The Hindenburg was a huge luxury of its time. It was 804 feet long and could hold up to 190,006,030 liters of any gas. After its tenth flight across the Atlantic Ocean as it was preparing to land in Lakehurst, New Jersey, by dropping the mooring lines to be fastened to the mooring mast, it was devoured by flames. After thirty-two seconds the airship that was the size of the Titanic, was gone. The Hindenburg's explosion had a massive effect on the people of the United States and Germany. How could an airship with such amazing size be devoured by flames in such a small time frame? (Bryan, Leslie A.).
Since the end of WWI, Hugo Eckner, a German designer, imagined a huge, fast, comfortable, safe, and profitable airship the 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 north at a speed of nearly ninety miles per hour, but slowed down because of a headwind off of the coast of Ireland. It had to go north first because it couldn't fly over France or England, so it went over the Netherlands and down the English Channel. The U.S. was expecting it to land in Lakehurst, New Jersey at 6:00AM but with a speed cut to sixty mph, they couldnt possibly make it on schedule. When the Hindenburg reached the coast of Newfoundland, they slowed to thirty mph. By the time it had reached New England, it was twelve hours behind schedule. Since three oclock they had been noticing that conditions were getting worse and worse. When it finally reached the landing sight, a thunderstorm forced them to go above the clouds and circle the sight.
