The Hindenburg left Frankfurt, Germany on May 3, 1937, for a scheduled voyage across the Atlantic to Lakehurst’s Naval Air Base carrying 36 passengers and 61 crew members. On May 6, at 7.25 p.m local time, the Hindenburg was engulfed in flames and was utterly destroyed while landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Of the 97 persons on board, 35 people fatefully lost their lives. The crash resulted in 35 fatalities on the airship and one ground crew member, but 62 of the total passengers and crew pulled through.

Having operated passenger travel on commercial zeppelins for more than 30 years in which tens of thousands of passengers flew over a million miles, on more than 2,000 flights, without a single injury, the Hindenburg crash brought an end to the age of the rigid passenger airship, together with its perks of speed and luxury.