MythBusters Episode 70: Hindenburg Mystery
Air Date: January 10, 2007
The Hindenburg was destroyed by the flammable compound used to paint the bladder, not by the hydrogen gas within.
busted
The MythBusters built 1/50th scale Hindenburg models to test this myth. The model that contained hydrogen gas burned twice as quickly as the model without hydrogen. While the painted skin did burn vigorously, it is not what caused the Hindenburg to burn as quickly as it did.
If you are being chased by a crocodile, you can escape it by running in a zig-zag pattern.
busted
The MythBusters were not successful at luring a crocodile into a chase. They first tried using a baited dummy suspended from a rig, then a robot, and finally they actually held the bait in their hands in an attempt to get the crocs to chase them. The myth was busted because the premise is bad: crocodiles are ambush predators so they aren’t likely to chase you in the first place.
Newer: Episode 71: Pirate Special
Older: Episode 69: 22,000 Foot Fall
Wasn’t the culprit static? If it was, then it makes sense that the coating allowed for the initial sparks, as such as a petrol tanker would blame a spark caused by static electricity, or uncharged electricity, rather than blame the fuel.
I conducted the hydrogen experiment at a kid’s party. Namely different gases. We used three balloons, filled them with different gases. I used air, argon and hydrogen, which I made by adding aluminium pieces to a mixture of sodium hydroxide and water, and it gave off lots of hydrogen. Unfortunately, the balloon got hot, and before I’d realised it, most of the hydrogen had gone. (Next time I do this, I will cool the hydrogen balloon as it is filling up.) The remaining gas I put into a fire, and it was a slow explosion, much more slower than expected. Maybe it was because of low pressure, as the balloon was too heavy to float.
June 26, 2007 at 11:04 AMProbably I should say ’slow fireball’ rather than explosion, technically speaking.
June 26, 2007 at 11:05 AMI think Ray is right here. The initial cause of the Hindenberg tragedy may very well have been a static spark igniting the painted skin on the exterior. Of course afterwards the hydrogen provided fuel but the INITIAL CAUSE of the tragedy is what most people care about. That, at least, may very well have been the paint. I think Mythbusters misunderstood the issue here.
June 27, 2007 at 9:30 AMwe did hydrogen experiments in Junior high. MANY years ago when it was ok to blow up students and classrooms.
We used Seashells and Hydrochloric acid and made balloons of the stuff. It was awesome and nobody died! It was a slow and steady burn! I feel that the “explosion” was a slow burn caused by static electricity NOT a bomb!
After that, we went into nitric acid and Iodine crystals. See! I am from the old school of chemistry! I still experiment to this day nas still have all of my fingers!
June 28, 2007 at 11:32 PMDon’t forget, the airship did not come crashing to the ground. I don’t know the weight of this thing, but unlike a blimp it would come crashing down if the hydrogen envelopes were destroyed. This is the key point in the flamable skin argument.
June 30, 2007 at 12:13 PMThe hydrogen test was flawed for one very simple reason. In the Hindenburg the hydrogen was isolated in bags. Hydrogen, by itself, can not burn! The only way that the hydrogen could have ignited is if there were a leak. Any leak of hydrogen escaping from the Hindenburg would simply have flashed as a quick “pop” with hardly enough force or heat to damage the ship. At no time could a hydrogen fed flame work its way back inside the ship to cause an explosion. If you lit a match inside one of the bags, the match would be immediately snuffed out! Simply put, the cause of the disaster could not have been the hydrogen.
September 14, 2007 at 4:52 PMSorry, forgot to note: The Mythbusters conducted their test with a model of the Hindenburg that was filled with a mix of hydrogen and air. A proper test would have had the model filled with bags of pure hydrogen.
September 14, 2007 at 4:54 PMI’m sure glad the Myth Busters didn’t build the real Hindenburgh. It would still be in Germany.
I don’t understand it. They had the plans but continued to build a ballon with a metal framework resembling the dirigible. Then they filled it with a gas.
WRONG! The outer skin of the Hindenburg was merely an aerodynamic shape. Inside was standard atmosphere and a huge 3D puzzle of catwalks to service the SEPARATE HYDROGEN BAGS inside the framework.
Static electricity (like a small lightning bolt and probably St. Elmo’s fire) started the skin to burn at the tail where the electrical charge found a natural shape to jump from. The burning skin started one of the Hydrogen gas bags on fire. As the Hydrogen burned off, the tail end of the dirigible lost lift. By losing lift, the burning outer skin had a faster path to follow causing more Hydrogen bags to burn open and feed the fire.
The Myth Buster dirigible was kept level at all times and did not duplicate the tail going down first nor the slower release of Hydrogen from scores of separate gas bags.
September 24, 2007 at 11:29 PMYeah, I thought the myth to be tested was; was static electricity created in flight and discharged at docking, applied to the weird paint used on the blimp, enough to START the explosion? I mean, with a flammable shell and flammable contents, its obvious that the thing would keep going once started, but what would GET it started? Was it a flaw in the design, or a flaw in the paint? Would the static set it off if there was a small leak in one of the bladders, and would the static set it off if there was no leak, and just the stupid paint job?
Frankly, using rocket fuel (or the elements of a thermite bomb) to paint a blimp full of flammable gas does strike me as poor decision-making….
October 27, 2007 at 4:34 PMRE: Exploding Hindenburg Episode
One factor that was not taken into account during the testing was the large diesel fuel tanks installed in the Hindengurg. The tanks would have been nearly empty after a long flight but filled with oil fumes. The tanks would have acted like bombs in the fire and the remaining fuel would have significantly added to the fire.
November 6, 2007 at 8:39 AMdiesel has nothing to with it… diesel fuel is completely safe at atmosphere and will not burn nor will its evaporated fumes. Much like most oils these are safe when not underpressure, try it. Buy some diesel and use a blow torch to lite it… it won’t combust.
November 14, 2007 at 4:12 AMI think this myth was a little outside the scope of mythbusters expertise. The best test is to initiate a burn on two floating scale airships with multiple internal bags. One should be filled with pure H2 and one with pure He. I have a feeling that both tests would result in fairly quick crash and burn.
Or, they could perform the test burns on simple balloons filled with H2 and He. As long as the balloons have low backpressure, I suspect the result would be a rapid crash and burn in both cases.
In these tests, the hydrogen airship would likely crash faster than the helium airship because it would lose its lifting gas more rapidly. Exacly how much faster is outside my ability to predict… But in the end, both airships would have crashed and burned. The hydrogen would not have caused the crash. It simply would have accelerated it.
November 22, 2007 at 11:27 PMThe mythbusters tested a balloon with the flammable paint and a balloon with hydrogen. Then they compared the results. However they did not test a balloon with both hydrogen and flammable paint. Then you would know how much influence the paint had. A single minute slower burn would have saved many lives. Without this test we cannot know the plausability of the myth. Roelof Jan
November 24, 2007 at 2:17 PMThe Netherlands
THE CROC ONE SCARRED ME DOG SHE DOSN’T LIKE THE CROCS. ME WIFE WAS SCARRED A MYTH BUSTER WAS GOING TO GET A HURT!!
December 17, 2007 at 7:04 PMa tv series “Air Crash Investigation” or Mayday has got a very good explanation of this case. there are many causes. the static charged in the atmosphere and leaked hydrogen etc
January 2, 2008 at 6:40 AMwat ya talkin bout
January 8, 2008 at 2:03 PMI believe that a static spar could not have made the Hindenburg explode.
January 29, 2008 at 1:26 PMi believe that the pistol found in the wreckage had something to do with it.
Yeah, diesel is combustible but not flammable…it will burn but it’s not easy to light off with just a spark or lack of a direct flame.
March 7, 2008 at 12:10 PMawesome my class is doing a subject on the hinden burg
May 5, 2008 at 9:35 PMpeople should remember that the myth that was tested was that the paint caused the hindenburg to burn faster, which it didn’t.
December 3, 2008 at 11:32 AMtrash tv masquerading as science…
January 29, 2009 at 12:18 AMOMG!!!! I LOVE MYTHBUSTERS!!!!
For science class, I have to do a project on the Hindenburg Disaster, so this is just AWESOME!!!!
February 18, 2009 at 5:27 PMI recently began watching old back episodes of “mythbusters” because my cable has recently fallen through. Thus, I can now only watch on the Netflix instant queue, (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I feel bad that I’m not up to date). However, one episode recently caught my eye, and that was the “Hindenburg Mystery” episode. I did some research of my own, and I feel that there’s a very important element that everyone appears to be missing.
Now, online, it’s easy to find a theory that states that the skin or the hydrogen is where the explosion comes from, but both of those are fairly clearly bunk. Obviously, the hydrogen isn’t entirely responsible, nor is the thermite skin. However, there’s one part that still has yet to be fully tested.
And that’s the cotton itself.
Flame retardant cotton wasn’t widely used until the 1940’s, and the hindenburg crashed in 1937 (as you certainly knew). Untreated cotton is flammible. Very much so. In fact, all cotton in the US current HAS to be treated before it can be sold at retail, because of it’s combustability. Therefore, I think that it’s highly likely that the cotton used in the skin of the hindenburg was untreated, and extremely vulnerable to fire. In your experiment, however, judging by the slow burn time of the cotton used, I would assume that you simply purchased the normal, flame-retardant fabric.
Now, I’d love to see this tested, but I realise that it might simply not be practical. I’d just like to know if there could be some sort of possiblity of truth.
April 3, 2009 at 1:55 AMThe busters should do a redo here. They might try a cotton ball soaked in the “dope” and see how fast it goes when an electrical charge is passed through it. As mentioned above the Busters over looked what ignited the skin, why the air frame tended to remain floating and the progress of the fire ie. (did the hydrogen ignite and in turn ignite the dope skin or was it the other way around?). I think Bain addressed all these issues with his theory (hardly a myth). I think that a redo is demanded especially as we are looking to hydrogen as a source for transportation energy in the near future. Many people can’t get on board with that due to the Hindenburg hydrogen “myth”.
April 19, 2009 at 5:54 PMi think the guys should’ve declared the hindenburg “plausible”
April 20, 2009 at 6:23 PMdon’t correct me if i’m wrong, but i think that the hydrogeon did affect the fire
just a thought
you guys miss the point. Because hydrogen was originally blamed for the disaster, the myth was the exact counterargument: ie that the hydrogen was totally “innocent” -and that the skin was the “real” culprit. this is false. using hydrogen was just as bad a decision as the doping agent, the 2 in concert were a terrible combination.
June 30, 2009 at 1:18 AMnoone yet mentioned the Magnesium alloy used for the structure of the Hindenberg, which melted and burnt also… once lit this burnt at very high temperatures! -Thermodynamics was never my strong point but high heat concentration does have its effects…
July 6, 2009 at 5:27 PMJust watched this episode again, the experiment was done in a enclosed space, was there any wind on the day the hindenburg went down and could this be an attributing factor on the burn rate. Fire needs fuel + oxygen, the experiment is biased.
July 30, 2009 at 9:35 AMWhy didn’t they test with no paint and hydrogen as well, then we would get a true comparison. What a shame, I thought they were going to for a minute… but no. So we don’t really know anything from this experiment.
July 30, 2009 at 11:50 PMEyewitnesses to the Hindenburg reported an orange flame – H burns blue.
December 30, 2009 at 3:37 PMMB burned pure H in a very rich flame (too little air mixed in) and it was orange. Watch the episode.
January 1, 2010 at 2:29 PMJust watched the TV version (again) and I believe it was not conclusive. I think a bullet was fired from the ground. After all the intensive investigations the was no mention of a broken cable found that could have caused the Airship’s failure.
January 26, 2010 at 12:52 AMI have watched several docos about this and never seen a broken cable. The aluminium frame would have buckled before the steel cable broke.
I think an anti NAZI shot the ship, with or with out the intention of bringing it down.
Whether it was flamable dope or dope, ignition by spark or static, sabotage or prank gone wrong, this was the work of a coward who did not come forward. A new investigation is needed because the history is not sure and is changing.
I have not seen the Mythbusters episode about the Hindenburg but I would like to.
The Hindenburg was a fantastic zeppelin but the tragic explosion due to the skin oh the ship. It was the largest German Airship ever!! The skin of the ship made out of rocket fuel and caught on fire after a spark ignited it. Then, do to the highly flammable hydrogen caused the zeppelin it engulf in flames and burn up in 35 seconds. There were 96 people aboard including passengers and crew members. Only 36 of them died but most of them were the crew members.
February 23, 2010 at 3:56 PMYou see, the problem is that the skin couldn’t have been ignited by a static spark. Addison Bain cheated by igniting the skin with a continuous spark; in other documentaries he used an open flame.
It would be better if Mythbusters used an electrical machine (such as a Tesla coil) and gave a brief zap and see if the skin ignites (hydrogen would ignite with such conditions).
The skin was however, a very poor electrical conductor and German scientists found out that the spark could jump right through it and ignite leaking hydrogen. (Bain claims that they found out the fabric itself was flammable). Thus the fabric was still to blame for the disaster as it caused the spark to ignite the hydrogen, but had it not been hydrogen, there would have been no ignition.
February 28, 2010 at 7:58 PM