0:02

A listener production. Mmm.

0:04

No, no, no, no, no. Okay.

0:08

Are you ready? Mm-hmm. Okay.

0:11

Hold on, there's nuts in my mouth. I'm

0:13

eating nuts. I

0:15

meant actual... Take

0:23

your time. Nut, like... What

0:25

would... legumes? Almonds. Almonds. Walnut.

0:30

I have still ate some nuts and now there's

0:32

bits of nuts. Okay,

0:34

ready? What?

0:39

Polish professionals. Thank you. A

0:42

bit shorty. Always. Oh wait,

0:44

there's some nut again. Okay, here we

0:47

go. Award winners.

0:51

Take it away my

0:52

dulcet turned Adonis. Hello,

0:55

Gistners. Welcome back for another episode of Just

0:57

the Jist, a bi-weekly podcast

0:59

in which Rosie Waterland and I, Jacob

1:01

Stanley, give you just the gist of what you need to know

1:03

about a story we think you'll find interesting enough

1:05

to discuss at a dinner party. And

1:09

it's my go.

1:09

You stare really

1:12

intently at me for that whole thing.

1:15

Into your soul. And I can't... it's

1:17

too

1:19

confrontingly intimate. Oh.

1:21

Just like while you're saying the whole thing and

1:23

we're looking at each other. I know all the words, so

1:26

it's like we're both like just staring until

1:28

we know it's over and it's a bit much. Oh,

1:31

thanks for the feedback. And so I, no, I'm not saying

1:34

don't, it's just funny because I'll sort of look away

1:36

and be like nodding and then I'll look back and you're still

1:38

just locked on me.

1:40

It's almost a little

1:42

like erotic.

1:45

Oh, you get a little tingly? I don't know. It's

1:47

just like, I don't know a bit. Ooh.

1:50

It's like we're sharing it. I

1:54

didn't know I had that power. You do? See,

1:56

maybe the AI predicted something. What

1:58

do you mean? that said that we... we're going to announce our

2:00

engagement any time soon and get my

2:02

yeah maybe relationships with the next level maybe

2:04

it really is gonna happen supercomputers

2:07

really are much smarter than we realized

2:09

well yeah i mean if they predict

2:11

that you're going to want vouch one day

2:13

that's a that's

2:16

a big call because i nostradamus

2:18

that's a big call it they if they get that one right

2:20

then were doomed were doomed

2:22

in dayton and that is a sign of the apocalypse

2:25

learning what did he got for me today well

2:27

lot of a few weeks ago you mentioned

2:29

you're in the mood to learn about a bit of a disaster

2:32

yes and so i sifted

2:35

through a few that i have on my little

2:37

just listen i almost went

2:39

with something called the carnival

2:41

poop cruz ah

2:44

why would you tell me that if you're

2:45

not going to do you

2:48

were all this know i mean i

2:51

am all cruises a poop cruises

2:53

i owe this one

2:55

though the level and

2:57

do a quick google if you're curious to know

2:59

anything about the saddle but when i started

3:01

researching and honestly i couldn't bring

3:03

myself to do and i was getting so nauseous

3:06

reading about holidays basil master

3:09

outbreak yes but they

3:11

lost power on the boat and

3:13

they were stuck out at sea five

3:15

days they couldn't flush toilet

3:17

know as confident that like refrigerate

3:20

anything on know

3:22

it was just hell on the water

3:25

until they could tired this giant boat

3:27

without know what about even producers

3:29

ever say i'm i would be able to i don't think

3:31

i'll be able to i think i would honestly

3:34

boswell ah i don't think i'll be able to

3:36

cope with that

3:36

i'll do it now you can how much did

3:39

you stop and why did you tell me because that's

3:41

all i want to hear it's all i

3:43

want to hear now

3:44

look into it it may be too

3:46

much for your ah but honestly i think

3:48

lays always give

3:50

it a little break at least i thing as bit too much

3:52

sketchup on this podcast

3:55

in the last little while oh has it's b

3:57

o who says

4:01

Says the girl who has hundreds

4:03

of thousands of listeners who know intimately about her

4:05

butthole.

4:08

I think we need to do that story. Potentially.

4:11

All right. And you know all about it now, so it's better

4:13

if you do it. We will see. I

4:15

might try to sanitize it to some extent, but look, you already know

4:17

the headlines of that. You know

4:19

the gist of the gist of that. We're not going into that this week. I

4:22

don't know why I went on that tangent.

4:23

Why would you? See, now, whatever

4:25

you say now is going to be disappointing unless it involves

4:27

poop. Well,

4:33

you've got your work cut out for you then. All

4:35

right. Good luck. Oh, Rosie's offside all morning.

4:38

Should I even bother? What are you doing? Okay,

4:40

now tell me what you're doing. What are you doing? This

4:45

is one of the most historically

4:48

significant

4:50

aircraft crashes of all

4:52

time. And certainly, yeah,

4:55

one of the most famous. So back in the 1930s,

4:57

a German company built the largest

4:59

aircraft the world has ever seen,

5:02

a very luxurious vessel designed to take

5:04

very wealthy passengers across the Atlantic

5:07

Ocean. It was so famous

5:09

just about everyone on the planet knew

5:12

its name, had seen pictures of it.

5:15

And then in May of 1937,

5:18

in front of hundreds of witnesses,

5:20

including some with video

5:22

cameras, It exploded

5:24

and crashed in the most literally

5:27

flamboyant way you could

5:29

possibly imagine. You've

5:31

probably heard the term went down like

5:33

a Led Zeppelin. More

5:35

than likely you've seen images of

5:38

this disaster, possibly even footage.

5:41

And you've almost certainly heard the quote,

5:44

oh, the humanity

5:46

somewhere

5:47

in pop culture. This

5:49

is just the gist of the Titanic of the skies,

5:52

the most famous balloon in history

5:54

until the Chinese spy balloon entered the chat

5:57

a couple of months ago. just the

5:59

gist of the human life. Hindenburg

6:00

disaster. That is so

6:02

funny that you said Titanic of the sky because

6:04

that whole way through I was thinking it's Titanic

6:07

but in the air.

6:08

All the rich people are on it. They think it's

6:11

too big to fail and then

6:13

that one sank and this one crashed.

6:15

Yep. I love it. Essentially

6:18

the same route as the Titanic. Yeah, as soon as you

6:20

said across the Atlantic I was like ding ding ding ding.

6:22

Almost the same size as the Titanic.

6:25

So how much do you know about the Hindenburg? I

6:27

know, oh, the humanity. I

6:31

have seen grainy black

6:33

and white footage. So I'm very interested to know about

6:35

this video cameras in the 1930s thing. I've

6:39

seen grainy black and white footage, but

6:41

I'm pretty sure I've only seen

6:44

it on the episode of Family Guy where

6:46

Brian and Stewie time travel

6:49

and Brian is somehow standing in front

6:51

of the Hindenburg as it crashes.

6:54

So that is about as much

6:56

as I know. Yeah. It's

6:58

really iconic imagery. Yeah. And

7:00

we've all sort of grown up seeing it in

7:02

different TV shows, different movies. And

7:04

hearing, oh, the humanity.

7:07

In movies like Heathers. Yes. And

7:09

it was used in Seinfeld. Oh

7:13

gosh.

7:14

There's a huge list of times it's been

7:16

used in pop culture. Pop cultural references. So

7:18

we've all seen it, but very few of us, including

7:20

myself until a few weeks ago, know very

7:22

much at all about what the Hindenburg

7:25

was and how it went down and how

7:27

many lives were lost.

7:29

I do also know that

7:33

it's like the Duff blimp. Is

7:35

that what it's like? Like a big blimp.

7:38

Yeah, inflatable airship. Yeah, big inflatable

7:40

airship. We don't have blimps in Australia,

7:43

so we really only know the Duff blimp

7:45

from the Simpsons.

7:46

Or the Goodyear blimp. Or the Goodyear blimp.

7:48

Yeah, which I remember being in LA for the first time

7:51

like 11 years ago now, and I saw

7:54

a blimp in the sky and I was like, I'm

7:56

in the Simpsons because we just don't have them here.

7:59

That was.

8:00

Goodyear blimp. And so the Hindenburg was

8:02

like a blimp. Like a blimp?

8:04

Technically not a blimp. We would look at a picture

8:06

of it and say, Oh, that's a blimp. It's like

8:09

a big blow up thing. Yes. Yeah. Back

8:12

in the 1930s though, someone had looked at

8:14

it and say, that there was a zeppelin. That

8:16

was like the common term for them. The

8:19

person who does the breaking news song would go,

8:21

that there is a zeppelin. And it's a bee's

8:23

knees. It's a bee's knees. See? Yeah.

8:25

Yeah. Technically they called it

8:27

an airship. Right. Or a dirigible.

8:30

Yes. But most people called

8:32

them Zeppelins. What

8:35

set a Zeppelin apart from a blimp

8:37

is that a blimp is just like one inflatable

8:39

balloon and when you deflate it, it just

8:42

goes all bopping and limp like a used

8:44

condom. Whereas these Zeppelins

8:46

had like a sturdy rib cage

8:49

inside a frame.

8:50

Yeah, that's my question. Like, because I

8:52

was like, how are people inside it? Just like flopping

8:55

around like a jumping castle? Where

8:57

do they sit? If it's passenger travel. Okay, cool.

9:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Essentially

9:04

it was a ship that they

9:06

then just attached a giant balloon to the top

9:08

of to make it float.

9:10

Kind of like in Super Mario Brothers. Yeah.

9:12

Yeah. They have those. The

9:16

reason that they called them Zeppelins

9:18

was because the German-owned Zeppelin company

9:20

had dominated the dirigible airship

9:23

industry for decades. What's dirigible?

9:26

Dirigible means an airship you can steer.

9:29

Oh, okay. I only know that word from

9:31

Schitt's Creek when Moira says, oh,

9:33

Jarson, then that dirigible

9:34

has ascended. Of course. I

9:37

was like, why? Why do you know this word? So is

9:39

that, did Led Zeppelin get their name from old airships?

9:47

Yes. Ah, the

9:49

more you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And

9:52

so a zeppelin became sort of just

9:54

a basic noun when really it was a

9:56

brand name. So it's kind of like how yanks

9:59

call tissue.

10:00

Kleenexes and British say

10:02

Huber for vacuum. And we say

10:05

Gladrap for cling film here.

10:07

And all around the world people say Google when they

10:09

just made a search engine.

10:10

There were lots of airships of different

10:13

names, but Zeppelin was the main brand

10:15

everyone knew. So they just all got called Zeppelins.

10:17

Exactly. All around the world. And

10:20

that company was called Zeppelin because

10:22

it was named after account. Ferdinand von

10:24

Zeppelin, whose full legal

10:26

name was Ferdinand Edolf Reinrich

10:29

August Graf von Zeppelin. What

10:31

a name. And he was

10:34

obsessed with the idea of air travel

10:36

and started tinkering away with building airships

10:38

in the late 1800s, launched his first

10:41

one in 1900. And he

10:43

was the one that came up with the big innovation

10:45

of making airships with the

10:47

rigid frame, the ribcage.

10:50

Yeah, inside the sort of balloon thing.

10:52

That's right. Were there planes

10:55

at this point? Yes, but they hadn't figured

10:58

out how to pressurise the cabins, so

11:00

they couldn't fly particularly high.

11:02

They couldn't go very long distances.

11:05

Right. So

11:06

these were before planes.

11:08

Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah.

11:11

Okay. In fact, they'd started making airships

11:13

back in the 1700s, the late 1700s. Really? Yeah.

11:17

I mean, the most basic ones were hot air balloons. Yeah,

11:19

like a hot air balloon. Yeah, the basket

11:21

underneath is like the ship, essentially.

11:23

Until they then figured out you could have more success

11:25

if you put gases in there, rather

11:28

than heating air up. You

11:30

could get greater levels of control, and

11:32

over the course of a century and a bit, it just continued

11:34

to advance. I

11:36

had no idea that air, like,

11:40

machines travel was

11:42

that advanced at that stage. I

11:44

mean, Da Vinci was

11:46

designing some in the 1500s. What else

11:48

is?

11:48

How successful they would have been had he

11:51

built them. But still, I mean,

11:53

you know, we're at a place where in 1900 this

11:56

guy's got some things up in

11:58

the air. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What?

12:00

So what he'd come up with was building

12:02

this rib cage and then putting what

12:04

they call a bunch of balonets, like

12:07

littler balloons inside the

12:09

bigger balloon. You can kind

12:11

of think of it as like lungs inside

12:14

a rib cage. Each one could be

12:16

filled individually with gas,

12:18

which then gives you greater control over the buoyancy

12:21

of the overall ship. And

12:23

if one of those balloons becomes damaged,

12:26

then you've still got the other ones

12:27

to keep the ship. watertight

12:29

components. Precisely. Yeah. Gotcha. Yep.

12:33

So those gas bag lungs,

12:35

they could just be filled with any gas that's

12:37

lighter than air. There's not a whole lot

12:39

of them. Most of the time they were filled

12:42

up with hydrogen and we'll get into

12:44

talking about that a little later

12:46

on. Because like hydrogen

12:49

bomb. Right. Uh oh. Or

12:51

shadowing right there. Gotcha. Yeah.

12:54

Originally, gas bags were made out of kilometres

12:57

worth of cow intestines.

12:59

Ew. They're

13:01

very good at holding in gas. Well,

13:04

that's what... weren't condoms made out

13:06

of, like, sheep's stomachs lining

13:08

and stuff back in the day? If it keeps

13:11

shit out, that's all you want.

13:12

It didn't waste any part of the animal. This

13:17

may not be relevant to anything, but the term

13:19

gas bags, like

13:21

as in gas bagging, gossiping, does

13:23

it link, it must link back to that somehow for some

13:25

reason, surely. There's got to be some sort of 1930s slang connection.

13:29

You keep saying gas bags and I'm just imagining

13:31

like 20 old ladies with their hair and rollers

13:34

inside the airship. Like

13:36

my head just keeps going. Keeping it aloft. Yeah, all the

13:38

gas bags in there. Yeah. Anyway,

13:41

okay.

13:42

I'm going to look into that. And then once

13:44

you'd made the giant structure

13:47

floatable, you'd put a couple of motors

13:49

on each side so you could give it some thrust to

13:51

move it backwards and forwards, rudders

13:54

for steering left and right. And then of course

13:56

you've got to add in the places for people to sit

13:59

and steal.

14:00

and control the vessel. So people don't

14:02

sit inside it, they sit below

14:04

it. Down the bottom. Yeah, in

14:06

it. Yes, inside. That's where they've set up the cabinets.

14:08

Oh, but there's just little cabins at the bottom.

14:11

That's right. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah,

14:13

yeah. And I mean, in relation to this overall

14:15

size of the vessel, a small

14:18

amount is dedicated

14:20

to sleeping quarters and dining quarters.

14:22

Dining quarters, okay. We'll

14:25

get into that. Yeah. So kind of

14:27

like roughly the size of, I'd say, Five

14:31

bedroom

14:31

house. Two

14:33

stories. And then how big

14:35

is the thing around it? The same length

14:37

as the Titanic. 15 stories

14:40

high. So it takes a lot of gas

14:42

bags to get a little cabin

14:45

up in the air really. That's right. Wow.

14:48

Okay.

14:48

Yeah.

14:50

Before the First World War, they

14:52

were used to transport people and

14:55

cargo, very utilitarian. And

14:57

during the war, they were used by Germans to

14:59

drop bombs on cities and they

15:02

were called baby killers. And that was

15:04

something that was really feared called

15:06

baby killers because it was the first time that war was

15:08

sort of moving out of just the

15:10

front lines and the trenches and into

15:13

suburban and urban areas.

15:15

And that thing would be huge

15:17

and you'd see it coming. So intimidating.

15:19

And where can you go? That's right. Yeah.

15:22

Oh, wow. But then they figured out they're very easy

15:24

to shoot out the sky. Yes. I can imagine.

15:27

effective warships really. Then after the

15:29

war, they went back to their transport duties.

15:32

And Germany was certainly not the only country that

15:34

was making and using airships, but

15:36

they were really determined to dominate

15:39

the industry. They felt like they owned it

15:41

and wanted to hang on to it. So that meant building the

15:43

biggest, most luxurious, most

15:46

impressive airships. That

15:48

was their motivation for building the Luftschiff

15:51

Zeppelin 129. Biggest aircraft,

15:54

type ever

15:56

made

15:57

and that of course ended up being

15:59

the ill-faced airship that would go

16:01

on to be called the Hindenburg. Oh,

16:03

okay. So

16:06

they started drawing up plans for this mega airship

16:08

in the late 1920s. Started

16:10

building it in 1931 and then it wasn't

16:13

ready to actually take flight until 1936.

16:17

This is because it was so huge.

16:19

So that's World War II time? Not

16:21

quite, no. World War II kicked off in 1939. In

16:24

between wars here. Yes, right.

16:26

Gotcha, gotcha. In the depression though, I think.

16:29

And just to give you an idea as well, this is the year

16:31

before Amelia Earhart disappeared.

16:34

Actually, by the time we get

16:36

to the crash, that's only a couple of months before

16:38

Amelia Earhart. So still aviation

16:41

was very much in its infancy. 245 meters

16:44

long,

16:45

as I said, just shy of the Titanic. If

16:52

you picture an Olympic swimming pool, now you

16:54

can picture five of them lined

16:56

up. how enormous it was from

16:58

nose to tail and at

17:01

its highest point 40 meters tall, 15 stories

17:04

high.

17:05

Whoa, that is huge.

17:08

Yes. And then just the little thing

17:10

on the bottom with people in it. That's right.

17:12

Wow. Capacity for 70 passengers

17:15

and 60 crew. And

17:18

what kind of trips can it do? Are we talking

17:21

overnight, an hour? What did... Very

17:24

long distances. Really? longest

17:27

trips it would do was from Frankfurt

17:29

in Germany to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

17:32

How long does that take? I think

17:34

that one was five days.

17:35

Oh, what? Yeah. Oh

17:37

my God. The most popular route was

17:39

across the Atlantic just to New

17:42

Jersey. Yeah. From Frankfurt and that would take

17:44

two and a half days.

17:45

So they really did need cabins

17:47

like they had to sleep and stuff. Oh,

17:50

whoa, five days.

17:53

Yep,

17:53

heck of a lot faster

17:55

than if you went by boat. Well, for sure. I

17:58

mean, but planes now, what's the long- longest

18:00

trip you can do, like Sydney to LA

18:02

is like what, 20,

18:04

I don't

18:05

know, little less, it's like 17

18:07

hours or something.

18:09

Is it? Yeah, it's long, isn't it? It's like 16

18:11

hours or something. I haven't told her for a few years. My head, it was only

18:13

about 12. But yeah, I think they've got planes now

18:15

that will stay in the air for 24 hours. What?

18:18

But still not five days. No. I

18:20

mean, they didn't really need a huge amount of fuel. Once

18:23

the gas was in the balloon,

18:26

it was able to stay up in the air, then

18:29

they just needed enough diesel power

18:31

for the little motors to keep the engines turning.

18:33

I just wouldn't feel safe for five

18:36

days up in the air. You know what I mean?

18:38

It wouldn't feel safe. Maybe we can insert

18:41

some poo talk here. Imagine if the plumbing went

18:43

awry. Right? I wonder

18:45

if they just empty it wherever

18:47

they are. Yeah, they would. Now

18:53

originally, the hope was that

18:56

they would be able to fill the Hindenburg.

18:59

with helium rather than hydrogen.

19:03

Hydrogen did certainly have the advantage of being

19:05

the lightest and the cheapest and most readily

19:07

available gas.

19:09

But the big,

19:11

big downside, as we alluded to,

19:13

super duper flammable. When

19:15

it's exposed to air, it just needs one little

19:18

spark and up it'll go. Whereas

19:20

helium, completely non-flammable. But

19:22

it's quite a bit more expensive and you need

19:25

a lot more of it to lift the

19:27

same amount of weight into the air. Right.

19:30

And it makes everyone sound silly. Yeah,

19:32

it's just good fun. But

19:35

yeah, heaps safer so the Krauts really wanted to use

19:37

it. The problem was America was hoarding almost

19:40

all the helium gas in the world at

19:42

that time, not selling it to anyone least of

19:44

all the Germans.

19:45

Yeah, couple of questions here. One, why

19:48

can't they just use air? Because

19:51

it's too heavy. Yes. Okay.

19:55

I didn't know helium

19:57

was a finite. I've

19:59

never I've never really thought about this before, but I

20:01

guess I just assumed you just make helium.

20:04

Same. Like I do... What

20:06

do you mean you get... They're hoarding helium. Where are

20:08

they getting it from? Where does it come

20:09

from? When they were digging up oil in

20:12

North America, it's like a byproduct

20:14

that they can extract at the

20:16

same time.

20:17

Stop it! So are

20:19

we going to run out of helium one day? We

20:21

are. Stop it! What?

20:24

That's why stupid things like helium balloons

20:26

releases are so wasteful. Birthday

20:27

parties will be ruined forever.

20:31

Yep, they've got to dig it up out of the ground. Well,

20:33

I mean, balloon releases

20:36

aren't wasteful. Just using it in the

20:38

balloon at all is wasteful

20:40

because once it's in the balloon, it's

20:43

whether you let the balloon go or not, you've

20:45

wasted the helium. Very true. But

20:48

we're going to run out of helium. When?

20:51

I think we're... I'm sorry. More

20:54

dangerous that are going to happen. Much

20:57

bigger catastrophes are going to happen before we reach that

20:59

point. Oh my goodness. That's so fascinating.

21:02

Yeah, I had no idea. I truly

21:03

thought it was just made. Like you

21:06

mix something with air and there's helium. Like I

21:08

didn't even... Whoa. Yeah,

21:11

they dig it up. And the Americans had like 90%

21:13

of the available

21:15

helium and they were like, we're going to hang on to this.

21:18

Yeah. Thanks very much. going

21:20

to give it to a country that is being led by

21:22

that guy. Because Hitler was in

21:25

control by this point.

21:26

And they've used those things

21:29

to drop bombs. So we're not going to help you do

21:31

that. So the

21:33

Zeppelin company was like, okay,

21:35

well, I guess we'll just have to use our fallback hydrogen, 200,000

21:40

cubic meters worth

21:42

of super flammable hydrogen gas.

21:45

That was coated, Sorry, contained

21:48

in a flammable cotton fabric

21:50

and that fabric was then painted with

21:53

a very flammable metallic paint.

21:56

Where do you get the hydrogen from? That

21:58

you can actually extract very easily from water.

22:01

You can separate the hydrogen and the oxygen

22:03

molecules from water. So you just get it from water.

22:05

So you can just, hydrogen's just, anyway,

22:07

you just got to know how to do it. That's right.

22:10

And then when you say they store, it's, I,

22:13

my brain can't, like my head can't get

22:15

around the concept of storing a gas

22:19

or like air or when you say

22:21

there was this many cubic meters, I'm like, how does it

22:23

not just float away?

22:24

So they've got it in tanks, obviously.

22:27

Yeah. They've put it into tanks.

22:30

Then when they're ready, they go and pump the hydrogen from

22:32

the tanks into the gas bags, the

22:34

gas cells. There are 16 of

22:36

them inside the overall giant

22:38

structure of the Hindenburg.

22:42

They inflate them while they've

22:44

waited and tied the vessel down.

22:46

So it's trying to take off

22:49

until they're ready to cut it loose. And

22:52

meanwhile, there's flammable paint on

22:55

the... that it's made out of. Whoops.

22:58

That's it. Okay. So

23:01

that's when they release the valves and let out

23:04

some of the gas. Let the hydrogen out.

23:08

And where does it go then? Out

23:10

into the atmosphere. That doesn't

23:12

seem safe. Not to us today, no. Okay.

23:16

All right. None of this seems particularly safe. It's

23:18

falling into place in my mind. Yeah.

23:21

this one's inevitable. Is

23:24

this going to end badly? I feel

23:26

like this isn't going to go well. Okay.

23:29

All right. So the

23:30

purpose of the Hindenburg, partly commercial

23:33

transport, charging super wealthy passengers

23:36

a very high price for their tickets,

23:38

but much more than that, its

23:40

purpose was as a propaganda tool

23:42

to show off German ingenuity

23:45

and engineering prowess. It was very

23:47

much a status symbol. And

23:49

of course, in terms of branding,

23:52

Hitler and his team weren't going to miss out on an opportunity.

23:54

So it was traveling around the world with giant swastikas.

23:57

Was it really? Oh No.

24:01

Uh-oh. World War

24:03

II, like I said, still a few years away,

24:05

but the Nazis were very much into throwing

24:07

their weight around and posturing

24:09

and intimidating people.

24:11

And it was intimidating when

24:14

this giant airship

24:16

would suddenly appear above your city and

24:18

you'd be in its shadow

24:20

and sort of be... Swash stickers. ...above

24:23

you. And he did that quite

24:25

a lot, called them propaganda flights, and

24:27

that's initially what the Hindenburg was

24:30

used for, just peacocking around,

24:32

showing off. Yes.

24:35

Famously, the Hindenburg was there hovering over the stadium

24:37

at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.

24:40

Was it really? The entire time. Like

24:42

the Goodyear Blimp does at American sporting events. Oh

24:45

my God. Yeah, advertising Nazism

24:47

as opposed to times. They

24:51

also used the Hindenburg for pamphlet drops

24:53

around the place. Really? and

24:55

practice from the very early

24:58

airships when people wanted to distribute

25:00

information that just fly around throwing

25:03

pamphlets out. Yeah, I suppose

25:05

it gets it done fast. Then

25:08

the Hindenburg got into the long haul passenger flights,

25:11

North and South America. And look,

25:13

a lot of people when they hear Titanic of the

25:15

Skies, they think Maiden Voyage. So

25:18

they assume that this disastrous

25:20

flight of the Hindenburg must have been the first time

25:22

across the Atlantic. true,

25:24

it had done heaps of trips back and

25:27

forth in its first year of travel,

25:29

all luckily, quite pure luck really,

25:32

without incident. And so it developed this reputation

25:34

as a really quick, safe way to travel. And

25:37

it was also very, very prestigious

25:39

because they'd made sure it felt like being

25:42

on a lux cruise

25:43

liner. So

25:46

they created these really opulent recreation

25:48

areas with original artworks on

25:50

the wall. They even had a custom

25:53

aluminium lightweight

25:54

piano made. So

25:56

they could entertain the guests. weighed

25:59

as much as a chill... hour. They

26:03

invited everyone each night to put on their formal

26:05

wear, come to the dining room

26:07

for a fine dining experience. Goodness.

26:09

So there's a kitchen then? Yes.

26:12

No open flames or just

26:15

electronic. Oh, wow. Okay.

26:18

Proper chefs as well. Private

26:20

quarters, lovely bathroom facilities.

26:22

They regularly- This is nuts.

26:24

held Catholic masses in the

26:26

air. Oh my God. Which, well, on

26:29

Sundays, people didn't miss out on their church experience.

26:32

Kind of ironic when we see what happens.

26:34

I truly thought

26:36

the bit down the bottom was like the

26:38

size of a bus. Just a cargo hold. Yeah.

26:41

Like a sea container. And like some wooden

26:44

benches. Whoa.

26:45

Maybe a bit bigger than a five

26:47

bedroom house. Yeah, must be,

26:49

right? I'll link you to the dimensions.

26:52

You can check that out for yourself. Famously,

26:54

they had a smoking room. No,

26:58

they didn't. How? Look,

27:01

they were very careful. They

27:05

thought a lot about it.

27:07

They had. They had managed

27:09

to pressurise that room and they had like

27:11

a double door and a proper airlock

27:14

situation going on. The

27:16

only lighters or matches on

27:19

board the entire vessel were there

27:21

in that smoking room and they were controlled

27:23

by the bartender and they

27:25

had a security guy there at all

27:27

times making sure no one left the cabin

27:30

with a cigarette or cigar.

27:33

Why, why, why, why, why, why

27:35

make it a priority? Like

27:40

why, why was it not? Because everyone

27:42

smoked back then. Sure, but truly

27:45

to go to that extent, to have

27:47

that on the ship when

27:50

it's literally like Like

27:54

they need a security man there because it will lead

27:56

to people's deaths in a second.

27:59

but they're letting up, good.

28:00

do it. Can't not smoke. Got to do

28:02

it.

28:02

Honestly, no passengers would have bought a ticket on

28:04

there if they knew that they were going to have to go two,

28:07

three, maybe five days without

28:09

a cigarette. Yeah. They

28:11

had to come up with a solution for that for sure,

28:14

to be able to compete with the cruise liners.

28:16

Because that was their direct competition.

28:18

Rich travelers had to make the decision if they want to get

28:20

across the Atlantic and they want to go in

28:22

the most plush way possible. They either

28:25

go on the Queen Mary, which will take five

28:27

to six days or they go on the Hindenburg,

28:29

which will take two, maybe three at the most.

28:31

Yeah. Okay.

28:32

Double the price to go on the Hindenburg.

28:34

You get there in half the time and

28:37

you're not going to have to deal with seasickness.

28:40

Plus it was a real status symbol to be able to

28:42

say. You've been on it. On the Hindi. Yeah,

28:44

right. People really aspired to it because

28:46

it was such a famous vessel.

28:50

Everyone had seen pictures in in magazines

28:52

and they'd probably seen footage in movie theaters

28:55

as well. Plus it would just show up over their

28:57

cities a long time. So

29:00

yeah, it had this fascination

29:01

for people all

29:03

around the world. And

29:05

on the evening of May 3rd, 1937, the

29:08

Hindenburg took to the skies from

29:10

Frankfurt with 97 people

29:13

on board heading off on her first

29:15

trip to North America of the 1937 season. A

29:20

63rd flight overall.

29:22

And there was a lot of fanfare for this new

29:24

season because over the winter they had refurbished

29:26

the vessel a bit, done

29:28

some upgrades, added some extra cabins,

29:31

put in some extra luxurious

29:33

amenities. Despite that,

29:35

they were only at half passenger capacity, 36 passengers

29:39

on this flight. Still 61

29:42

crew members. And they were scheduled

29:44

to land in New Jersey on May

29:47

6th early in the morning. two and a half

29:49

days of travel. Yeah. But

29:51

because of some

29:52

really strong headwinds along the way, she was

29:54

running about 12 hours behind

29:56

schedule, which was a bit annoying for the passengers

29:59

on board.

30:00

And not really a great

30:02

look for Captain Max Proust, because

30:04

this was his first assignment as

30:06

the head bitch in charge for the

30:08

flight from Frankfurt to New Jersey.

30:12

The pressure's on. That's right. So

30:15

it wasn't until late afternoon on the

30:18

6th when the Hindenburg made it into US

30:20

airspace, as usual, made sure

30:23

she flew over as many big cities

30:25

as possible just

30:27

to Peacock, over Boston over

30:29

Manhattan as she went, cars

30:32

were stopping in the street and people were running

30:34

outside to cop a look at her

30:36

because she was so incredibly

30:39

impressive. Shiny and silver

30:42

and like just this feat of

30:44

engineering. Yeah, the Titanic

30:45

in the sky. Imagine seeing that in the sky. Yeah.

30:47

And seeing people waving down at you as well

30:49

because they could literally open the windows.

30:52

They could open the windows? Yep. What? Because it

30:55

didn't need to be pressurized. weren't flying

30:57

that high up in the air. Of course.

31:00

How high up were they? A few hundred

31:02

meters. Oh my God, that

31:05

would be so huge and imposing

31:07

over you, over a city. If

31:11

watch some of the documentaries that I'll post links

31:13

to, they're available on YouTube. And yeah, seeing

31:15

the footage of this thing, it's just

31:18

incredible.

31:19

Looks like it's something from science fiction.

31:21

It would be incredible now. We don't have anything

31:24

like, like, you know, the other week when we were

31:26

at the Opera House and the

31:28

Queen Mary was there, or was it the Queen QE2?

31:31

Queen Mary 2. That

31:33

I've been on, it's amazing. Would love

31:35

to go again if anyone's listening. And

31:39

that is huge. Even

31:42

just sitting in the harbour across from us, it

31:44

felt imposing. And imagine

31:47

that being up in the sky. Like

31:49

that is crazy. Whoa. Whoa.

31:53

Yeah, it's hard to fathom. you

31:56

look at comparison pictures

31:58

as well, like it's as long as...

32:00

the White House when they put

32:02

an image one above the other. I truly never thought

32:04

it was this big. I thought it was like,

32:07

I don't know, maybe

32:09

the... I thought it was like the

32:12

length of a few buses and

32:14

then the little bit underneath was maybe like

32:16

one bus. I thought it was the size

32:18

of a big plane.

32:20

Five times the size of the

32:22

Goodyear Blimp. Oh my God. Yeah.

32:26

Whoa. So that's a lot of hydrogen. Yes.

32:28

Oh no. Yeah.

32:31

About

32:32

4pm, arrived at New Jersey

32:34

at the airfield and the weather was just

32:36

too stormy to attempt a landing.

32:39

So the captain took the ship on a bit of a scenic

32:41

flight up and down the Jersey shoreline

32:43

while they waited for the storms to pass. Meanwhile

32:46

there were quite a few people who'd been

32:48

waiting at the airfield all day

32:51

long. News outlets were there to

32:53

cover the first Hindenburg arrival

32:55

of the year. Like radio broadcasters

32:58

there and TV crews. There

33:00

were families there to welcome their loved ones

33:03

home, obviously. And there were also

33:05

a lot of fancy rich passengers who

33:07

had tickets for the sold out return

33:10

trip to Europe. Ah, okay. They

33:12

were the ones who were getting the most impatient because they

33:14

really wanted to get to the UK in time to

33:16

catch the end of King George's coronation,

33:19

which had already kicked off.

33:22

Okay. So they were the ones that were sort of tapping their

33:24

feet like, come on, come on, come on. around

33:27

7pm, the captain and the ground crew decided

33:29

the weather's cleared up enough, we're going to go ahead

33:32

and attempt a landing. So he

33:34

ordered his crew to do all the things they needed to

33:36

do to reduce buoyancy

33:39

and get them down to the mooring

33:41

mast.

33:42

So when they land, is it

33:45

a matter of like, you know, letting out some

33:47

of the hydrogen so they start sinking? And then are there

33:49

people on the ground like with ropes and they quickly

33:51

tie it down? Is that the kind

33:52

of? Yes, I wanted to describe this to

33:54

you because it blew my mind. It

33:57

sounds simple but it's actually really really

33:59

tricky and takes a little

34:00

lot of people and can be super

34:02

dangerous. Like how do you catch it? So first

34:04

off, they have to let ropes down. Yes. And

34:07

those ropes have to be allowed to

34:09

touch the ground first to discharge all

34:11

the static electricity that's built

34:13

up on the airship

34:14

during the trip because of all the friction.

34:17

So like if you think of when you rub a balloon on your

34:19

jumper and then hold it up near your head like

34:22

static electricity, imagine that times

34:24

the size of this thing, something the size

34:27

of the Titanic, right? If you were to

34:29

just grab the rope before it had

34:31

hit the ground. It'd be like electric shock

34:33

times a thousand. Correct. Yeah.

34:36

Okay. So they had to be careful of that. They

34:38

learned that lesson the hard way. And then they'd have to

34:40

have dozens and dozens of big burly

34:42

men each grabbing a rope and hanging

34:44

on to it. And

34:47

then pulling down until

34:49

they could get like the main anchor rope attached

34:52

to a winch and then wind,

34:54

wind, wind to get it

34:56

down to the ground. Yeah. And

34:59

there were incidents where that went

35:01

horribly wrong. So, they would be hanging onto

35:03

the ropes. Sudden gust

35:06

of wind. Off goes the airship.

35:08

Yes, and they're stuck on the rope! And they didn't let go in

35:10

time. So, there are stories of sometimes

35:13

they'd then be pulled up into the ship.

35:15

Other times they would just fall

35:18

to their dome.

35:19

Oh no. We're lost. Yeah.

35:22

Anyway, it seems like things

35:25

were

35:25

kind of going smoothly.

35:29

Although in posterity, we can see that there were

35:31

warning signs that things were not right.

35:35

On the way down, the wind kept changing direction.

35:38

And so the Hindenburg had to make a few sharp

35:41

turns to stay on course.

35:43

Okay, yeah. Nothing too drastic, but

35:45

you don't normally with an airship make really

35:48

sharp turns to the left or the right. They

35:51

were also having a bit of trouble maintaining an even

35:53

keel, like the back end of the

35:55

ship

35:55

seemed to be losing buoyancy and

35:58

was Right.

36:00

Also, the captain gave orders to

36:02

try to even things out by moving the

36:04

crew around seemed like he'd

36:06

sort of solved that problem. And

36:09

then they got to where they needed to be about 50 meters

36:12

off the ground. Most

36:15

of the passengers on board were watching out the

36:18

windows and all of the folks on the ground

36:20

of course were looking up at the ship. The

36:23

camera crews were getting ready for the right moment

36:25

to press record. They didn't want to waste any

36:27

of their expensive film. film

36:29

that isn't

36:30

it? Until the action had started. Yeah. Um,

36:33

and all the ground crew were taking their positions

36:35

under the ship, getting ready to pull

36:38

it down. Oh no. And then to

36:40

everyone's very sudden, horrific

36:42

surprise, the airship

36:44

went up in flames. Like in a second?

36:47

Just out of nowhere.

36:49

The back of the craft ignited first

36:52

and then the fire spread super quickly.

36:55

And yes, literally within seconds, the whole ship

36:57

was just one giant fireball.

37:00

Because if it's all hydrogen in there,

37:02

it wouldn't be like,

37:04

oh no, a fire started. And

37:06

then it literally would just all...

37:09

Yep. Oh my goodness. I

37:12

want to see. Well, do

37:14

you want to come around here and

37:16

show

37:16

it to you? Come on round. I've

37:19

got... This is very different to what I remember from Family

37:22

Guy. Hold on. Wow,

37:26

that's so clear. So

37:28

this is an HD colorization.

37:31

So it's like real footage, but they've kind of judged

37:34

it. That's right. So just to begin

37:36

with, I'll show you like that's the

37:38

original. Yeah, that's kind of what I have

37:40

in my head. Type footage, grainy, black and

37:42

white, not a lot of frames per

37:45

second. And yeah, using

37:47

technology, they've been able to

37:50

really paint a picture of exactly

37:52

what happened. like a big, okay,

37:55

I had two thoughts, it looks like a big penis, but

37:58

then it also looks like a big whale? It

38:00

looks like a big whale, like a big dolphin,

38:02

because it's big and silver and...

38:04

Okay, wait, go back. Very sort of aerodynamic

38:08

vibrator. Okay, wait. So what... Oh, yeah, it doesn't

38:10

look that vibrator. Um... So I'm going to show you from four

38:12

different angles. Okay. Whoa! Now...

38:15

Whoa, it's... That looks like it's from a movie!

38:17

Yeah. Oh, look how fast!

38:20

Oh! It looks animated.

38:24

Oh my God! You can see

38:26

how quickly the skin is burning. Just

38:28

going, because disappearing

38:30

and the flammable paint just

38:32

went whoosh along with

38:35

all of the hydrogen. It feels impossible

38:37

for something that big to just disintegrate

38:39

that quickly. I can't

38:41

believe this footage exists. Like I've

38:43

only ever seen or remembered

38:46

just really grainy. What's

38:48

the point of even watching? You can't see. Oh,

38:53

whoa. Oh,

38:55

we've just seen still images. Yeah.

38:57

Like the cover of the Led Zehlin album. It's

39:02

just gone. Wait,

39:04

can I see it again blow up? Let's

39:07

look from a different angle. Oh

39:09

my god. Oh

39:11

my god, there are people running! So the grand

39:14

crew only had a few seconds

39:16

to realize what was going on and get

39:18

out of there. Whoa. That's

39:22

crazy footage. I had no idea

39:24

that existed like that. Nor

39:27

did I until I started really getting into this. So

39:31

the guy narrating, was he a journalist

39:34

there to film it? Or the guy

39:36

who says, oh, the humanity.

39:37

Yeah. So his name is Herbert

39:39

Morrison. And yes, he was

39:41

there just to record

39:44

an audio description of the landing,

39:46

which was a pretty blue team sort of thing.

39:48

It was being prerecorded. It wasn't broadcast

39:50

live. It was going to be

39:53

played on the radio that evening just

39:56

on local radio. Yeah. ended up

39:58

becoming... the

40:00

definitive account of what was

40:02

going on. And one of the most famous

40:04

audio clips of all time. Without

40:06

question. Yeah. Yeah. And

40:09

it was the first time that the same bit of audio was played

40:11

on radio across the entire country

40:13

of the United States of America.

40:16

Can you read what he said

40:18

over the whole 30 seconds order? I'm just going to

40:20

play it. Oh, yeah. Okay.

40:22

Yeah. It's starting

40:24

to rain again. The rain has flacked up a little bit. They

40:27

packed motors with the ship are just holding

40:29

it just enough to keep

40:31

it from first-hand the flight get it started

40:33

get this party it's right it's rising

40:36

it's rising terrible oh my

40:38

get out of the way please it's funny working

40:40

in a plane and it's hauling on the morning fast

40:42

and all the folks believe that this is terrible this

40:44

is the work of the workship casserines in the world oh

40:47

it's like 20

40:49

oh four or five hundred

40:51

feet into the sky it is it's the horrific

40:53

crash ladies and gentlemen the smoke and the flames

40:56

now and the flame is rising to

40:58

the ground not quite to the mooring mass

41:01

of the humanity and all the furniture

41:03

is feeding around you I told

41:05

you I can't talk

41:07

to people and friends around there. I

41:10

can't talk ladies

41:13

and gentlemen honestly just laying

41:16

down mass and smoking wreckage and

41:18

everybody can hardly breathe and I

41:21

can hardly breathe. I'm going to step inside while

41:23

I turn. I see

41:26

it. God,

41:31

that's terrible. I

41:34

can't. I'm going

41:36

to have to stop for a minute because I've lost my voice.

41:38

This is the worst thing I've ever witnessed. Wow.

41:42

I think it's better to hear

41:45

him so you can hear the emotion

41:47

in his voice and the way he goes from

41:49

professionally just, you know, feeling airtime

41:52

by talking about the rain and

41:53

the weather. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, there's

41:56

flames in the back of my eye. presence of

41:58

mind to describe. what was going

42:01

on. But also what I

42:03

really liked about that was that he

42:05

has the presence of mind to describe what's going

42:07

on. Yeah, like he knows I've got to

42:09

document this, but also he's not

42:12

a super polished.

42:14

No. Like you think about, for

42:16

example, journalists who

42:19

like news anchors who watched the

42:22

second plane fly into the tower in 9-11.

42:24

It was a shock, but it was still very

42:27

much, Okay, ladies and gentlemen,

42:29

a second plane, like it was, they're

42:31

polished, they're trained. This was someone

42:33

who, he

42:35

was documenting what he was seeing, but

42:37

as a human being, not

42:39

as a journalist. Like, cause you can

42:41

tell he seems horrified, disturbed,

42:44

traumatized to

42:46

the point where he says, I have to stop. Yeah.

42:49

He's feeling an enormous amount of empathy for people

42:51

who are bored and all the people who

42:53

are bored. Oh, when he goes, oh, get out of the way, please. talking

42:55

about the friends and the family and how is

42:57

he possibly going to talk to any of these people

43:00

given what they've just watched happen to their loved

43:02

ones and yeah really raw emotion. There's

43:04

an urban myth out there that he got fired for

43:07

this because he was unprofessional

43:09

during the recording. That's not true, that really

43:11

just sort of stems we think from the fact that

43:14

he left that job to go to another network

43:16

within a year. But yeah

43:19

there's this rumor out there that he

43:21

got fired. But

43:22

he did, that was... There's

43:26

no reason he... You couldn't have asked for him

43:29

to give a better account of it. Like

43:32

I think it's better that his emotion is in it.

43:35

Yeah. And then all the humanity has become

43:37

that iconic line that's been used

43:40

over and over again and will continue to be used over

43:42

and over. I

43:43

wonder what made him say that. Like if it was

43:45

an expression already or if it was just

43:48

like, he just

43:50

articulated... articulated what he

43:52

was feeling, thinking like,

43:55

yeah, I wonder if it was. What

43:56

he was trying to express was, oh, what a huge loss of

43:58

life. Yeah, yeah, that's what I made. Yeah. But I don't

44:01

know if that was a common expression. Yeah.

44:05

So as I started to say, the

44:07

onlookers, well, like everyone on

44:09

board must have just been burnt to

44:12

a crisp the second that happened.

44:14

But then once the wreckage was on the ground and the flame

44:16

started to die down a little bit, they realized

44:18

there were people emerging from

44:21

the flames.

44:21

Because the people running out there

44:24

that you can see running, like literally

44:26

it's just the flaming ship and then all of a sudden a person's

44:29

running out of it. I assumed that

44:31

was the people in the ground crew.

44:33

No. Passengers. It

44:35

was passengers. And incredibly

44:38

two thirds of the 97 people

44:41

on the Hidden Burg that afternoon survived.

44:44

What?

44:45

Yeah. I thought they all died. I thought you

44:47

were going to say one person lived. Two

44:50

thirds? Two thirds

44:52

of them. We'll get into talking

44:55

about that, but first off, we should acknowledge

44:57

that there were 37 casualties,

44:59

of course. 13 of them were passengers, 22

45:02

were crew members.

45:04

One of them was a ground crew member who couldn't

45:06

get out of the way fast enough, and also

45:08

one dog.

45:09

Oh no. Some

45:11

died there in the wreckage. A

45:14

lot of them though died later in the hospital

45:16

from burns, smoke inhalation

45:18

was the bad thing, And

45:20

of course, broken bones and crushed

45:23

organs in the wreckage.

45:27

All of the survivors were interviewed when they

45:30

were healthy enough and able

45:32

to, and each of them described their

45:34

experience of the crash. And there were quite individual

45:37

circumstances of how they managed

45:39

to survive.

45:40

A number of people jumped when

45:42

they realized what was going on. They

45:45

were willing to risk the fall

45:47

versus the flames. Some

45:49

people didn't survive before,

45:51

but a lot of the survivors did make

45:54

the decision to jump out and that's what

45:56

saved their lives, including one

45:58

guy whose name was Joseph. of

46:00

Spar. He was a vaudeville

46:02

contortionist slash acrobat

46:04

slash comedian. He used the stage

46:07

name Ben Dover. Classic

46:08

gag. He

46:11

was on his way home to the States to start

46:14

doing a new show at Radio

46:16

City Music Hall. And

46:19

he said the first signs that he noticed

46:21

that something was wrong was when he

46:24

was looking out the window at the

46:27

building, the hangar where all

46:29

the people were waiting for them. And he suddenly could

46:31

see a bright orange glow reflecting

46:33

off the building. He was like,

46:36

that's weird. And then all

46:38

of a sudden the floor just tilted

46:40

down 45 degrees. Cause

46:43

as you saw... He saw

46:43

a reflection of his own ship on fire

46:46

in the building. And that was the first thing that indicated,

46:49

oh, something's not right here. He managed

46:51

to quickly grab onto the frame

46:53

of the window that he was looking at. And

46:56

that's when he saw the flames were coming close.

46:59

So he... Towards him? Yeah.

47:02

So he hung himself outside off

47:06

the window frame. Yeah. And

47:08

then he just waited a few seconds, realizing

47:10

that the ship was heading down towards the

47:12

ground. And if he waited a little while, he'd

47:14

be close enough to the ground that he probably wouldn't get

47:16

hurt.

47:17

What a balance to have to hit

47:19

flames coming towards you. You want to get close

47:22

enough to the ground. You really have to pick the

47:24

exact right moment. Yeah.

47:27

And he picked around the five meter point.

47:30

Hey, that's... Yeah. Dropped

47:33

on down. Not too bad. Did an acrobatic

47:35

little tuck and roll. Yeah. Got up, walked

47:37

away.

47:38

Whoa. Slight injury to his ankle,

47:40

but thanks to adrenaline, he couldn't even

47:42

feel that at the time. Yeah. united

47:45

with his family. Sadly

47:48

though, it was his dog that

47:49

was in the cargo hold that didn't

47:52

make it out alive. Sorry, bend over.

47:55

So that was his survival story, where

47:57

he really sort of took control

47:59

and did what needed to do to get out

48:01

alive. Would you? I've

48:04

always thought this. I thought this

48:06

back at, you know, when

48:09

we watched 9-11 and even thinking

48:11

this now, like, being burned

48:13

alive is my worst nightmare. It's

48:16

literally probably my worst nightmare. I

48:18

would jump. Absolutely.

48:21

Rather than have that happen. I'm pretty sure.

48:23

However, I do really relate to this one older lady that I'm

48:25

about to tell you about. Okay. Oh,

48:27

let me hear. Her name was Margaret. watching

48:29

the landing out the window. And

48:32

when the ship tilted, she

48:34

just got knocked off her feet and swooshed

48:36

about six meters towards

48:39

the wall, which was now basically

48:42

the floor. Oh my God. Luckily she

48:44

landed on a padded lounge.

48:47

But then unluckily, other people started

48:49

landing on top

48:51

of her. So she was sort of

48:53

very disoriented and confused

48:55

about what was going on. How old is she? She

48:57

was in her early 60s, I think. Okay,

49:00

yep. Then those people started

49:02

clambering over to the windows so

49:05

they could jump out and

49:07

Margaret didn't really know what to do,

49:09

so I suspect that maybe this

49:11

would be me. She just sort of froze.

49:14

She just stayed seated on the

49:17

lounge and as you saw the shift levels

49:20

out and just descends down

49:22

to the ground. As the

49:24

balloon's

49:24

burning on top, yeah. That's

49:27

right. As the flames started

49:29

to come close to her, she just covered her hair

49:31

with her fur coat

49:34

and waited for the big crash

49:37

landing that she thought was going to indicate to

49:39

her, okay, we're on the ground now. But

49:41

then because it felt to her like

49:44

they landed really, really gently, she didn't even

49:46

notice that they'd landed until a rescue

49:49

team member came in and grabbed her

49:51

and forced her to her feet and walked

49:53

her out.

49:53

But it all happened so fast. Like, how

49:56

did this happen? How? She'd just

49:58

been sitting there in the flames. While

50:00

it all burnt around her. Was she burnt?

50:02

Protected by her furs. Her hands were a bit burnt. But

50:04

not too badly. That is the

50:06

epitome of, I

50:09

cannot deal with this, thank you. And

50:12

just going into your thing.

50:15

That's what I can see myself doing.

50:17

Just going, nope. Because

50:19

when I, you know, I have a history of panic attacks

50:22

and when I get them, one of

50:24

the main things I need, a lot of people

50:26

need to go outside and be in the open. I

50:28

need to be in a small space. I

50:30

need to feel confined. I'll,

50:33

like, I've in the past, like sat in a wardrobe

50:35

or if I have nothing else, I just put my

50:37

hands around my face, like my eyes

50:40

to try and feel like I'm in a tiny space because

50:42

there's something about when things get

50:44

overwhelming, just going, no, thank you world,

50:47

and going into your little, and

50:50

she really just went, not,

50:52

not today, not for me. Yeah.

50:56

Getting inside this little cocoon.

50:58

Yeah. And then she emerged. Perfectly

51:00

safe butterfly. Yeah. I

51:03

mean, you know what? You never know how you're

51:05

going to react in a like emergency,

51:09

disaster, unexpected, whatever.

51:12

You don't know. I'll tell you one more survival

51:15

story. I want 10 more. The

51:18

Derna family. This one. Oh, a whole

51:20

family. Yes, it was. They

51:22

were Germans, five of them. Mom, dad, a 14-year-old, a 10-year-old,

51:25

and an eight-year-old.

51:27

Oh my God. When the ship started going

51:29

down, the mom and the kids were at

51:31

the windows and the dad was back

51:34

in their cabin. The

51:36

things started tilting. It was

51:38

obvious it was on fire and the mom

51:40

saw people jumping out the windows and she

51:42

was like, okay, that's probably a smart idea.

51:45

So she lifted up the 10-year-old

51:48

and sort of shoved him out the window.

51:52

Then she did the same for the 8-year-old. And

51:55

while she was doing that, she was telling the 14-year-old

51:57

daughter that she needed to to get herself.

52:00

out. But the daughter was just too

52:02

freaked out and fearful of heights,

52:04

didn't want to jump. She was panicking and so

52:07

she flatly refused. So the mother then tried

52:09

her best to lift her daughter

52:11

up and out the window, but she was just

52:13

too heavy and she was resisting. So then

52:16

the mother decided to jump out herself

52:19

as a way of trying to show the daughter, look, it's

52:21

safe, come down to me.

52:22

I'm sure she said that later, but

52:24

I think it was like, I just want to get it. I did

52:27

it to show her the way. Absolutely be a

52:29

factor that you'd be like, I can't stay on the

52:31

ship with her if she's not going to come.

52:34

Yeah. Anyway, yeah. That's

52:36

her hope. The daughter didn't

52:38

jump. She was pulled

52:41

out of the wreckage alive shortly

52:44

after it hit the ground and she was

52:46

taken to hospital, but she died there.

52:48

Oh, now I feel bad for making a joke. Oh

52:50

no. What about the

52:52

dad? He didn't make it either. He

52:54

was in the cabin.

52:55

So now it was just the moment her two

52:58

younger sons and she had to spend the rest of

53:00

her life living with the choice

53:03

she'd made to

53:05

jump without her daughter. But

53:08

it's

53:08

not a choice. Although I was making

53:10

a joke, I did

53:13

really mean you

53:15

would just jump. Your

53:19

literal animal instinct would...

53:22

I don't even think you'd have control over it. It

53:24

would be like trying to get her out, trying to get her

53:26

out, trying to get her out, and then your body would just go

53:30

jumping. I don't

53:32

even think you'd have... It's your animal

53:34

brain has kicked in. You can tell yourself

53:36

that every single day for the rest of your

53:38

life, you'll still feel an immense sense

53:41

of guilt. That youngest son, his

53:43

name was Viana. Viana

53:45

Derna.

53:45

Viana Derna. Like, the roger.

53:48

Yeah. He ended up being

53:50

the last living survivor of the crash

53:52

and he died in 2020. Wow.

53:55

But recently, yeah.

53:56

How old would he have been? He was 90. ley

54:01

Now, of course, the whole world wanted to know what

54:03

caused this terrible tragedy.

54:06

And the thing is, we still don't

54:09

know.

54:10

Eighty odd years later, still

54:13

unsure how the fire started.

54:15

Oh, was someone in the smoking room? No.

54:18

Surely. Is that in the wrong place for where the

54:20

fire started? That's right. Interesting.

54:23

Wrong location. A lot

54:25

of people, when they do hear smoking room, they're

54:27

like, oh, there we go. That's

54:29

the smoking gun. But

54:30

also maybe it's not... That was actually

54:32

the safest, most fireproof space.

54:35

Oh yeah. Oh,

54:37

ironic. But it's not like

54:39

they would have done, you know, X-ray

54:41

scanning as you get on. I bet people

54:44

snuck lighters on. Like, it's like how

54:46

they tell you don't smoke on the plane and people

54:48

still try and do it in the toilet. Mm.

54:50

Possibly. Maybe someone just...

54:53

I don't know. But if you're 30 seconds away from landing,

54:55

just wait, mate. You could hang in. Yeah.

55:00

Let's talk about some of the

55:02

most popular theories. Okay. First

55:04

one being terrorism. There are people

55:06

who believe the ship was sabotaged,

55:08

maybe someone on board planted a bomb,

55:11

or maybe someone shot the ship down

55:14

from the ground. Perhaps

55:17

someone who is anti-German, anti-Nazi,

55:20

or maybe like an industrial

55:22

competitor.

55:23

Would a bullet into it cause

55:26

it to go on fire? I have to have some sort of incendiary

55:29

quality to it, so it would still need to spark

55:32

or ignite in some way. Well,

55:34

there are bullets that when they hit the thing

55:38

explode with things. Yeah. I'm

55:40

sure. I don't know if they existed in 1937. Yeah, I

55:42

don't know. But still. And if they did,

55:44

they didn't find any evidence of that whatsoever.

55:47

So a bullet hitting it basically

55:49

isn't enough to make it explode. It would

55:51

sort of start to deflate it from

55:53

a hole. And then once the hydrogen has been

55:56

released, it just needs a spark to

55:58

set it off. Yeah.

56:00

For a while, bend

56:02

over the acrobat. Yeah. He

56:04

was put forward as the proposed...

56:06

Why? ...corporate.

56:09

Look, his motive, totally

56:11

unclear, but he was investigated

56:14

really, really intensely because he

56:16

had the opportunity to plant

56:18

an explosive that no one else had. He

56:21

was the only passenger who was allowed to go down to the

56:23

luggage hold where he'd go to feed his

56:25

dog. His doggo. Yeah. And

56:28

he was a contortionist. from there, he'd been able

56:30

to like squeeze his way between

56:32

the gas bags to get towards the back of the

56:34

ship and set a time bomb. Seems

56:37

unlikely. Completely.

56:39

But they had to make sure that

56:41

they were turning over every single stone

56:43

to check.

56:46

There was no evidence whatsoever

56:48

that ever showed up indicating anything

56:50

had been tampered with or any

56:53

device had been planted anywhere.

56:56

Still, the terrorism theory was very popular,

56:59

particularly back in Germany, and it was very

57:01

enthusiastically backed by the captain of

57:04

the ship, Max Proust, which

57:06

makes perfect sense for him to back

57:09

that it was sabotaged because a lot of experts were

57:11

pointing their finger at him, blaming

57:14

him for some bad errors that he'd made

57:16

along the way that had caused the fire,

57:19

which brings us to the next theory that it was

57:21

the captain's fault. reviewed

57:24

the testimonies and all the footage

57:27

and they agreed it seemed like what had happened

57:29

was

57:30

Max Proust decided to land in

57:32

conditions that were still too windy because

57:35

he wanted to get back on schedule after

57:37

the big delay and do the return

57:40

flight on time. And

57:42

he made those sharp turns I

57:44

mentioned when he was landing. Those

57:46

sharp turns could have caused one of the bracing wires

57:49

that holds like the rib cage

57:52

structure together could have caused

57:54

one of them to snap

57:56

and flail about and in its flailing

57:58

it could have then punctured.

58:00

one of the gas bags towards the back of the ship.

58:03

And then once that hydrogen started leaking, as

58:05

I said, it only needs a spark. That

58:07

spark could come from a static charge,

58:10

or it could even be the spark of metal on metal

58:13

with that flailing wire. Yeah.

58:16

So that's become the most widely

58:19

accepted theory, that

58:21

he was sort of being a bit reckless,

58:24

And there are a lot of people

58:26

who worked for the Zeppelin company

58:28

who were very willing

58:30

to say, yes, we think this was the captain's

58:32

error. It makes sense that they would

58:34

throw him under the bus if

58:37

they were trying to cover up their own negligence.

58:39

Yeah.

58:39

So it's not the integrity

58:42

of the structure itself. That's

58:44

right. Yeah. And it was only just

58:46

in the last few years that there was an expert

58:48

who found evidence that

58:50

when the Zeppelin company were doing maintenance

58:53

on the Hindenburg, doing those upgrades

58:55

over the winter break, they

58:57

were surprised to find that there was a lot of

58:59

wear and tear on all of

59:02

the gas bags, which indicated

59:04

they'd been rubbing up against each

59:06

other more than they'd been expecting

59:08

on their trips.

59:10

Every episode of air crash investigations

59:13

ends up the same. It always

59:15

does, yep. Shoddy maintenance. It's

59:17

just stuff that they've ignored, ignored,

59:19

ignored, ignored, ignored, and then one day,

59:22

can't take it anymore. That's

59:25

right. They should have replaced the gas bags before

59:27

they started leaking. Instead, they just

59:29

taped over the areas where

59:32

the fabric was starting to

59:34

wear, relocking. Oh my God.

59:37

It's like the episode we did about the Challenger

59:39

disaster, and that just came down

59:41

to this little dodgy O-ring they had that

59:43

they hadn't... could

59:46

have just replaced it. It would have been so easy. Mm-hmm. That's

59:48

right. But they were

59:51

doing their best to turn this into a profitable business

59:53

because it had been so expensive to build

59:55

the Zeppelin. It was going to take a long time until

59:57

they could actually get in the black.

1:00:00

So

1:00:00

yeah, they weren't looking to invest extra

1:00:02

money that they hadn't planned for. He

1:00:05

also found evidence of other problems and other

1:00:07

knee misses that the company had covered

1:00:10

up pretty successfully over the years.

1:00:12

They had a history of trying to keep their mistakes

1:00:15

secret. And by

1:00:17

letting the captain take the blame for

1:00:20

their bad series of judgment

1:00:22

calls, they could protect

1:00:24

their own reputation and engineering

1:00:27

prowess, which ended up being completely

1:00:29

worth worthless

1:00:30

anyway because no one was

1:00:32

going to fly on an airship after

1:00:34

seeing footage of the Hindenburg

1:00:36

that was the end of an era.

1:00:38

That would have been the most horrific footage

1:00:41

people had ever seen, like ever seen in their lives.

1:00:44

And it was certainly not the first or the worst

1:00:48

airship accident that had happened.

1:00:50

There'd been dozens over the course

1:00:52

of

1:00:53

Zeppelin aviation, but

1:00:56

the other crashes happened away from public view,

1:00:58

off and out, over an ocean and most

1:01:01

importantly away from cameras.

1:01:02

Yeah, because this was in the very

1:01:05

early, early stages of things being,

1:01:07

you know, committed to film,

1:01:10

being put on film and therefore preserved

1:01:13

for posterity always.

1:01:16

And no one would have

1:01:18

ever seen something like that.

1:01:19

And now every country

1:01:21

in the world had this playing in

1:01:24

their theatres with the commentary

1:01:26

from Herb Morrison played

1:01:29

over the top of it. Every country I should say

1:01:31

except for Nazi Germany, they did

1:01:33

not show any of the footage until after

1:01:35

World War II was done. Within

1:01:38

a couple of years, the Nazis had made the

1:01:40

decision to decommission all their airships

1:01:44

and repurpose the metal to

1:01:46

make fighter planes instead.

1:01:49

And that

1:01:49

was it for the airships. We still

1:01:52

have things

1:01:54

like the Goodyear blimp. Obviously,

1:01:56

they have only ever been filled with helium

1:01:59

ever since the... Hindenburg

1:02:00

disaster and they're really

1:02:02

just used as a gimmick these

1:02:04

days, not for any practical purposes.

1:02:07

And

1:02:09

they're small. They are like

1:02:11

the size of a couple of buses. They're small.

1:02:13

They don't need to be this giant show

1:02:16

off prestige status

1:02:18

symbol. It's just a flying billboard. Exactly.

1:02:21

Yeah. And yeah, within a few years,

1:02:23

airplane engineering advanced in leaps

1:02:25

and bounds. And

1:02:27

that was far quicker than

1:02:30

the Hindenburg would ever have been. So

1:02:33

yeah, completely obsolete, but

1:02:35

a very interesting little chapter in history

1:02:38

there.

1:02:39

And that is just the gist

1:02:41

of it. That is so much more intense

1:02:43

than what I thought. Like

1:02:45

I really thought there was like 10 people on

1:02:47

it. I thought it was a lot smaller. I

1:02:50

thought

1:02:51

there was grainy

1:02:55

footage or even only photos if

1:02:57

that. I

1:03:00

had no idea. That's

1:03:02

nuts. Yeah. Obviously,

1:03:05

this is just a very distilled

1:03:08

version of the story and there are some

1:03:10

very good documentaries with some

1:03:12

good recreations as well, which

1:03:14

I'll put some links to.

1:03:16

Love a good reenactment. My favorite.

1:03:19

It's a pretty shocking accent

1:03:21

in a couple of them as well. They

1:03:23

put forward different theories as well.

1:03:25

What do you think it was? I think it definitely

1:03:27

was negligence. On the part

1:03:29

of the company. Yeah. Yeah.

1:03:32

It seems like it's just an incredibly precarious, fragile

1:03:35

thing to risk anyway.

1:03:37

And if you're not

1:03:40

really putting in the utmost

1:03:42

upkeep you can, how is it... it's

1:03:45

going to go wrong. And it sounds like

1:03:48

it was only a matter of time, like

1:03:50

it had almost gone wrong again and

1:03:52

again and again and again until it did.

1:03:54

They were having gas leaks, hydrogen

1:03:56

gas leaks all the time. Right.

1:03:59

covering them. up and they were just lucky that there

1:04:02

was never a spark that came

1:04:04

along and set a light until

1:04:06

this. They're hubris to not,

1:04:08

to risk it when there's been

1:04:11

leaks and stuff.

1:04:12

And it was because

1:04:15

the Zeppelin company themselves

1:04:17

that was operating these flights,

1:04:20

they'd never had a disaster. Every

1:04:23

other airship company around the world had

1:04:25

had some really, really terrible ones, but

1:04:28

they hadn't. So I think, yes, you're absolutely

1:04:30

right. It was hubris. It was arrogance. They

1:04:33

believe we're better at this than anyone else and

1:04:35

didn't acknowledge the fact that it was just luck

1:04:38

that

1:04:38

kept them in the game for so long.

1:04:39

Oh, absolutely luck

1:04:42

because they were laughing in the face

1:04:44

of luck.

1:04:45

Oh, man. You

1:04:48

definitely also need to see the footage from the four

1:04:50

different angles. Yes. All

1:04:53

right. I'll also put a link to a digital animated

1:04:55

tour if you want to wrap your head around Yes,

1:04:58

please. The dimensions a bit better and kind of understand

1:05:00

where is the cabin in relation to everything

1:05:02

else. There are a couple of websites

1:05:05

that have been set up, one called facesofthehindenburg.blogspot.com

1:05:10

that actually has a biography of every

1:05:12

single person who was on board

1:05:14

and a bunch of the ground crew as well.

1:05:15

And airships.net is

1:05:18

where you can find everything you

1:05:19

want to know about airships

1:05:22

as well. Awesome. If you want to poke around those

1:05:24

websites.

1:05:25

Yeah, and then the final thing I'll recommend...