Since the end of WWI, Hugo Eckner, a German designer, imagined a huge, fast, comfortable, safe, and profitable airship¡Xthe perfect airship. Of course, as head of the Zeppelin Company, he could make an attempt, and he did. He hoped that his airship could make regular trips across the Atlantic Ocean to the U.S. His dream came true and the Hindenburg became the Titanic of the Thirties (Saari, Peggy).

The Hindenburg made its first Trans-Atlantic flight to the United States in 1936 and made eight other from its first to its last on May 6th, 1937. On May 3rd, 1937 the Hindenburg left the newly built airport in Germany heading

After receiving their notification to land they wasted no time. At 7:08PM, it began its descent through the clouds. After it was under the clouds Captain Max Pruss realized that he had missed his target so he made a sweeping turn to the left to approach the mooring mast from the west. Shifting winds forced Pruss to make another, much sharper, turn to the right for an approach from the north instead. As Pruss valved off some hydrogen, to lower the ship a bit, lightning flashed in the south, he also dropped some water ballast to bring the ship to a complete stop in midair (Saari, Peggy).

¡§As a result of the electrostatic activity, the skin became highly charged, and finally passed the current through the skin to the frame. In the process, the skin and its highly energetic doping constituents were ignited setting off the conflagration,¡¨ said Van Vorst who has been most of his school years studying the use of hydrogen as an alternate fuel. His studies show it is a safe alternate to gasoline, it may even be less hazardous than gasoline.

At the time, Americans said that St. Elmo¡¦s Fire caused the explosion. St. Elmo¡¦s Fire is when something in the air has the same electrical charge as the air around it and some part of the object afloat touches the ground and allows the electricity to flow from the atmosphere to the object causing a flickering blue flame. The Germans argued that it was ¡§brush discharge.¡¨ They were basically saying that when the manila ropes touched the ground they became wet and the equalization of static charges between the ship and the ground would make the Hindenburg itself discharge electricity into the atmosphere (Platt, Richard).

Van Vorst said that hydrogen only burns upward, yet the picture shows the flame burning downward. Also, Hydrogen burns with a colorless flame and witnesses said it was compared to ¡§with a fireworks displ

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