[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 138 (Tuesday, October 6, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11631-S11633]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       THE TRUE STORY OF HYDROGEN AND THE ``HINDENBURG'' DISASTER

 Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, for many years I have spoken of the 
promise of hydrogen energy as our best hope for an environmentally safe 
sustainable energy future. My vision, and the vision of many of our top 
scientists is simple. Hydrogen, which is produced by renewable energy 
with absolutely no pollution and no resource depletion of any kind, 
will prove a truly sustainable energy option.
  I recognize that hydrogen is not yet a form of energy widely known to 
the American public. In fact, hydrogen has an unfortunate association. 
I would like to spend a few minutes dispelling one unfortunate myth of 
hydrogen energy.
  Mr. President, mention the word ``hydrogen'' and many people remember 
the Hindenburg--the dirigible that caught fire back in May of 1937, 
killing 36 of the 97 people on board. Now, thanks to the scientific 
sleuthing of Addison Bain, a retired NASA scientist with 30 years 
experience with hydrogen, we can state with a fair degree of certainty 
that the Hindenburg would have caught fire even without any hydrogen on 
board.
  This detective story was reported in a recent issue of Popular 
Science. I ask that the Popular Science article be printed in the 
Congressional Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
  Addison Bain collected actual samples from the Hindenburg--the cloth 
bags that contained the hydrogen--which were saved as souvenirs by the 
crowd awaiting the Hindenburg at Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 6, 1937. 
When these samples were analyzed by modern techniques, Bain discovered

[[Page S11632]]

that the bags had been coated with cellulose nitrate or cellulose 
acetate--both flammable materials. Furthermore, the cellulose material 
was impregnated with aluminum flakes to reflect sunlight, and aluminum 
powder is used in rocket fuel. Essentially the outside of the 
Hindenburg was coated with rocket fuel!
  Addison now believes that the Hindenburg probably caught fire from an 
electrical discharge igniting the cellulose-coated gas bags. Remember, 
the ship docked at Lakehurst with electrical storms in the area, which 
was against regulations.
  I would like to personally thank Addison Bain for his valuable 
contribution to the history of the Hindenburg, and to lessening the 
public's concerns over the safety of hydrogen. Hydrogen, in my 
judgment, will become a premier fuel in the 21st century, since burning 
hydrogen produces no pollution of any kind, just pure, clean water. And 
hydrogen can be produced by using sunlight or wind electricity to split 
water.
  Hydrogen energy has been used safely in the Nation's space program 
for many decades, and I believe it can be used safely for many other 
applications here on Earth. For example, hydrogen could be a safe 
alternative fuel for cars. It would be much less dangerous than 
gasoline in an accident. Hydrogen gas disperses rapidly, while gasoline 
lingers in the vicinity of the accident, increasing the risks to 
survivors of the crash. I believe there are also countless other uses 
for hydrogen. We can pursue those options without fear because of 
Addison Bain's efforts. Thanks to Addison Bain, we can continue down 
the path toward a renewable hydrogen future without the undue fear of a 
singular event from 60 years ago.
  The article follows:

                   What Really Downed the Hindenburg

                       (By Mariette DiChristina)

       May 6, 1937. The sky still appears moody after a stormy 
     day. A stately, silvery marvel, the 240-ton Hindenburg 
     airship glides 200 feet above Lakehurst, New Jersey, at 
     around 7:21 p.m. In a 6-knot wind, the Zeppelin is attempting 
     its first ``high landing'': The crew throws the spider lines 
     out, preparing for mooring. The gigantic ship, nearly three 
     football fields in length, would be slowly winched down.
       If you think you know exactly what happened next, Adison 
     Bain has a surprise for you. Six decades after the infamous 
     Hindenburg disaster, when 36 of 97 aboard died during the 
     horrific blaze that halted rigid-airship travel, Bain has 
     revealed a stunning new explanation for what started the 
     fire. Bain, a recently retired engineer and manager of 
     hydrogen programs who spent more than 30 years at NASA, has 
     recently concluded several years of scientific sleuthing work 
     in search of the culprit behind the conflagration. He combed 
     through thousands of pages of original testimony and 
     materials at four archives in the United States and one in 
     Germany, interviewed survivors and airship experts, and 
     ultimately tested original materials from the model LZ-129 
     Hindenburg and its contemporaries. Contrary to what the 
     investigators ruled at the time, asserts Bain, the fire did 
     not start with free hydrogen lit by natural electrical 
     discharge or sabotage.
       The hunt for the truth about the Hindenburg began in the 
     late 1960s for Bain, a genial man with slicked-backed dark 
     hair and a face lined by many smiles. He was working on a 
     hydrogen safety manual for NASA. Sitting in a ``Florida 
     room'' of mint and mauve tiled floors and furniture in a 
     Cocoa Beach apartment, Bain recalls how he paged through the 
     literature on hydrogen. ``Invariably,'' he says, ``the topic 
     of the Hindenburg would come up. At the time, I didn't think 
     a lot about it.''
       Over the years, however, as he continued his NASA work in 
     hydrogen systems, the reference began to accumulate in his 
     mind. ``What I was starting to notice is that the authors 
     were inconsistent,'' he says. Hydrogen detractors said the 
     gas was so flammable it killed everyone on the Hindenburg, 
     which wasn't true--about one-third of those aboard had died. 
     On the other hand, hydrogen promoters pooh-poohed safety 
     concerns and claimed that those who perished did so only 
     because they jumped from the burning airship, which also 
     wasn't true. Says Bain: ``I thought, wait a minute! Where are 
     they getting their information?'' He has also seen the famous 
     photos of the Hindenburg's bright, blistering hot fire and 
     knew that hydrogen doesn't burn in that way. A hydrogen fire 
     radiates little heat and is barely visible to the unaided 
     eye.
       By 1990, Bain pulled a one-year assignment in Washington, 
     D.C., at NASA headquarters, then across the street from the 
     National Air & Space Museum. ``I like airplanes, so I went 
     over there. Lo and behold, there's this 25-foot-long model of 
     the Hindenburg used in the 1975 movie with George C. Scott,'' 
     he recalls. ``I'm looking at that model and a plaque on the 
     wall. The plaque says something about how the hydrogen 
     exploded,'' As a hydrogen expert, he knew that the pure gas 
     doesn't just explode. That was enough: He made an appointment 
     with the archivists upstairs, dooned a pair of protective 
     gloves, and lost himself in decades-old original documents in 
     the museum's Hindenburg files for the rest of the day.
       His research soon became something of a part-time 
     obsession. Over the next few years. Bain would steal away to 
     the archive and travel to others in College Park and 
     Suitland, Maryland, poring through thousands of pages and 
     copying documents in search of answers. He even traveled to 
     the Fires Sciences Lab in Missoula, Montana. He speculated 
     that, perhaps, some of the airship's materials had played a 
     role in the ignition. Maddeningly, however, he couldn't find 
     the exact formulations used. ``I had the idea of the problem, 
     but needed enough evidence to back my story up,'' he says.
       That was as far as he got until 1994, when he ran into 
     Richard van Treuren, a space shuttle technician, at a 
     conference on hydrogen. Van Treuren, a self-avowed ``helium 
     head'' and member of the airship aficionados called the 
     Lighter-Than-Air Society in Akron, Ohio, was seeking Bain to 
     talk about hydrogen. Van Treuren had a book about airships. 
     Bain spotted the book in the crook of van Treuren's arm and 
     bought it from him on the spot.
       ``The rain still spatters the wet ground in starts and 
     stops. The air is highly charged from the thunderstorms, 
     investigators would rule later. Six and three-quarter acres 
     of Hindenburg fabrics is kiting in the breeze. A witness 
     later would recall a bluish electrical phenomenon that dances 
     over the aft starboard side of the Hindenburg for more than a 
     minute.''
       Through van Treuren, Bain learned that pieces of the 
     Hindenburg's skin still existed. Bain traveled around the 
     country to procure them, spending hundreds of dollars buying 
     original materials, books, and papers from collectors. ``What 
     I was trying to find out is, what did they use specifically 
     in the coating?'' he says.
       Hepburn Walker, who had been stationed in Lakehurst in the 
     early `40s, was among those in possession of pieces of the 
     Hindenburg, Walker had found them in the soil. Another 
     sample, a part of the swastika painted on the Hindenburg's 
     side, was kept in a safe by Cheryl Gantz, head of the 
     Zeppelin Collectors Club in Chicago.
       Bain remembers meeting Gantz. ``May I have a little 
     clipping, just anything to take to the lab?'' he begged. 
     Gantz was willing, but wanted to impress upon Bain the 
     fabric's value to her: ``How much do you value your 
     firstborn?'' she asked. Bain laughs: ``I got the message!'' 
     Bain also located fabric samples in Germany that were 
     representative of the top of the Hindenburg, where the fire 
     started.
       Materials in hand, Bain headed to NASA's Materials Science 
     Laboratory at the nearby Kennedy Space Center. Over the next 
     14 months, he carefully laid out a systematic testing 
     protocol involving some 14 researchers who would volunteer 
     their spare time to assist in what became known as Project H.
       ``A jagged fire licks along the aft starboard side of the 
     Hindenburg, another witness later recalls. Crewman Helmut 
     Lau, on the lower left of the craft, looks up through the 
     translucent gas cells and sees a red glow. In moments, cells 
     begin to melt before his eyes. The fire crests the top of the 
     Hindenburg and spreads outward and downward, toward lau and 
     the others. Girders start cracking and wires snap. With 
     hydrogen still in the cells, the giant airship maintains 
     level trim.''
       What was in that fabric? Work to create a chemical and 
     physical analysis included using an infrared stectrograph and 
     a scanning electron microscope, which provided, respectively, 
     the chemical signatures of the organic compounds and elements 
     present.
       A startling variety of highly flammable compounds proved to 
     have been added to the cotton fabric base. ``They used a 
     cellulose acetate or nitrate as a typical doping compound, 
     which is flammable to begin with--a forest fire is cellulose 
     fire,'' says Bain. ``OK, you coat that with cellulose 
     nitrate--nitrate is used to make gunpowder. And then you put 
     [on] aluminum powder. Now, aluminum powder is a fuel used on 
     the solid rocket boosters on the space shuttle.'' The wood 
     spacers and ramie cord used to bind the structure together, 
     along with the silk and other fabrics in the ship, would also 
     have added to the fuel-rich inferno. Even the duralumin 
     support framework of the Hindenburg's, rigid skeleton was 
     coated with lacquer, ostensibly to protect it from moisture.
       In a flame test, a fabric section ignited and burned 
     readily. The arc test, in which 30,000 volts were zapped 
     across a piece of fabric several inches long, was even more 
     revealing: ``Poof, it disappeared. The whole thing happened 
     faster than I can explain it,'' Bain says. ``I guess the 
     moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket 
     fuel.''
       Bain is quick to point out, however, that it's not that the 
     Germans and other airship and aircraft makers of the era were 
     simply foolish in doping the fabric the way they did. They 
     had a number of technical problems to solve using the 
     materials of the time. Today's synthetic fabrics, with their 
     range of properties, did not yet exist. The cotton or linen 
     fabric skin was swabbed with the chemicals to make it taut 
     and reduce flutter for aerodynamics, and then painted with 
     the reflective red iron oxide and aluminum so the sun's heat 
     wouldn't expand the gas in the cells, to help prevent gas 
     from escaping. The skin had to be protected from 
     deterioration from sunlight and rot from moisture. When 
     engineers changed one part of the formulation to address 
     flammability concerns, the

[[Page S11633]]

     mixture might not have adhered well or other problems would 
     crop up.
       ``And I'm not saying hydrogen didn't contribute to the 
     fire,'' adds Bain. It is after all a fuel, he notes--and one 
     he is hoping will develop into a replacement or supplement to 
     natural gas. ``But it was a fuel-rich fire already; the 
     hydrogen just added to it.'' Bain figures that maybe half of 
     the 5 million cubic feet of hydrogen remaining aboard the 
     Hindenburg after the Atlantic crossing burned in the fire. 
     ``But so what? It's academic.''
       Also made academic, perhaps, are decades of speculation 
     over the causes behind the start of the Zeppelin fire. All 
     have blamed hydrogen, with various ideas about how the gas 
     became free and ignited. One popular theory has it that a 
     wire punctured a gas cell. Bain, obviously, finds this 
     doubtful. ``If that happened, it should have occurred 
     during one of the final maneuvers.'' But, ``The ship was 
     stationary for 4 minutes before the first fire was 
     indicated.'' If cells were leaking gas that long, ``The 
     ship should really start going like this,'' Bain says as 
     he tilts a handheld Hindenburg model nose upward. ``And 
     it's not. [At the start of the fire,] it's still in 
     trim.''
       What about the possibility of loose hydrogen from the 
     vents? Hydrogen was released to help maintain level flight, 
     and others have theorized that a valve may have stuck open. 
     ``The Hindenberg had an excellent venting system'' says Bain, 
     with vents between cells that measured some 2 feet high and 7 
     feet across. If hydrogen accumulated--difficult to imagine 
     for the lightest element, which has the greatest dispersal 
     rate in the universe--how come, he asks, none of the fires 
     were observed at the vent sites atop the ship?
       ``In seconds, the rear half of the Hindenburg is engulfed 
     in bright, writhing flames. Gas cells one and two expand and 
     burst with explosive force; the released hydrogen adds fuel 
     to the conflagration. The ship lurches forward, breaking off 
     water tanks attached by light-release connectors near the bow 
     of the craft. Having lost ballast, the airship's nose heads 
     upward and people start jumping to escape the flames, some 
     too far from the ground to survive the fall.''
       What is perhaps most stunning about Bain's research is that 
     what he has discovered comes 60 years after some German 
     airship experts already knew it. While visiting an archive in 
     Germany, he copied two 1937 letters handwritten in German 
     that had not been seen by earlier investigators. Their 
     shocking contents were revealed to Bain only after he 
     returned to Florida and had them translated. They were 
     written by an electrical engineer named Otto Beyerstock, who 
     had incinerated pieces of Hindenburg fabric during electrical 
     tests conducted at the behest of the Zeppelin Co. In the 
     notes, Beyerstock testily dismissed the idea that hydrogen 
     could have started the fire, stating with certitude that it 
     could only have been caused by the fabric's flammability in a 
     charged atmosphere. In a similar craft flying under the same 
     atmospheric conditions that the Hindenburg faced in 
     Lakehurst, the same sort of conflagration would occur, even 
     if noncombustible helium were used as the lifting gas. (In 
     fact, notes Bain, such a fire did take place in 1935, when a 
     helium-filled airship with an acetate-aluminum skin burned 
     near Point Sur, California.)
       ``I beg you to kindly inform me about the corrective 
     measures to be taken or that have already been taken,'' 
     Beyerstock wrote to Zeppelin. Some modifications were made in 
     a subsequent airship plan, such as the addition of a fire 
     retardant. ``They knew,'' Bain says simply. But shortly after 
     the Hindenburg disaster, and probably because of it, the 
     great Zeppelins were removed from service.
       Some detractors are still not ready to put aside the idea 
     of hydrogen as fire-starter. ``Addison Bain's hydrogen 
     background carries some weight,'' says Eric Brothers, the 
     editor of Buoyant Flight, the Lighter-Than-Air Society's 
     bulletin, but not everyone at the society is convinced. The 
     bulletin this year ran three articles detailing the skin-
     ignition research, coauthored by van Treuren and Bain. As for 
     Brothers: ``I would like to see more independent verification 
     of the tests, though I recognize that that's difficult to 
     do,'' he says. Still, ``I'm 90 percent convinced that the 
     fabric had some role.''
       One of the Buoyant Flight articles' most stringent critics 
     is Donald E. Overs, a retired engineer and pilot who worked 
     on Goodyear blimp construction and engineering for more than 
     20 years. ``Based on the authors' cover burn rate tests, it 
     would have taken anywhere from 15 minutes to probably an hour 
     or more for the cover alone to burn off. The entire ship, on 
     the other hand, was consumed in less than 60 seconds,'' he 
     says. Overs' detailed e-mail challenges to Bain's theory--and 
     the various defenses supporters--would occupy some 50 printed 
     pages. ``Bain can at most demonstrate or argue that the cover 
     was a brief link in the early ignition of the hydrogen, but 
     he cannot prove even that,'' concludes Overs.
       ``Like the mythical Icarus who ventured too close to the 
     sun, the Hindenburg goes down in flames. As it touches the 
     ground, the ship bounces lightly, perhaps still buoyant with 
     remaining hydrogen.''
       None of what Bain has learned has diminished his admiration 
     for the engineering achievement in creating the great 
     airships. ``With all due respect,'' he says, ``the Germans 
     did a fantastic job. I admire their technology.
       ``It was just an unfortunate little flaw, just like the 
     flaw on the Titanic and the flaw in the Challenger,'' he 
     says, referring to the ``unsinkable'' ship's sulfurous, 
     brittle steel and the space shuttle's O-ring--both of which 
     failed under the prevailing weather conditions. ``You never 
     know what Mother Nature is going to do to you.''

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