When the enormous German airship Hindenburg burst into flames on May 6, 1937, during a flight over New Jersey, it ignited in seconds before crashing to the ground in front of horrified onlookers. Now, footage that captured the early moments of the disaster, which will be aired on television for the first time, could offer new clues as to what sparked the blaze.
On the day of the accident, news photographers were already filming the Hindenburg at the Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey. When they realized the airship was burning, they rushed to record images of the rapidly spreading blaze, and the best-known footage and photos of the disaster all show it from a similar angle.
However, an amateur photographer named Howard Schenck was also at the scene with a Kodak 8-millimeter consumer film camera — but he was at a different spot on the field. Schenck realized that the Hindenburg was on fire and began filming earlier than the newsreel photographers, and his wide-angle lens and side view of the airship captured the Hindenburg's entire length as it burned, offering a perspective that was missing in the news cameras' coverage.
