How St Elmo’s Fire brought down the Hindenburg

IT WAS a disaster that brought an end to the age of airship travel.

But new research has revealed that the cause of the blaze on the Hindenburg in 1937 may have been down to St Elmo’s Fire.

The tragedy claimed 36 lives as the German airship caught alight in May 1937 in New Jersey as it prepared to dock. It was generally thought that static electricity sparked the inferno, and the remarkable photographs of the explosion (right) destroyed public confidence in the airship as a means of transport.

But scientists now believe St Elmo’s Fire, a phenomenon where a luminous electrical discharge resembling flames is seen on ships’ masts during storms, was capable of triggering the explosion.

Mark Heald, a retired physics professor, was eight when he and his family watched the Hindenburg crash from 35 miles away in Princeton. He says he saw a blue flame running across the top of the airship for a minute.

In a Channel 4 documentary, What Destroyed the Hindenburg? on Thursday, scientists will claim that St Elmo’s Fire ignited a hydrogen leak.