What Is the Hindenburg Omen?

The Hindenburg was the pride of the German Empire, but her crash brought the era of commercial airships to an end.

At 'R101'
First flight and experimental flight
The Hindenburg in March 1936, the name of the airship has not been painted on the hull.
The construction of the airship began in 1931. Five years later, the Hindenburg carried its maiden voyage on March 4, 1936, with 87 passengers and staff. Chairman of Zeppelin
At about 7.30 pm on May 6, 1937, "
After completing the first South American flight of the 1937 flight season at the end of March, the Hindenburg left Frankfurt to Lake Lake on the evening of May 3, the first flight between Europe and North America during the flight season. . Although the strong headwind slowed down the flight speed, from other aspects, the flight was as usual, and the airship was ready to land on Lake Lake 3 days later.
The landing of the Hindenburg on May 6 was delayed for several hours to avoid thunderstorms over Lake Lake. Around 7pm, the Hindenburg was ready to land at the Naval Air Station. At this point, the Hindenburg was 200 meters above sea level, and Captain Max Pruss was at the helm preparing to land. After the ground staff caught the landing rope dropped from the bow at 7:21, the airship suddenly turned into a ball of fire and fell to the ground in a little over 30 seconds. Thirty-six passengers and thirteen of the 61 crew members on board the airship were killed and one of the ground crew was killed. A total of 36 people lost their lives.
Argument one
In the last flight, the Hindenburg was 12 hours late due to headwinds over the Atlantic. It flew slowly over the east coast and slowly descended in order to arrive in the evening as it was the best time to land. 7:20 pm. The airship dropped two landing ropes and was preparing to land. At this time, the 972-foot, 110-ton airship was 300 feet above the ground and suddenly caught fire. The people on the ground were helpless, watching the 7 million cubic feet of hydrogen airbags almost immediately engulfed in flames, and the burning skeleton fell to the ground and shattered. "
Official report
The Hindenburg was called the Titanic in the Air and was one of the symbols of high society. After the accident, the United States and Germany launched a joint investigation. A joint investigation report said that a spark ignited the leaked hydrogen and then burned the entire airship in 34 seconds.
Air crash investigator Greg Faith found that the Hindenburg started its final landing flight 14 minutes before the disaster. A large amount of static electricity accumulated on the airship was evenly distributed throughout the structure; the wind direction suddenly changed 11 minutes before the disaster. In order to land the airship as soon as possible, the captain made a sharp turn to the left instead of slowly adjusting the direction.
Under the pressure created by the sudden turn, a cable near the No. 4 airbag broke. As a result, the airbag was torn and hydrogen began to leak. Eight minutes before the crash, Captain Prous noticed that the airship's tail sank. He ordered the crew to throw away ballast water bags to keep the airship balanced. After 1 minute, Prius ordered another sharp turn to the right, keeping the hull in the same direction as the mooring device. But the airship was still leaking and the tail was still heavy. Prius ordered six crew members to go to the front of the airship to balance the weight before and after. Captain Prous was too eager to land the airship, not even considering that the sinking of the tail could be caused by a hydrogen leak.
Four minutes before the disaster, the Hindenburg stopped and the crew dropped the cable. Eyewitnesses on the ground noticed a tremor on the top of the airship near the tail wing, and they did not know that it was a sign that the hydrogen was leaking from the airbag. At 6:25 pm, due to the rain, the charge on the airship's metal frame was transmitted to the ground through a wet rope. However, a large amount of static electricity is still accumulated on the outer skin with poor conductivity during flight and in bad weather. As a result, the electrostatic voltage reached a very dangerous level.
Static electricity releases the voltage in the shortest path, and an electrostatic spark is formed between the skin and the metal cabin, which ignites the leaked hydrogen. The fire quickly devoured the entire airship. All 200,000 cubic meters of hydrogen in 16 airbags burned. After 34 seconds, the huge Hindenburg airship was completely destroyed.
Fez believes that the Hindenburg crash was caused by static sparks igniting leaked hydrogen during thunderstorms. However, Fez still has a mystery that remains unsolved. The hydrogen burning flame was invisible, and witnesses said that the Hindenburg burn had formed an orange flame.
Fez carried out another test. He ignited a stream of hydrogen with a lighter, and the flame was not visible. But when he put some cloth into the hydrogen flame, the flame became visible. Fez concluded that the flame of the hydrogen combustion was transparent, but what the crowd saw was not this transparent flame, but the flame formed after the outer skin of the airship was lit, so it was orange.
The Hindenburg crash announced the end of the commercial airship era. The air transport industry thus changed its direction from the blow of the Hindenburg. In 1939, the first commercial aircraft full of passengers crossed the Atlantic. Valuable lessons were learned from the disaster, and no company has since filled passenger airships with hydrogen. Immediately after the Hindenburg crash, Zeppelin designed a tram. The machine is installed at an airport in Frankfurt and is used to detect electrical activity in the atmosphere. This is the first time in the history of aviation to analyze thunderstorm weather with accurate data. Today, mastering the weather has become a prerequisite for aviation safety. Since the Hindenburg crash, all hydrogen-filled airships (including balloons) in the world have been withdrawn from operation and countries no longer manufacture them, but helium-filled balloons and airships are still developing, and China has also released results in this field in recent years .
Hindenburg in 1936 with journalists and photographers
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