Message #190333

[Jason Vorhees]

When the wet mooring lines, which were connected to the frame, touched the earth they would have grounded the frame but not the skin. This would have caused a sudden potential difference between skin and frame (and the airship itself with the overlying air masses) and would have set off an electrical discharge — a spark. The spark would have jumped from the skin onto the metal framework. At the same time, it’s also possible that hydrogen, either released during landing, or perhaps built up due to a leak (which some[who?] claim could be the reason the ship was stern-heavy and had to drop so much water prior to attempting a landing), was in turn ignited by the spark.

In his 1964 book, LZ-129 Hindenburg, Zeppelin historian Dr. Douglas Robinson points out that although ignition of free hydrogen by static discharge had become a favored theory, no such discharge was seen by any of the witnesses who testified at the official investigation into the accident back in 1937. He goes on to write: