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The Hindenburg
 The Hindenburg is the German airship that caught fire in May 1937 killing 36 of the 97 people on-board. Hydrogen was used to make the Hindenburg lighter than air. The disaster was largely blamed on hydrogen, but in fact had nothing to do with the incident.
Addison Bain, a retired NASA scientist with 30 years experience with hydrogen proved the Hindenburg would have caught fire even without hydrogen on board.
“Compounds like cellulose nitrate, which is gunpowder, and powdered aluminum which is a fuel used on the space shuttle were used in the building process for the outer cover”, says Addison. “On one side of the outer cover is aluminum powder and the other side is iron-oxide. When you combine powdered aluminum with iron-oxide you get thermite which produces 5000°C heat and is used to weld very thick plates of steel.” Both Addison Bain and the Board of Inquiry agree that it was static electricity that ignited the outer covering.
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