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Hindenburg disaster

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Author Topic: Hindenburg disaster  (Read 1583 times)
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Jason Vorhees
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« Reply #15 on: November 23, 2009, 02:41:04 pm »

The popularity of the Zeppelin line prompted Eckener to build a second airship to the same design as the Graf Zeppelin. However, this model was cancelled following the crash of Great Britain's R.101 airship in 1930. The disastrous accident cost 48 lives and was blamed in part on hydrogen gas, used for lift, that had ignited as the airship came down. Eckener then decided to abandon hydrogen in his next airship, the Hindenburg, in favor of the inert gas helium. Unfortunately, the Nazis had come to power by the time the Hindenburg was completed in 1935 and the United States, which controlled the world supply of helium, refused to sell the gas to a German company. The Hindenburg was instead modified to use hydrogen for buoyant lift, and steps like special treatments to its skin coating were taken to avoid sparks that might ignite the gas. Despite these concerns, German airships had a long history of safe operation using hydrogen and no fire due to the gas had ever occurred on a civilian zeppelin. Indeed, no passenger had ever been injured on one of the German company's airships and the Graf Zeppelin had flown over 1 million miles (1.6 million km) without incident.
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