the pressure they were under.

-Landing airships
in thunderstorms

is not a good idea.

-...to flawed design...

-The outer cover is similar
to the wings of a plane:

if they're not right,
the thing won't fly right.

It's that simple.

-...and intense demands
from Hitler.

-The Nazi party saw this
as an opportunity

and invested millions.

-That would have put enormous
pressure on the crew

to perform perfectly.



-Critical mistakes that led
to a fiery tragedy

and the death of airship travel.

-This visual of this
burning airship

cemented the fate
of this form of transport.

-You don't hear the word
"Hindenburg"

without thinking disaster.

-There's kind of no coming back
from that.

-""Hindenburg's Fatal Flaws."

♪♪♪

- "Secrets of the Dead"
was made possible in part by

contributions to your PBS
station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

♪♪♪

-In 1936, German airship
manufacturer Zeppelin revealed

what they believed
was the future of air travel...

An 800-foot-long airship
called the Hindenburg.

-No airplane has ever
been bigger.

No air balloon
has ever been bigger.

-What the Zeppelin Company
was doing

was building something that was
the size of an ocean liner

and floating it in the sky.

-It's the size of almost three
747's lined up back-to-back.

That is how big we're talking.

-It's almost mind blowing to
think that nearly 100 years ago

we built the biggest thing

that has ever gone
in the air and flown.

-With a range of
almost 6,000 miles, the

could cross
the Atlantic Ocean with ease...

Hindenburg

Germany to New Jersey
took less than 50 hours.

The fastest ocean-going ship
of the time took five days.

And when it came to travelling
in style, nothing came close.

-Accommodations are provided
for 50 passengers.

The dining room, drawing room,

writing room are large
and comfortable.

-This was an experience
not dissimilar to first-class

on an ocean liner,
but in the sky...

So you had access
to comfortable cabins,

a lounge, fine dining
in the restaurant.

-The has a promenade
deck Hindenburg

where people can wander around.

It had its own piano.

The Hindenburg was
packed with luxury.

-The really offered
that level of service

Hindenburg that
set the standard.

It showed that you can have
a cruise line cabin in the sky.

-The rich and famous snapped up
seats aboard the airship.

The became the crown
jewel of the world's

Hindenburg first
commercial airship operator.

But just 12 months after its
maiden voyage, disaster struck.

Following an Atlantic crossing
from Frankfurt to America,

the exploded... Hindenburg

with 97 passengers
and crew on board.

♪♪♪

♪♪♪

-How did this tragedy
happen to the Hindenburg?

The world wants to know.

-Today,
more than 80 years later,

the list of failures that led
to the tragedy can be revealed.

The first mistake happened
a year before the disaster...

when the Hindenburg
started commercial flights

after only a handful
of test flights.

-Today, the testing that is done
on aircraft

is done at
the very tiniest scales.

Computer modelling,
exactly what forces are going

to go through
each component of the aircraft.

By modern standards, the testing
that was done on the Hindenburg

was really not
very adequate at all.

♪♪♪

-In 1918, World War I was over
and there was a growing appetite

for adventure in Europe
and the United States.

-Travel across the Atlantic
and across the world

at this point was becoming
increasingly common,

but it usually took place
on ocean liners...

But it was slow,
crucially, it was slow.

It took it could take up to up
to a week or more,

in fact to across the Atlantic,

so Europe and America
still felt very far apart.

-The First World War

supercharged aircraft
development...

but passenger planes capable
of crossing the Atlantic

were still years
from becoming a reality.

Instead, the focus fell on
a different type of aircraft...

One that had proven
its long-range potential

during the war.

-The Zeppelins were created to
be used in military maneuvers.

Zeppelins were used by
the Germans to bomb Britain

to drop bombs on citizens
and the cities beneath them.

-In a bid to conquer the oceans,

the U.S.,
France, and Britain

raced to build
a new generation of airships

that would carry passengers,
not bombs.

But the post-war Treaty
of Versailles kept the Germans,

experts in the field,
sitting on the sidelines.

-Immediately after World War I,

the allies tried very diligently
to stop Germany from rearming.

And that meant size of Army,
that meant Navy,

and that meant aircraft.

-To stay in business,
Zeppelin...

the acknowledged world leader
in producing airships...

sidestepped the rules.

They offered their expertise
to international competitors.

-The Zeppelin Company
is quite sneaky here.

They go to the Americans
and say,

"If we build you
this incredible airship,

will you allow us
to keep our factory running?"

And the Americans go
for this deal.

-So the Zeppelin Company clearly
took advantage

of the immediate allowance
of continued production

so that they could continue
developing, continue perfecting,

and basically restart
their operation.

-When the restrictions were
finally relaxed in 1926,

Zeppelin immediately
started production

of its own airship,
called the Graf Zeppelin.

- The - Graf Zeppelin
Was the largest

and most modern dirigible
in the world.

With her, Germany took the lead
in the airship field.

-The was the very first
aircraft Graf Zeppelin

that was actually designed
to go over an ocean.

-To showcase their latest
product upon completion,

Hugo Eckener, the head
of the Zeppelin Company

and a skilled airship pilot,
embarked on

a record-breaking flight.

-Hugo Eckener built
the largest Zeppelin

ever attempted in the world

and, in an immense publicity
stunt,

flies it all the way
around the earth.

And everywhere he goes around
the world he's cheered.

This is what
Hugo Eckener wanted.

He wanted something that
the public would look up to...

literally look up to...
And be wowed.

People were still
afraid of this.

I mean, this is a really
terrifying idea

to be up in the sky.

What happens if you lose power?
Can you crash?

I mean most people have never
even been up

in the air at this point at all.

So what he does is he takes
the thing around the world

and does a series of, basically,

flights that show
that it's viable.

-And that is, of course,
what catapults Eckener

to this position
of enormous fame,

is that he becomes
a representation

of this new age
of dashing pilots.

They are the kind of knights
of the sky.

-After Hugo Eckener had done
his miraculous

'round the world trip,
companies all around

the world wanted
to invest in airships

and wanted Zeppelin
to make them.

-After Zeppelin had successfully
demonstrated

the airship's potential,
Eckener...

determined to be at the
forefront

of global air travel...

Developed an ambitious plan.

His company would build
an airship

even bigger than
the Graf Zeppelin.

It would be called
the Hindenburg.

-This was Germany saying,

"We're still a key player
in the world,

and we can do these
incredible engineering feats."

-The is developed
to show Hindenburg

that we can actually fly people
long distances,

pay for it
through ticket revenues,

and he's effectively creating
an airline industry

where one had never
existed before.

-On March 4, 1936,
14 months before the disaster,

the Hindenburg was
ready to take to the skies

for the very first time.

But no one...
Not even its engineers...

knew how something so large
would behave once airborne.

-Despite the fact that
the Zeppelin Company

had had 25 years of success,

- the
- Hindenburg pushed things much,

much farther than it had
ever been done before.

-It was so much bigger than any
airship that had come before.

And in engineering, when you
start scaling things up,

you do start entering problems.

Because of the vast
size of the Hindenburg,

they really didn't know
how it was going to fly

until they'd already built it

and put it up
for its first test flight.

-We're putting something up
in the air

that has some seven acres
of aeronautical cloth.

The vast forces that are on it
are inconceivable.

So how it's going to behave
is not known

and it makes you wonder

if it wasn't just too big
in the first place.

-The first flight lasted
more than three hours.

Hindenburg's

But the test flights were
limited and inadequate,

while critical safety checks
were overlooked.

Zeppelin missed a possible
chance to find and fix problems.

-To establish that a type
of aircraft is safe,

requires numerous tests:

turning ability,
stopping ability,

ability to control altitude
in flight, flight test crashes,

how to have emergency
evacuations...

So many things
that ought to be in place.

Many of these weren't.

-They did seven test flights
to make sure

that it would actually be able
to get airborne

and do the job
that they thought it could do.

Of these seven test flights,

all of them were done
above land in Germany.

None of them were testing

actually what they were
hoping to do with the Hindenburg,

which was to fly it
across the Atlantic.

-It is strange, isn't it,
that flight tests

for an over-ocean aircraft

wouldn't include
an over-ocean flight trial.

But this was the case back
in the 1930s.

Remember, aeronautics
is really new.

There's so many things
that are unknown.

And this vehicle is
so much larger

than what had ever been tried
before.

-After just a handful of test
flights...

all performed over land...

The first passengers
were welcomed onboard.

And then the Hindenburg
set off on an epic 6,000-mile,

four-day flight
across the Atlantic,

from Germany to Brazil.

-The Hindenburg,
when it first took off,

was completely
an experimental aircraft

and probably had no business
taking passengers

for a long time.

As an experimental aircraft,
there were certainly issues

that had to be worked out

and it's clear from memos
and letters back and forth

in hasty fashion that they were
devastating issues

that had to be resolved quickly.

-The paying passengers
on board the Hindenburg

trusted German ingenuity.

They trusted that this airship
would get them

from A to B safely.

-Against the odds,

the Hindenburg's
first transatlantic flights

were all successful.

But a year later,
on its 37th Atlantic crossing,

the airship's problematic size
and inadequate

testing became apparent.

-There was a design flaw...

Critical and fatal
design flaw...

On the Hindenburg.

♪♪♪

-As the Hindenburg
was coming into land

at Lakehurst Naval Air Station
in New Jersey,

it was consumed by flames.

The 7 million cubic feet of
hydrogen inside the airship

exploded almost instantaneously.

In less than a minute,

- the
- Hindenburg and its 97 passengers

and crew were enveloped
in a gigantic fireball.

-The technology that created
the Hindenburg couldn't save it.

In 32 seconds,
it went up in flames.

-The risk of using highly
explosive hydrogen

as a means to lift
the ship was well known.

-Not all of the ships
got off the ground...

the V6 exploded in its hanger.

The hydrogen had been ignited
by a stray spark.

-But nearly a decade earlier,
the company's headstrong boss

ignored the concerns
of key administrators,

and it was a decision
that would prove fatal.

-The risks are very high.

And the fact that there were
alternatives available,

even if they had
their shortcomings,

does suggest that the use
of hydrogen in the Hindenburg

did make this airship
a ticking time bomb.

♪♪♪

-In the early days of
designing the Hindenburg,

company leader Hugo Eckener
had a key decision to make...

Would his ambitious airship
rely on hydrogen gas

to provide its lift?

Or should he switch to a newer,
and safer, alternative:

helium?

-You want to fill your airship
with a gas

that is less dense
than the air around it.

This produces a buoyancy force
which pushes the airship up.

Hydrogen is the lightest
chemical element.

It's the smallest atom,

it occurs
naturally on Earth as a gas,

and it's much less dense
than air.

Helium is the second
lightest gas.

The key advantage
of choosing helium

over hydrogen in an airship

is the fact
that it is an inert gas

and so it doesn't represent
an explosive risk.

-Hydrogen was cheaper.

It was more readily available.

It was capable of achieving
a much greater lift

so it could carry
more passengers,

more weight in the gondola,

But the risk of it was it was
flammable, highly flammable.

-Helium was likely a much safer,

and more stable,
option than explosive hydrogen.

But helium had problems too.

While also lighter than air,

it was still heavier
than hydrogen,

reducing its lift power
and the number of passengers.

And it was difficult
to get ahold of.

In the 1930s,

most of the world's helium was
produced in the United States.

-The U.S.
had a monopoly on helium supply.

This presented a big problem
to the engineers in Europe,

and they really didn't like
the idea of relying

on U.S. imports of helium.

-So a German company
like Zeppelin

couldn't realistically
build helium airships

without a huge amount of cost

and a huge amount of potential
paperwork and diplomacy

trying to secure that gas
from the United States.

-Hugo Eckener chose cost
and availability over safety,

forging ahead with the use
of hydrogen for his new airship.

But then, in October 1930,

seven years before
the Hindenburg disaster,

a tragic accident forced him to
question his original decision.

-Most of these men
have a date with death...

but in the elevator up
the mooring mast

there's no hint
of the holocaust to come.

-A British airship
filled with hydrogen, the

exploded, killing
48 of its 56 passengers.

R101,

-And this was all that remained
of Britain's empress of the sky.

-After the R101
flaming disaster,

Hugo Eckener thought maybe
we do need to use helium.

-You give us helium
for our merchant ships

and we will give you our large
operating experiences

in exchange.

And this way I believe
the further development

of the airship
and airship traffic

will be assured
for the benefit of mankind.

-But, ultimately, Eckener
continued to rely on hydrogen.

Zeppelin had an unblemished
record of using it

in all their previous airships.

Overconfident, Eckener
ignored the warnings

and made the fatal decision
to stick with the explosive gas.

-The historical record shows
that no one told Hugo Eckener

what to do.

He was absolutely bull-headed

in his determination to stay
with hydrogen at all costs.

-Hugo Eckener boasted
about Zeppelin's safety record.

He boasted that German ingenuity
could master the hydrogen

and that they could produce
the best airships in the world.

It was this kind of arrogance,
unfortunately,

that led to the disaster.

-The decision to stay
with hydrogen

meant that the Hindenburg
was certain to blow up

fatally at some point.

-Had Eckener heeded the warnings
about using hydrogen,

the Hindenburg would
never have exploded.

But his choice wasn't the only
mistake

that set the airship
on the path to disaster.

♪♪♪

For the Hindenburg's
maiden crossing,

the passenger list
was made up of celebrities,

the wealthy elite,
and journalists.

But now, new evidence reveals
that even as these people

were boarding,
a critical design flaw

meant the Hindenburg's
time was already running out.

-The had a dangerous
rattle... Hindenburg

and this is a problem,
and they know it.

♪♪♪

-December 1935...

almost 18 months
before the disaster.

Zeppelin technicians
were about to undertake

one of the most difficult steps

in of the Hindenburg's
construction:

Covering its vast
aluminum frame with fabric.

-The outer cover
of the Hindenburg

is one of the most
extraordinary uses of fabric,

probably of all time.

We're talking about
some seven acres of cloth.

-It was stretched across
this skeleton of metal,

and this was really important

that the that the textile
was fitted really snugly

because if there's
any sort of movement in that,

then the ship won't be able
to fly efficiently.

-This highly skilled process
was unique to Zeppelin,

and it had been perfected by
the company's textiles expert,

Karl Hurttle.

Hurttle spent two decades
overseeing the covering

of more than
50 of Zeppelin's airships.

-Karl Hurttle was sort of
a secret weapon

of the Zeppelin Company.

He's really the world's expert
on this.

-He had developed his own system

for creating a taut layer
of waterproof fabric

for the airship's vast skeleton.

-This is an incredibly
involved process.

But in the end, what they end up
with is something that is

very strong, very sturdy,
and doesn't vibrate in the wind.

-But when the Hindenburg
was ready to be covered...

Karl Hurttle wasn't there.

He was now working
in the United States.

With financial pressure
to get the airborne,

Hindenburg

Zeppelin was forced
to cover the airship

without its most
experienced fabric expert.

-This type of construction
had never been attempted before.

This was the biggest airship
ever made.

And so the fact that their chief
textile engineer was away

overseas on a different project
was really, really not ideal.

-And the colossal
size of the Hindenburg

wasn't the only challenge
for the technicians.

-The conditions were bitterly
cold and wet.

This meant that the textile
became waterlogged and icy,

and this caused the textile
to become very stiff

and not very flexible.

-It's like trying
to put a dress on

or a pair of jeans
that are frozen.

They're just not going to
quite fit on there.

And in fact, there was
a Goodyear technician on hand

who observed the outer cover
being put on the Hindenburg...

first time it was ever done...

who noted that, probably,
given those conditions...

The freezing weather
and the dampness...

That the outer cover
was not going to be properly

put on as firmly
and tautly as it should be.

-When the Hindenburg
was finished,

it took its first test flight
on March 4, 1936,

with just a handful
of crewmembers aboard.

And within minutes,
they detected a problem.

-Once it was up in the skies,

they noticed a sort of
fluttering of this textile

that was coating the Hindenburg.

What they didn't realize was
that this fluttering

was being transferred

to the metal skeleton
of the Hindenburg.

-Back in the hangar,

the technicians desperately
searched for a solution.

They attempted to make the outer
cover fit more tightly

by applying a highly flammable
fabric lacquer known as

"aircraft dope."

-One of the things that
the Zeppelin Company did

was to paint two extra coats
of dope across the entire top.

Now, this is a significant
amount of weight

and a lot of expense,

but the hope was that
this would remove

the potentially destructive
flutter.

-Despite these attempts to fix
the problem,

the fabric continued to flutter.

But the added drag and
constant vibrations didn't seem

to affect the airship's
overall flight performance,

so the problem went unsolved.

The fluttering fabric would play
a more significant role

in the destruction than
previously understood.

Hindenburg's

-This issue of fluttering
in an airship

was well known on the smaller
ones that had come before.

The difference
with the Hindenburg

was that it was on
a vastly larger scale,

so the problem became amplified
in the same way

that the volume of the ship
was amplified as well.

And so it wasn't known how much
of a problem

a large flutter would
be with the Hindenburg.

Without that fluttering,
it's possible that the

disaster could
have been entirely avoided.

Hindenburg [ Explosion ]

- -Just moments into the
Hindenburg's - maiden flight,

concerns about its sloppy
construction were raised.

But the reason for its rushed
construction happened

five years earlier
and affected millions of people.

-In 1929, the Wall Street crash

had taken place
in the United States,

and that unleashed the worldwide
Great Depression.

So funding for large-scale
industrial and technological

enterprises
began to wither away.

-Germany's
economy was on its knees...

and Hugo Eckener was worried
about his budget.

Determined to keep his
ambitious airship on track,

he brought in financial
investors who sealed its fate.

-Trying to build the largest
aircraft the world

has ever seen in the middle
of the Great Depression

was not good timing.

That meant that in order
to salvage the project,

he had to cut some deals
with the devil.

♪♪♪

-In the summer of 1933...

four years before the
Hindenburg exploded...

Eckener appealed to Hitler's
propaganda minister,

Joseph Goebbels,

for financial help to finish
the giant airship.

Goebbels jumped
at the opportunity.

-So the Hindenburg was
seen by Nazi party leadership,

particularly Joseph Goebbels,
as a massive propaganda coup.

Airships were this
symbol of greatness,

of technological progress,
of luxury.

-To finish the pioneering
airship,

the Nazi regime invested funds

totaling the equivalent of more
than $10 million today.

-There's no such thing
as a free lunch,

and the money that the Nazis
gave had strings attached.

-After five years
of construction, the

was finally
finished in March 1936.

Hindenburg

Goebbels almost immediately put
his propaganda machine to work,

emblazoning the ship
with Nazi swastikas.

Instead of test flights
over the open ocean,

he commandeered the airship
for short publicity flights

over Germany
to increase Nazi popularity.

-The Hindenburg became the means

by which the Nazis promoted
their philosophy to the skies.

-The became this
symbol of Nazi Germany

Hindenburg in many respects,

and that would have put enormous
pressure on the Zeppelin Company

and on the crew of the airship
to perform perfectly.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-The became a stand-in
for Nazi Hindenburg

Germany's technical prowess
and mechanical expertise...

without ever being properly
tested for long-range flight.

-We can see here the ways
in which this new technology

has been appropriated
by the Nazi party

who helped to fund it.

Before it's even had a chance to
serve its commercial purposes,

it's already being deployed
as a propaganda tool

for the Nazi regime.

-The Zeppelin Company
took shortcuts.

They took shortcuts because
of the pressure they were under.

There was too much support
behind it for it to fail.

-Keen to start making money
on their investment,

Zeppelin scheduled
the first Hindenburg's

commercial flight.

But the limited
safety testing...

ill-fitting outer covering...

and pressure from the Nazis
to showcase perfection...

left the Hindenburg compromised.

It was only a matter of time
before the shortcuts

were revealed.

To this day, the

remains
the largest aircraft ever flown.

Hindenburg

The airship was the culmination
of a movement

toward
lighter-than-air transportation

that began
eight decades earlier.

In 1852, the world's
first airship,

built by French inventor
Henri Giffard,

flew a distance
of more than 20 miles.

But it was German inventor
Graf Von Zeppelin who, in 1900,

successfully demonstrated
the real potential

of the motorized airship.

-It was a transition from simply
getting up into the air

and being able to move
where the wind took you,

to getting up into the air
and steering against the wind,

which is a big,
big step in aviation.

-The secret to Zeppelin's
concept

lay inside the ship's
protective fabric covering:

A series of gasbags
provided the airship

with enough buoyancy
to carry an engine...

and a payload.

-Of course if you've got
a lot of gas balloons,

you've got a lot of payload,

so you can carry
a really big engine.

You can have multiple
propellers,

and that that
was his breakthrough.

-Zeppelin
demonstrated that air travel

could be more
than a recreational activity

for adventurers
and thrill seekers.

The airship had the potential to
be used for a great deal more.

-And this is really where
the Zeppelin makes its mark,

because it's really the first
craft that can reasonably

and predictably steer
where it wants to go,

take off where it wants to go,
and land where it wants to go.

Remember, this is a time
when no one

had ever been
sort of air lifted up

and suddenly looking down
on the world.

So this was quite a novelty
at the time -

and that was the plan
after the war,

was to create a passenger
service for an airline.

-By the time disaster
struck in 1937, the

had already delivered
on its promise Hindenburg

to be the world leader
in international aviation.

In its first nine months,

it made 34 successful
Atlantic crossings...

and flew almost 3,000 passengers

between Europe and North and
South America in record time.

-It's been an incredible season.

200,000 miles,
not a single problem.

-But the Hindenburg's
shimmering canvas

was hiding a deadly problem.

One of the giant gasbags,

containing the highly
explosive hydrogen,

was on the brink of rupturing...

and no one had noticed.

-Any leak of hydrogen on
an airship is potentially fatal.

If you have gasbags
that are damaged,

there's no telling
how much hydrogen can escape.

It's clearly a catastrophic
problem.

♪♪♪

-In December 1936...

five months before the
Hindenburg exploded...

The colossal airship

was undergoing its first
major overhaul.

After a triumphant first year,
10 new cabins were installed

to increase
the airship's capacity

and help make the Hindenburg
profitable for the first time.

-They proved the concept
that luxury travel was possible,

they could do the distances,
that people wanted to do it.

There was massive demand
and they could do it in luxury,

but they just
couldn't make money.

-To create the additional
cabin space,

the shape of one of the
airship's 16 hydrogen gasbags

had to be changed.

-It's like altering a dress
or a jacket.

They needed to refit this gasbag
for additional passenger cabins.

-A maintenance report...

only recently discovered
in the archives

at the University of Texas
at Dallas...

Documents how,
during the remodeling process,

an alarming problem
was discovered.

-When the workmen
pull the gasbag out,

they discover chafing abrasions
at the top of it

that made it
vulnerable to a leak.

-Once again, the airship's
ill-fitting outer skin

was the source of the trouble.

The vibrations caused by
the fluttering fabric

loosened the wires
that kept the gasbag in place.

In turn, those wires then rubbed
against the cotton fabric

of the gasbag,
wearing it dangerously thin.

-Some protective wiring that
was supposed to increase

the safety of the gasbags

actually was having
the opposite effect.

-And so by compromising
the structural integrity

of those gasbags,

that's representing a risk point
of hydrogen

potentially leaking out.

-The same maintenance report
goes on to reveal that,

although the damaged gasbag
was fixed,

the wires meant to hold it
in place were simply tied back

and not properly secured.

-It's incredible that the best
solution that they could

come up with for a technological
wonder was tape and twine.

In the end, clearly,
it didn't work.

-This, to me, seems like a
little bit of a patch solution,

considering that the hydrogen
gasbags are so important

and their integrity

is pretty crucial
to the safety of the aircraft.

-The damage may have been
patched up,

but the Zeppelin team
was still no closer

to resolving the issue with
the airship's fluttering fabric.

-They thought
that they'd limited

the extent of the damage,

but why it was happening
was still a puzzle

that they were intently
working on.

-Just days after the potential
hydrogen leak was fixed,

the Hindenburg began the
countdown to its second season.

The airship's design flaws
and makeshift repairs

had turned it
into a ticking time bomb.

And one senior member of
the Zeppelin team realized

just how dangerous
it had become.

But he chose to keep quiet.

♪♪♪

For the fateful 1937 season, the

would be flown
by several different captains.

Hindenburg

Each one had been personally
trained by best in the business.

-Ernst Lehmann was
the most experienced

Zeppelin pilot in the world.

He flew through World War I.

He was trained by Hugo Eckener.

Lehmann is one of the chief
pilots for the Hindenburg.

He knows it, every inch,
bow to stern.

-Now, a letter,
recently discovered

in the records of
the Bureau of Air Commerce,

shows Lehmann knew about
the damaged gasbag...

and the shoddy repairs.

-He told a good friend of his
named Leonhard Adelt,

who was a journalist,

that he had very deep
worries about the Hindenburg

because of the gasbag damage.

This is very secretive
information.

This is not well known
outside the company

and barely known
inside the company.

So he's really confided
something in someone

he really respects and trusts.

-Written by Leonhard Adelt,

the letter reveals
that Lehmann was prepared

to make a major personal
sacrifice to prevent disaster.

-Lehmann tells Leonhard Adelt,
"I'm so worried about this

that I will fly on
the Hindenburg

because there may be a problem
and the experience of the staff

and the crew won't be enough
to handle it.

I will be there to help."

We never knew this.

This was an incredible admission
by Captain Lehmann

of a real problem
on the Hindenburg.

-On May 3, 1937, Lehmann
boarded the Hindenburg

for what would be
its final flight.

-It's clear from the fact
that Lehmann agreed to fly

on the final flight

that he expected
some sort of problems,

but ones that
could be manageable.

I don't think he anticipated
catastrophe.

I think he thought difficulty,

grave difficulty,
but not catastrophe.

-By noon on May 5th...
The day before the crash...

the was 1,000 miles
from its destination...

Hindenburg which
would play its own key

part in the airship's
destruction.

-The reason they chose Lakehurst
was proximity to the cities,

but it's prone to sea fog

and it's prone to other
bad weather phenomena.

So it's actually a rotten place
to build an airship base.

♪♪♪

-Nearly 20 years earlier,
when many believed the airship

was the future
of international travel,

the U.S. Navy built a new
facility

in Lakehurst, New Jersey.

They spent the equivalent
of $140 million,

hoping to make a profit on this
new form of transportation.

-The Lakehurst base was
absolutely the pinnacle

of airship development
in the United States.

It had the largest
airship facility in the world.

It was, in fact,
the largest room

ever constructed in the world

in order to house
these enormous airships.

-In the same way that the
Hindenburg was a flagship

for German airship engineering,

so Lakehurst was
a flagship site for the U.S.

kind of investment
in airships ships as well.

-But despite its
impressive infrastructure,

there was a major problem
with the site.

Lakehurst was a terrible
location,

exposed and prone to bad weather

coming straight off
the North Atlantic.

-The optimal placement
for safety

and function of any airship base

is a hundred miles inland.

Lakehurst was 14 miles inland.

-The Lakehurst airbase
was renowned

for being troubled by storms...

Not an ideal scenario
if you trying to land an airship

that is filled
with hydrogen gas.

-In 1927, nearly 10 years
before the Hindenburg disaster,

an American airship,
the USS Los Angeles,

was caught by a gust of wind.

A photographer captured
the incredible moment on film.

-At Lakehurst, the Los
Angeles has its tail turned vertical

by the strength of the wind.

-It makes the airship stand
fully up with people inside.

People are falling down,
things are crashing down,

gasoline's flooding down.

And only after several minutes
did the air breeze stop

and it dropped back down
onto its side.

-I think it's fair to say
that it was not the ideal

location for an airship base,

in a place that was
constantly buffeted by storms,

both in terms of strong winds
and in terms of thunderstorms

with electrical charge.

-Despite concerns after the
USS Los Angeles incident,

the Navy's financial investment
in Lakehurst

kept the facility open.

And the decision seemed
like a smart one.

For the next 10 years
there were no major incidents.

Until May 6, 1937.

At 11:30 AM, on the
day of the disaster,

Hindenburg

the commander of
the U.S. Naval Air Station

received
a disturbing weather report.

Flying conditions in the area

were described
as "average to undesirable."

The was just six-and-a-half
hours Hindenburg

away from its destination.

Approaching the east coast
of the United States,

the was already behind
schedule, Hindenburg

delayed by a strong headwind.

This delay to the Hindenburg's
arrival in New Jersey

would prove to be deadly.

-There was actually
a one-hour window

when the weather was
completely clear over Lakehurst,

meaning that the Hindenburg

could have landed
in perfect safety

had it have been there
at that time.

♪♪♪

-The Hindenburg had
been scheduled to arrive

at Lakehurst airship base
at 6:00 AM.

But the winds had cut the
airship's speed almost in half.

-The Hindenburg normally travels

at 70 miles per hour
at a cruising speed.

It's down to 55.

Within a day, it's down to 37.

It's barely moving.

The outer cover is fluttering
tremendously

and taking the brunt
of all these heavy headwinds.

-The Hindenburg had
been delayed on its journey,

so the captain had radioed ahead

to the base
to tell of this delay

-The landing was rescheduled
for 6:00 PM

and the ground crew was ordered
to stand down until then.

But, as the Hindenburg
approached the U.S. coastline,

the winds dropped
and the airship

began to make up lost time.

At around 4:00 PM, the

was finally
approaching Lakehurst.

Hindenburg

Conditions were unsettled,
but a short break in the weather

provided an opportunity to land.

But now there was
another problem.

Because the Hindenburg's
speed had increased,

the ship was now two hours ahead
of its revised time of arrival

and the ground crew
was nowhere to be found.

-Generally,
an airship would take

over 300 people to bring it in,

people who are literally
pulling on ropes

that are going up to the ship

and helping bring it back
to the ground.

-It becomes a huge operation,
but also one that's only ever

rolled out at a time
when an airship is coming in.

-With the ground crew
not scheduled

to return to the base
for another two hours, the

Hindenburg was forced to wait.

-The Hindenburg ended up

circling around the base
for a while,

while the ground crew
scrambled themselves together

and got ready for the landing.

[ Thunder rumbles ]

-But as the Hindenburg
stayed in its holding pattern,

the weather grew much worse.

-Landing an airship is difficult
in the best weather conditions,

but here we have churning skies,

there had been thunderstorms
throughout the area all day.

-At 5:12 PM, Lakehurst base
commander Charles Rosendahl

finally gave the Hindenburg
clearance to land.

-Rosendahl said, "Weather
conditions have settled,

recommend landing."

-But he had badly misjudged
the weather.

Using radar to forecast the
weather was still years away.

The airbase relied on basic
meteorological instruments

and ground observers.

By the time the Hindenburg
was in position to land,

the storm was directly
over the base.

-There was thunder in the air.

There was dampness in the air.

There was lightning around.

They weren't very
good conditions.

They shouldn't have landed
when they did.

-If the Hindenburg had
waited out the storm

away from Lakehurst,

there was still
a chance disaster

could have been averted.

But that would have delayed the
return journey back to Europe...

which was not acceptable
for brand Hindenburg.

-There was enormous pressure
to land the ship

and take off
as quickly as possible,

because it was completely booked
with 70 passengers

who were headed off to Europe,

which meant the ship
was being steered into disaster.

- -The
- Hindenburg was the world's first

Regular transatlantic
passenger air service.

But on its final flight,

it was running half-a-day
behind schedule.

A series of mistakes

were already conspiring
against the airship...

And now there was added stress.

[ Thunder rumbles ]

-Landing airships
in thunderstorms

is not a good idea...

But one of the major
contributors to them landing

when they did was the pressure
that that particular flight back

was a very,
very important for them.

♪♪♪

-The was marketed as a
luxury passenger service

Hindenburg that prided
itself on punctuality.

12 hours behind schedule,

there was a great deal
of pressure to land the airship,

regardless of
the weather conditions.

-The Zeppelin Company,
for obvious reasons,

were very keen
to minimize any delay

in the functioning of their
flagship craft to showcase

once again that the Hindenburg
was the best of its kind.

-A normal turnaround
took two days.

Because of the delayed arrival,
the crew would not have had

enough time to prepare
for the return journey.

-The pilots can be under stress
to get their passengers

to the destination on time,

so when things like weather
come into play,

they now have to battle
against this.

-The boss of Lakehurst was under
this political pressure,

and the captain
of the Hindenburg

was under political pressure,
to get on with it.

-This return trip was
especially important

for the Zeppelin Company.

Many of the passengers
booked on the return flight

were VIPs heading
to the social event of the year:

the Coronation
of King George VI.

-There were dignitaries
and luminaries

who were expected to
travel on the Hindenburg.

They were waiting
and relying on the fact

that this new means
of safe transportation

would get them back to Europe.

-The coronation
of King George VI

is an enormous event
on the world stage.

It's being covered, of course,
by the press

in an absolute frenzy,
not only because it's

the coronation
of a new king in Britain,

but also because of the scandal
around the abdication

of King George VI's
older brother,

and his marriage to the divorcée
Wallace Simpson,

in the run up
to this coronation.

So there's more media attention
than ever before

in the British royal family
and in the coronation.

-There must have been
enormous pressure

after the flight
delays to land the aircraft

and to turn it around to get on
the way with the next flight,

which was highly publicized.

-The pressure was mounting...
A lengthy delay...

no ground crew...

a vital return journey
in jeopardy.

Against standard airship
operational practice,

the decision was made to land

as the storm overhead grew
in intensity.

It was the single
biggest mistake

leading up to the tragedy.

-If you're coming in to land
in an atmosphere

that is electrically charged,

that represents
the potential for a spark

and that can be your ignition
source for a hydrogen explosion.

♪♪♪

-To decrease
the airship's buoyancy,

- the - Hindenburg Crew

began releasing hydrogen
from the gasbags.

But above them, the gathering
storm clouds filled the air

with a deadly
electrostatic charge.

-The way in which
an airship lands

is it purposely vents
out hydrogen into the air.

If you know that you're venting
out hydrogen, though,

you cannot have any possibility
of lightning in the sky.

That's why weather
is so critical.

-As the Hindenburg
descended, the crew realized

the airship was no longer level,
the tail lower than the bow.

-They felt kind of a jolt.

Something was off.

The tail of the ship felt heavy,

which means it felt like
it had lost some hydrogen.

It starts to sink.

-Trying to get the airship
level, the crew released

more than a ton of water
from the ballast tanks,

drenching the ground below.

The airship steadied...

but it was no longer in position
to land.

The captain then attempted
to steer the Hindenburg

back with a drastic maneuver:
a tight turn at full speed.

-He came in
and did that tight turn,

which he shouldn't have done,

to get the ship
down on the ground

and get the passengers
swapped over,

to prove that they were
running on schedule.

-At the time,
experts believed the sharp turn

started a deadly chain reaction.

Excessive flexing
of the Hindenburg's

internal aluminum frame

may have caused
the botched repair

to the wires surrounding
the gasbags to come undone.

-The Commerce Department,

which investigated
the case back in 1937,

believed that a sharp turn
in the final landing maneuver

caused a bracing wire
inside the ship to break

and tear into a gasbag.

-But Michael McCarthy suspects
the gasbag wasn't ruptured

as a result of the tight turn.

He believes the gasbag
was already leaking,

which would explain why the tail
of the ship lost buoyancy

and started to sink.

-What's more likely is that
the gasbag had been damaged

in heavy headwinds,

which delayed the ship
for so many hours

and finally created a hydrogen
leak inside the top of the ship.

-Even as the Hindenburg was
lined up with the landing mast,

it may have already been
leaking hydrogen.

Then, the captain made yet
another disastrous decision.

-There was a high
landing technique

and a low landing technique.

But the decision was taken
to do the high landing.

That meant that the airship
had in its nose two ropes

which dropped for the ground
crew to catch hold of.

-At 7:21 PM,
as the rain started to fall,

the first landing rope
was lowered.

The ground crew was able to
take control of

- the - Hindenburg Sooner,

while it was still more
than 200 feet overhead.

But it might also have exposed
everyone to a new danger.

-All airships, when they fly
through the air,

they get a static charge
just from the air,

and the ground crew know

that you don't grab
the rope straight away

because you can get
electric shock

as the charge on the surface
of the ship travels down.

-As the Hindenburg
came into land,

these landing ropes were wet and
so able to conduct electricity.

So you had the metal
skeleton of the Hindenburg,

which was then connected
to the earth

via an electrically
conductive rope.

-Just four minutes after
the first landing ropes

reached the rain-soaked ground,
tragedy struck.

The burst into flames.

Hindenburg

Even today, no one knows whether
lightning or a static spark

caused the hydrogen to ignite.

62 passengers and
crewmembers miraculously

made it safely out
of the fireball.

But 36 people were killed...

some instantly, while others
died later from their injuries.

Ernst Lehmann,
the pilot on board who hoped

to prevent a potential disaster,
died the day after the crash.

-Of the people who died, most of
them were killed by gravity.

Because they jumped out when the
airship was still up in the air.

-The horrible end has
shocked the entire world.

Hindenburg's

-The ensuing investigation
suggested pilot error

was to blame.

But today, the newly found
maintenance report

and letters suggest the
ill-fitting outer cover sealed

the fate long
before its final flight.

Hindenburg's

-The historical record
with Zeppelin suggests

that had they been able to fix
the fluttering outer cover

so that the gasbags were
no longer damaged, the

disaster
would never of happened.

Hindenburg

-No single error caused
the events of May 6, 1937,

to happen as they did.

Instead, a raft of fatal flaws
led to the destruction

of the world's greatest airship.

-The fact that the thing blew up
and was captured by the media

ended up searing it
into our imagination.

-That image of an airship
crashing into the ground,

wreathed in flame,
has become iconic...

has become an enduring image,

I think,
of the early 20th century.

-To see that caught on camera,
it's quite a devastating moment

that would shock anybody.

There's kind of no coming back
from that.

-It had never been seen
before...

such a destructive fire,

such a destruction of people,
passengers, and an aircraft.

-When the Hindenburg
burst into flames

and fell from the sky,

this brought the death knell to
the golden age of the airship.

♪♪♪