Volume 14 , Issue 19

On This Day: 6 May 1937

On This Day 6 May 1937, The New York Times headlines reported the "Hindenburg Burns In Lakehurst Crash; 21 Known Dead, 12 Missing; 64 Escape." The Hindenburg, a hydrogen-filled German dirigible airship that crashed and burned in Lakehurst, New Jersey. It was believed that sparks from engines or static ignited the hydrogen gas.

Naval Air Station, Lakehurst, N.J., May 6 -- The zeppelin Hindenburg was destroyed by fire and explosions here at 7:23 o'clock tonight with a loss of thirty-three known dead and unaccounted for out of its ninety-seven passengers and crew.

Three hours after the disaster twenty-one bodies had been recovered, and twelve were still missing. The sixty-four known to be alive included twenty passengers and forty-four of the crew. Many of the survivors were burned or injured or both, and were taken to hospitals here and in near-by towns.

The accident happened just as the great German dirigible was about to tie up to its mooring mast four hours after flying over New York City on the last leg of its first transatlantic voyage of the year. Until today the Hindenburg had never lost a passenger throughout the ten round trips it made across the Atlantic with 1,002 passengers in 1936.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

---