THE AIRSHIP DISASTER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22723, 8 May 1937, Page 12

THE AIRSHIP DISASTER

The whole world will be aghast at the disaster which has overtaken the airship Hindenburg with the loss of 33 lives. The histoi-y of aviation includes few other tragedies of like magnitude, and all of them are associated with airships. To say that fate had been unkind to this class of air vessel would be to ignore the teaching of experience. The lesson has been too plain, and all nations save Germany—if United States Army experiments be excepted—have long since been content to accept it. Germany alone persevered with commercial airships, the genius of Count Zeppelin having apparently endowed his construction with principles and design that rose superior to the fatal weaknesses that developed in the craft fabricated by other nations. Now comes this crushing blow. The German airship is shown to be no more invulnerable than others. The cause is not yet finally established, but present reports agree that a fiery explosion appeared to be the agent of instant destruction. Even although lightning supplied the spark, as Berlin asserts, the fact cannot be escaped that the Hindenburg's envelope was at least partly inflated with the inflammable and highly explosive gas hydrogen. The airship was built to take helium, a non-inflammable gas, whose use should have insured the Hindenburg against the fire - explosion risk. Whether the omission of this precaution was due to economy —helium is much more expensive than hydrogen—or to the renewal of the export embargo on helium by the United States, virtually the sole producer, cannot at present be determined with certainty. But it does seem a reasonable and humane conclusion that no airship should ply for commercial hire unless one of the risks—that from fire and explosion—is minimised by helium-filling.