BONN - A new study indicates that paint used to protect the airship Hindenburg from sunlight led to its destruction in 1937.
German ARD television said yesterday. The station said it would air new evidence today to counter the long held assumption that inflammable hydrogen caused the fireball captured in one of the world's most famous newsreel films.
US researchers used archive film, models and computer simulation to study the explosion of the Hindeburg an May 6th, 1937, over its transatlantic terminus at Lakehurst, New Jersey. NASA space agency scientist, Dr Addison Bain, said the paint, designed to protect the Hindenburg from sunlight, had never been tested or used an other Zeppelins.
Thirty live passengers and one of, the ground crew died in the explosion, ending the Golden age of the airborne cruise liners that had became a defining image at the 1920s and 1930s.