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GuyWithOpinions [@jshm] The water you see from the Hindenburg was ballast being discharged as the crew fought to control it for some time before the fire broke out.
The usual clip we see is only of the worst of the fire but in fact it was filmed before that. As it approached, it was clearly in distress for the last mile or so, pitching violently, and discharging a lot of water from the ballast tanks. Then the fire broke out, first on the starboard flank aft.
The pitching might have been due to a major hydrogen leak destroying controllable bouyancy, before something ignited the released gas.
The watwer produced by the hydrogen burning would have been as vapour mixed with all the smoke and dispersed in the air.
I'd think most of the deaths were from the burning wreck falling on top of the passenger accommodation and crew spaces, mainly in the bottom of the hull. A very few survived by jumping out as the airship sank to the ground.
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Smoking was allowed on those airships, but only in a saloon below the main hull. Any hydrogen seeping from the rubberised-canvas gas-bags would have floated to the top of the hull. I don't know if they had vents to ensure leaked gas normally escaped safely.
The Germans used open-gondola Zeppelins in WW1 as crude bombers over London, and at least one was literally shot down in flames; but I think the Hindenburg was the only civilian airship to catch fire
in the air.
The British version, the R101, caught fire in Northern France on its maiden flight, but only having crashed into a hill. It was poorly-specified and its construction rushed for political reasons, so was unsafe and clumsy in the air generally, and it crossed the English Channel late at night. However, with everyone on board killed and the wreck consumed by fire, I don't think anyone ever determined why it was flying far too low.
Its fully-commercial competitor, the R100, flew several safe trans-Atlantic flights but the two disasters deterred passengers so much that it failed commercially, was withdrawn and broken up.
