Hindenburg disaster
Photographer: Sam Shere
Date: May 6, 1937
Location: Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey, USA
Sam Shere photographed the German passenger airship LZ 129 Hindenburg bursting into flames on May 6, 1937, at 7:25 PM while attempting to dock at Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey, after a transatlantic flight from Frankfurt, Germany. The airship, filled with flammable hydrogen, was destroyed in 34 seconds. Of the 97 people aboard, 36 died along with one ground worker. The disaster effectively ended the era of commercial airship travel. Radio broadcaster Herbert Morrison's live eyewitness recording — including the famous 'Oh, the humanity!' exclamation — was later broadcast nationally by NBC, making it one of the first on-the-spot radio reports of a major disaster. The cause of the fire has never been definitively established; theories include static electricity igniting a hydrogen leak.
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