
National Geographic: Hindenburg
- Year:
- 1999
- 16 Views
It was the largest and most celebrated
passenger airship ever built.
But like another legendary
transatlantic liner,
the Hindenburg was doomed.
Get this, Scotty!
Get this Scotty!
I looked out the window
and saw the fire,
and my only concern was to get out.
I thought to myself,
"This is the end.
I can't survive the end."
It's a terrific crash,
ladies and gentlemen.
The smoke and the flames
and the plane
is crashing to the ground,
Oh, the humanity.
It was like hell on fire.
It was something that will stay with
you for the rest of your life.
Some said it was only
a tragic accident.
of sabotage.
But what really destroyed
the Hindenburg?
Now, after more than half a century,
may have uncovered
the real answer to the mystery.
What I found was the fact that
they knew that there was a problem.
It was a problem that would destroy
the Hindenburg
and bring to an abrupt and tragic end
the golden age of passenger airships.
It was, by every account,
simply magnificent-
the largest object that had ever been
lofted into the air.
on its transatlantic crossings,
the Hindenburg was sure
to draw a crowd.
At the Naval Air Station
at Lakehurst, New Jersey,
thousands would stand in line for
hours just to get a closer look.
This was perhaps the most beautiful
flying machine ever built-stately,
streamlined, poised to rule the skies.
Today, Lakehurst is a much
quieter place,
but it's still haunted by echoes
from the airships' glory days.
John Lannacone remembers that time.
He was part of the Hindenburg's
ground crew.
Now he's one of the few visitors to
the giant hangar that once sheltered it.
I was 18 years old when I got here.
And I saw this tremendous
building in there.
I always say it's one of the
biggest buildings in the world.
We put it in a hangar
the first time it came here.
And it just about fit.
The Germans, when they designed it,
it was supposed to be 814 feet long.
Then they realized that this hangar's
only 806 feet long,
so they cut ten feet off.
There was a one-foot clearance
on each end.
It just fit in here
and we closed the doors.
It's sad, I mean,
because it's not being utilized
for what it should be utilized.
I mean, it looks like it's nothing
but a warehouse and junk.
That's what it looks like to me.
Airships have had their place
and their time.
And it's gone.
I don't think airships
will ever come back.
History's first successful manned
flight was in a hot-air balloon
launched by the Montgolfier brothers
into the skies over France in 1783.
But balloons move at the mercy
of the wind,
with no way to control
their direction or speed.
directed flight.
The design for these so called
dirigibles were certainly imaginative.
But even the ones that could fly
weren't very practical.
building a dirigible big enough
to carry passengers and cargo.
One of the pioneers was
Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin.
He first encountered manned balloons
in the United States
as a German military observer of the
Civil War and he even flew in one.
Back in Germany,
Zeppelin set to work,
designing a large dirigible
with a rigid framework
covered by a skin of fabric.
It would be lifted not by hot air,
but by hydrogen.
In 1900, his creation would
finally fly.
Within a decade,
there were tourist flights,
and even regular passenger service
between German cities.
Count von Zeppelin was
building the world's first airline.
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"National Geographic: Hindenburg" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2021. Web. 19 Jan. 2021. <https://www.scripts.com/script/national_geographic:_hindenburg_14538>.