The most terrible tragedies of the 20th century. Tragedies of the 20th century (143 photos) Terrible tragedies of the 20th century

On April 26, the world remembers one of the largest man-made disasters of the 20th century - the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. FBA "Economy Today" has prepared a review of the most famous disasters of the last century.

Why do disasters happen? Most often, this is an absurd coincidence of a series of events and the notorious human factor.

Halifax

December 6, 1917. 3,000 tons of explosives in the hold of the French military transport Mont Blanc, which entered the Canadian port of Halifax, became the cause of the most powerful man-made disaster of the early 20th century. The explosion exposed the bottom of the bay, and parts of the ship were scattered within a radius of 20 kilometers. More than 3,000 people were killed, 2,000 were missing, and about 9,000 were injured. The city was engulfed in fires and covered in rubble. The next day frosts hit here, a storm began, and a day later a storm hit Halifax. The cause of the accident was a human factor: the captain of a ship carrying dangerous cargo made a mistake during maneuvering and collided with another ship.

"Lighthouse"

September 29, 1957. The closed city of Chelyabinsk-40 (now Ozersk). A powerful explosion at the Mayak plant, which produced weapons-grade plutonium. Due to the failure of the cooling system, about 20 million curies of radioactive substances were released into the atmosphere (for comparison: during the Chernobyl accident - 50 million curies). A cloud of radioactive substances covered an area of ​​23,000 km² with a population of 270,000 people in 217 settlements in three regions: Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk and Tyumen. The victims of this accident were about 160 thousand people who received a large dose of radiation. The reason is errors in the operation of the waste storage facility.

Bhopal Union Carbide Chemical Plant

December 3, 1984. An accident at a large chemical plant producing pest control products in the Indian city of Bhopal. In one hour, more than 500,000 people were poisoned as a result of the deadly gas leak. About 4,000 people died on the day of the accident, 8,000 within two weeks. The grass in the area turned yellow, leaves fell from trees, and animals died en masse. More than 16,000 local residents later died. Thousands have lost their sight. The accident was called chemical Hiroshima. The consequences of the disaster are still felt today. The exact cause of the accident has not been established. However, there is an assumption that this was due to a gross violation of safety regulations and deliberate sabotage of the enterprise.

Chernobyl

April 26, 1986. Explosion at the fourth reactor. More than one hundred tons of burning uranium were released into the atmosphere. More than 135 thousand people were evacuated from a 30-kilometer zone around the station. Thousands of people were involved in eliminating the consequences of the accident. The level of radiation was such that the robots putting out the fire had microcircuit failures! Many liquidators died within a few days. The radioactive cloud covered not only many areas of the USSR, but also spread over a number of European countries. Work to eliminate the consequences of this accident has not been completed even 30 years after the tragedy. The cause of the accident is the human factor. The cost of the disaster is $200 billion.

Piper Alpha

July 6, 1988. Explosion on the Piper Alpha oil platform. The accident killed 167 personnel and 226 workers. Only 59 managed to survive in this hell. The explosion was caused by a gas leak, and the ill-conceived and indecisive actions of the personnel only worsened the situation. The Piper Alpha platform's pipelines were connected to a common network with other platforms that continued to operate and pump oil and gas. And this work was not stopped for a very long time, which only fueled the fire. The cost of the accident is $3.4 billion.

Chemical plant AZF (Toulouse, France)

September 21, 2001. 300 tons of ammonium nitrate, located in a finished goods warehouse, exploded. This resulted in the death of 30 people and the injury of 3.5 thousand. Thousands of residential buildings and more than 300 educational institutions were also destroyed and damaged. 40 thousand people were left homeless. The reason is non-compliance with safety rules for storing explosive substances. Price: 3 billion euros.

NPP "Fukushima-1"

March 11, 2011. A powerful earthquake in Japan (the tremors reached a magnitude of 9) triggered a huge tsunami wave that splashed onto the northeast coast and damaged 4 of the 6 reactors of the nuclear power plant. Then the cooling system was disabled and several explosions occurred. Iodine-131 and cesium-137 were released into the air. Their amount amounted to 20% of emissions after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It will take about 40 years to eliminate the accident. The cost of the disaster is $74 billion.

You cannot live in the past, dream about the future, you need to appreciate the present, enjoy every day you live. The horrors that befell humanity in the twentieth century cannot be forgotten. You will find the most tragic events and shocking lessons of fate in our review.

Disasters on the water

The death of thousands of people on the waters is caused by various reasons: human factor, design errors, military actions, natural disasters. Let's look at the largest tragedies in terms of the number of victims that occurred on the water in the last century:

1. "Goya". The warship, confiscated by the Germans after they occupied Norwegian territories during the Great Patriotic War, killed 7,000 people. On April 16, 1945, a torpedo was fired at the powerful ship from a Russian submarine, causing the Goya to sink in the Baltic Sea.

2. "Wilhelm Gustloff." The German ship is named after the Nazi party leader. At the time of construction it was considered the largest ship in the world. Before the war it was used as a means of recreation. The ship sank on January 30, 1945. The reason is an attack by the Soviet military from a submarine. The exact composition of the passengers is unknown, but according to the official version, 5,348 people died. There were women and children on board.

3. "Mont Blanc". On December 6, 1917, a French warship exploded in a Canadian harbor and collided with the Imo (Norway). As a result of the fire, few managed to survive. Mortality is 2,000 people (1,950 people identified), and the cause is a banal human factor. Not counting the pre-nuclear era, this explosion was the most powerful in the history of mankind. You can watch a film about the terrible tragedy made in Canada in 2003 - “Destructive City”.

4. "Bismarck". The German battleship was sunk by British aircraft on June 12, 1944 during the war. The number of victims was 1,995 people.

At the time of commissioning, the ship was considered the largest on earth. The giant ship sank on its first voyage on April 15, 1912, colliding with an iceberg.

Horror and death in the air

In the mid-twentieth century, air travel became widespread. The active development of passenger aviation has led to an excess of deaths in the sky compared to “water” mortality. Here is a list of “bright” tragedies that claimed the lives of many innocent people:

1. Clash in Tenerife. The disaster occurred on March 27, 1977. Event location: Canary Islands (Tenerife). The fatal “meeting” of two airliners caused the death of 583 people. 61 people managed to escape the tragedy. For the period of the twentieth century, this plane crash is the largest in terms of the number of civil aviation events.

2. Disaster near Tokyo. On August 12, 1985, a Japanese airliner lost control 12 minutes after takeoff, losing its vertical stabilizer. For 32 minutes, the crew fought to save the plane in the air, but a collision with Mount Otsutaka influenced the devastating outcome of events. 520 people died, and only 4 survived. The disaster is called the largest in the history of “one plane.”

3. Charkhi Dadri (city in India). The plane crash occurred as a result of a collision between the flagship and Kazakh airliners at an altitude of 4,109 meters. All passengers were killed, including the crew of both planes (349 people in total).

4. Air crash near Paris. On March 3, 1974, a wide-body airliner built by a Turkish company killed 346 people. A few minutes after takeoff, the cargo bay door suddenly opened.

Explosive compression destroyed all control systems. The plane was picketing and crashed into the forest. The investigation indicated that the locking mechanism in the compartment was imperfect. Afterwards, many airlines made changes to aircraft designs to avoid catastrophic recurrences.

5. Terrorist attack near Cork. On its way to London, India's flagship carrier was the victim of a brutal terrorist attack. Just a few minutes before arrival, an explosion occurred on board the plane and everyone on board died (329 people). This is the largest terrorist attack in Canadian history.

Tragedies on earth

Some tragedies that happened in the last century on earth still cause concern and fear, continuing to destroy the health and lives of ordinary residents, namely:

1. Bhopal disaster. The man-made tragedy is the largest in history. An accident occurred at a chemical plant in India (1984). 18,000 people died. 3,000 of the dead were victims of instant death, while the rest died in the months and years following the tragedy. The cause of the terrible event could not be determined.

2. Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. On April 26, 1986, a major deadly accident occurred, an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (Ukraine). The release of a huge amount of radioactive substances into the air caused the death of hundreds of people, not immediately, but gradually.

3. Piper Alpha. At the oil station in 1988, 167 people (staff members) died, 59 people were lucky, they managed to survive. This disaster is the largest in the oil industry.

In addition to man-made tragedies, many other shocking events occurred in the 20th century - a warrior whose total number of millions of victims can no longer be counted: World War I (1914-1818), Civil War in Russia (1917-1923), World War II (1939 -1945), Korean War (1950-1053).

Natural disasters

1. Cyclone Bhola. The disaster occurred in 1970. The tropical storm swept across several territories of Pakistan and Bengal, wiping out cities and small villages. Researchers were unable to find out the exact number of deceased citizens (approximately 5,000,000 people).

2. Valdivian earthquake (1960 - Chile). The resulting tsunami did not protect many innocent residents. The number of victims reached several thousand people. In addition to death, the natural phenomenon caused significant damage to the affected areas (cost estimate: $500 million).

3. Megatsunami in Alaska (1958). Earthquake, landslides, collapse of rocks and ice into the water, the world's highest tsunami. The disaster totals 5,000,000 casualties.

If you ask the average person about any significant and important maritime disasters, with a 99% probability they will only name you the Titanic. Yes, it was a terrible crash. But in history there have been much larger and more tragic disasters. In this article we will talk about only a few of them.

This terrible story began on November 25, 1917, when the Mont Blanc docked at the port of New York to load. They loaded it with liquid and dry picric acid - 2300 tons; TNT - 200 tons, pyroxylin - 10 tons, benzene in barrels - 35 tons. The ship was heading to Bordeaux, and the intermediate point on the route was the Canadian city of Halifax. At about 7 o'clock in the morning on December 6, 1917, the Mont Blanc began to enter the port. At the same time, the Norwegian steamer Imo began to leave the port. As the ships approached, both captains began to make risky maneuvers, and as a result, the Imo rammed the Mont Blanc to starboard. A fire started on the ship, leading to an explosion, as a result of which the port and a significant part of the city were completely destroyed. About 2,000 people died under the rubble of buildings and due to fires that broke out after the explosion. Approximately 9,000 people were injured and 400 lost their sight. The explosion of the Mont Blanc ship is considered the most powerful explosion of the pre-nuclear era.

In the fall of 1943, after Italy's withdrawal from the war and the Allies' unsuccessful Dodecanese Operation, the Germans transported tens of thousands of Italian prisoners of war by sea to mainland Greece. Oria was one of the ships used to transport Italian prisoners of war. On February 11, 1944, the ship left Rhodes, bound for Piraeus, carrying 4,046 Italian prisoners of war (161 officers and 3,885 soldiers) and 90 Germans. The next day, due to a storm, the steamer changed course and hit the rocks off the island of Patroklos at Cape Sounion, Attica and sank. The ships, which managed to approach the crash site only the next day, managed to save 21 Italians, 6 Germans and 1 Greek. All the rest, 4074 people, died.

The Doña Paz passenger ferry operated twice a week on the Manila-Catbalogan-Tacloban route and back. On December 20, 1987, at about 10:30 p.m., when most of the passengers were asleep, the Doña Paz collided with the tanker Vector, which was sailing from Bataan to Masbate. The Vector contained 8,800 barrels of gasoline and other petroleum products. During the collision, they all spilled out of the tanker and caught fire. Survivors reported hearing a bang and an explosion that caused panic on the ferry. Trying to escape, people were forced to jump overboard the ferry, where spilled fuel was burning on the surface of the water. The Dona Paz sank two hours after the collision, the Vector tanker four hours later. Both ships sank in the Tablas Strait, which was full of sharks. The crew of the tanker Vector consisted of 13 people; the ferry Dona Paz had 58 crew members and 4,341 passengers. After the disaster, only 26 people were pulled out of the water alive. The final number of victims of the tragedy was 4,386 people.

On the evening of November 26, 1949, the Chinese cargo and passenger steamship Taiping left Shanghai and headed for the Taiwanese port of Kowloon. The ship was overcrowded with refugees who were rushing to the island of Taiwan to escape the advance of the People's Liberation Army of China. At night the weather worsened and it began to rain heavily. Around midnight, near the Zhoushan Islands, in poor visibility conditions, the Taiping collided with the cargo ship Jin Yuan, which was carrying coal. Both ships sank quickly: the Jin Yuan almost instantly, the Taiping after 15-20 minutes. The Australian destroyer Warramunga, which was nearby, rushed to help, but was able to lift only 36 people from the water. How many people actually died is unknown, since no one actually counted the refugees taken on board. Various sources indicate figures from 1000 to 1600 people, despite the fact that the ship was designed for only 580 people.

The ten-deck passenger cruise liner Wilhelm Gustloff, like many other ships, was involved in Operation Hannibal in 1944-1945. As part of this operation, almost 2 million people were transported from East Prussia by sea. All of them were refugees who feared the approaching Red Army. On its last voyage, the Wilhelm Gustloff began taking refugees on board on January 22, 1945. The ship, designed for 1,500 passengers, was literally packed with people. According to modern estimates, there were at least 10,500 people on board. At about nine o'clock, the Soviet submarine S-13 entered from the shore, where it was least expected, and, from the surface position, from a distance of less than 1000 m at 21:04, fired the first torpedo with the inscription “For the Motherland”, and then two more - “For the Soviet people” and “For Leningrad.” The Wilhelm Gustloff sank completely about an hour after the attack. The rescue ships that arrived at the scene of the tragedy managed to save approximately a thousand people.

The Kiangya was carrying refugees fleeing the Chinese civil war. There were supposed to be about 2,000 officially registered passengers on board. However, according to eyewitnesses, in reality there were much more of them. The ship was moving slowly and heavily overloaded. Not far from Shanghai, the Kiangya hit a sea mine and received a serious hole. The large number of victims of this tragedy is explained by the fact that for several hours the ships nearby simply did not know about the disaster. When they approached to rescue the survivors, between 700 and 1000 people were rescued from the water. According to various sources, the number of deaths in the Kiangya crash ranged from 2,700 to 3,900 people.

Aerospace disasters

• September 9, 1913 - The German Zeppelin L-1 crashed near the island of Heligoland. Most of the crew drowned.
• December 4, 1933 - the American airship Akron fell into the water and collapsed. This is the worst airship disaster, in which 73 people died.
• January 30, 1934 - the OSOAVIAKHIM-1 stratospheric balloon, which set a world altitude record of 22 km, suffered an accident. The crew of three died.
• May 18, 1935 - an eight-engine propaganda aircraft "Maxim Gorky" (ANT-20) collided with an escort aircraft. 80 passengers and 8 crew members were killed.
• May 3, 1953 - During a strong storm, the world's first jet airliner, Comet-1 G-ALYV, crashed. The crash site is Kolkata, India. 43 people died.
• March 16, 1969 - A DC-9 plane crashed after takeoff from Maracaibo, Venezuela. 155 people died.
• June 30, 1971 - depressurization of the Soyuz-11 station upon return to Earth. Three Soviet cosmonauts burned to death: Volkov, Dobrovolsky and Patsayev.
• March 3, 1974 - a Turkish DC-10 crashed near Paris due to depressurization of the cargo compartment. 346 people died.
• August 3, 1976 - A Boeing 707 crashed into a mountainside near Agadir, Morocco. 188 people died.
• March 27, 1977 - two Boeing 727s collided on the runway at Tenerife Airport in the Canaries. The number of victims is 582.
• May 25, 1979 - DC-10 crashed after takeoff at O'Hare International Airport, Chicago, USA. 275 dead.
• August 19, 1980 - A Saudi Arabian Airlines Tristar plane burned down after an emergency landing in Riyadh. 301 people died.
• August 12, 1985 - A Japanese Boeing 747 crashed into Mount Ogura, Japan. 520 dead.
• January 28, 1986 - The space shuttle Challenger exploded immediately after takeoff from Cape Canaveral, USA. 7 astronauts burned to death in a matter of seconds.
• July 11, 1991 - A Nigerian DC-8 crashed while landing in Jeddah. 261 victims.
• November 12, 1996 - after takeoff from Delhi airport (India), a Boeing 747 of Saudi Airlines collided with an Il-76 of Kazakh Airlines, which was landing. 372 people died.
• December 6, 1997 - immediately after takeoff from the Irkutsk airfield, the Ruslan transport plane crashed onto nearby houses, the residents of which and the crew died.
• September 2, 1998 - The McDonnell Douglas Airbus crashed into the sea near Halifax, Canada. 229 people died.

• March 10, 1906 - a terrible disaster at the beginning of the century in Europe. The explosion at the Couriers mine in France killed 1,060 people.
• December 6, 1917 - the worst accidental explosion in world history in Halifax Harbor, Canada. Victims - 1654 people.
• February 12, 1931 - explosion at a mine in Manchuria. More than 3,000 people died.
• October 26, 1935 - explosion at the arsenal in Liangzhou, China. More than 2000 killed.
• April 25, 1942 - Honkeiko coal mine exploded, Manchuria, China. 1549 dead.
• November 29, 1949 - uranium mine in Johanngeorgendstadt, East Germany. According to rough estimates, about 3,700 people died.
• August 17, 1956 - convoy with dynamite in Cali, Colombia. 1100 people.
• November 2, 1982 - the explosion of the Salang tunnel, Afghanistan, killed between 1,000 and 3,000 people.
• June 3, 1989 - explosion of a gas pipeline in Bashkiria, USSR. 650 people died.

Train accidents

• May 22, 1915 - Gretna (Scotland), terrible train accident. Victims - 227 people.
• December 12, 1917 - Modan (France), the worst train accident in world history. 800 dead.
• July 9, 1918 - two passenger trains collided on the road between Nashville and St. Louis (Tennessee, USA), the worst train accident in the history of the country. 101 people died.
• March 2, 1944 - train crash near Salerno, Italy. 521 dead.
• April 3, 1955 - Guadalajara, Mexico. The number of victims is more than 300.
• June 6, 1981 - Bihar, India. About 500 people died.
• January 13, 1985 - Ethiopia, the worst train accident on the African continent: 392 dead.
• January 24, 2000 - Norway, the worst train accident in the country's history. 30 people died.

Disasters on the water

• June 15, 1904 - the pleasure steamer General Slocum burned on the East River, pc. New York, USA. 1030 people died.
• April 14-15, 1912 - The Titanic passenger liner sank after colliding with an iceberg in the North Atlantic. 1,517 passengers and crew died.
• September 28, 1912 - The Japanese steamer Kisemaru sank off the coast of Japan. According to official data, 1000 dead.
• May 29, 1914 - the British steamer Empress of Ireland sank after a collision with a Norwegian coal carrier on the St. Lawrence River. Number of victims - 1012.
• February 26, 1916 - the French cruiser Provence sank in the Mediterranean Sea. About 3,100 dead.
• December 6, 1917 - The French ammunition cargo ship Mont Blanc and the Belgian steamer Imo collided in Halifax harbor, Canada. As a result, the number of victims is more than 1600.
• March 18, 1921 - The Hong Kong steamship sank in the South China Sea. 1000 dead.
• April 14, 1944 - "Fort Staykin", loaded with ammunition, exploded in the harbor of Bombay, India. There are more than 1300 victims.

November 1948 - a Chinese army evacuation ship sank near Manchuria. 6,000 passengers died.

• September 26, 1954 - The Japanese ferry Toya Maru sank in the Tsugaru Strait. 1172 victims.
• December 20, 1987 - The Philippine ferry Dona Paz and the tanker Victor collided in the Tablas Strait. More than 3,000 dead.
• April 7, 1989 - The Soviet nuclear submarine Komsomolets sank off the coast of Norway. 42 sailors died.
• September 28, 1994 - the Estonian passenger ferry "Estonia" sank in the Baltic Sea. 852 people died.

• December 30, 1903 - Iroquois Theater in Chicago, USA. The number of victims is 602 people.
• October 14, 1913 - coal mine in Mid Glamorgan, Wales, UK. 439 people died.
• October 12, 1918 - forest fire near Cloquet, pcs. Minnesota, USA. There are about 400 victims.
• November 28, 1942 - nightclub in Boston, USA. 491 people died.
• September 2, 1949 - fire in the slums of Chongqing, China. About 1,700 dead.
• August 20, 1978 - A cinema in Abadan, Iran caught fire. 422 people died from injuries and burns.

Ecological disasters

• January 28, 1969 - an oil spill occurred on an oil platform in the Santa Barbara Channel (California, USA). Over 11 days, about a thousand tons of oil spilled into the sea. The platform continued to leak for several years.
• June 2, 1969 - Fish began to die in the Rhine. Two years earlier, two 25-kilogram canisters of Thiodan insecticide ended up in the river. The disaster caused the death of several million fish.
• July 10, 1976 - as a result of an explosion at a chemical factory in Seveso (Italy), a toxic cloud of dioxin was released. Two weeks later the entire population was evacuated. The city was uninhabited for 16 months.

April 1979 - anthrax spores were released at the Institute of Microbiology and Virology in Sverdlovsk. According to independent sources, a region within a 3 km radius was infected and several hundred people died.

• June 3, 1979 - an accident on the Ixtoc-1 oil platform in the south of the Gulf of Mexico, 600 thousand tons of oil were released into the sea. The Gulf of Mexico has been an environmental disaster zone for several years.
• December 3, 1984 - Deadly methyl isocyanate gas leaked at a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India.
• November 1, 1986 - as a result of a fire at the warehouse of the pharmaceutical company Sandoz (Basel, Switzerland), 1 thousand tons of chemicals were released into the Rhine. Millions of fish died and drinking water was contaminated.
• 1970-1990s - gradual disappearance of the Aral Sea (Kazakhstan, USSR).
• January 24, 1991 - Iraq began dumping crude oil from Kuwaiti oil wells into the sea. The Persian Gulf has become an environmental disaster zone.

Nuclear accidents

• 1957 - explosion of containers with nuclear waste, which led to severe radioactive contamination of a large area and to the evacuation of the population (Kasli, Chelyabinsk region, USSR).
• March 28, 1979 - the most severe accident in the United States at the Three Mile Island reactor in Middletown (Pennsylvania, USA).
• February 11, 1981 - spill of 400 thousand liters of radioactive coolant at the Sequoia-1 plant in pcs. Tennessee (USA).
• April 26, 1986 - accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (Ukraine, USSR). As a result of the explosion of the fourth reactor, several million cubic meters of radioactive gases were released into the atmosphere.

Thursday, May 6, 1937, 6:25 p.m. The airship "Hindenburg" (LZ 129 "Hindenburg"), having traveled thousands of kilometers over the Atlantic, appeared over the outskirts of New York. The airship lands at Lakehurst Naval Station in New Jersey. Suddenly, a shock shakes the aerial colossus, flames silently appear from inside - after 32 seconds, a miracle of engineering appears as a fireball - a charred aluminum frame falls to the ground.

The tragedy claimed the lives of 35 of the 97 passengers and crew members, and another base employee died on the ground under the wreckage of the aircraft.

It was the largest flying ship in the world. The length of the airship reached 245 meters, which is only 24 meters shorter than the legendary Titanic. The remaining figures are also still impressive: 41.2 meters in diameter, max. gas volume in cylinders up to 200 thousand cubic meters. (usually for the flight, aluminum tanks were filled to 95% - i.e. 190,000 cubic meters of hydrogen), equipped with four Daimler diesel engines with a power of 1100 hp, capable of lifting up to 242 gross tons into the air and flying more than 15 thousand kilometers, The zeppelin reached speeds of up to 150 kilometers per hour with a tailwind.

In March 1936, named after the Reich President of Germany Paul von Hindenburg, the airship first appeared in the skies over Germany during the Reichstag elections. Together with another airship, the Graf Zeppelin, it cruised from Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Nazi pennants fluttered from the fuselage, a swastika adorned the tail, propaganda leaflets rained down on the crowd, and loudspeakers blared: “Do your duty - elect a Fuhrer!” According to official data, in the elections of March 29, 1936, the NSDAP party received 99 percent of the votes on a single-mandate list.

Somewhat later, it was made into an airliner that flew on the route Frankfurt am Main - New York. Soon the number of transatlantic flights reached 30 and flights began to be perceived as routine. 36 passengers were served by 61 crew members, including several waiters and one flight attendant.

In RuNet, the author of these lines came across the figure several times - $800. This is supposedly how much a ticket to board this aircraft cost. This is twice what they actually paid. For 400 bucks, anyone with this amount received the right to air travel to the New World. Before entering the gangway, the passenger was required to hand over matches, lighters and electric torches, in short, everything that could cause even the slightest spark. Security was approached with German thoroughness. The staff wore special clothes and shoes.

However, let us immediately note that there was still a smoking lounge on the Hindenburg. Specially equipped. There was a piano made of aluminum there for the entertainment of the public. Passengers were accommodated in comfortable cabins equipped with showers with running hot water. Observation deck. The dining room, where, sitting at the table, one could view the terrain passing below from a bird's eye view.

On May 3, 1937, the countdown began for the last flight of the Hindenburg. The airship rose at 20.16 and headed for America. Due to strong headwinds over the Atlantic, travelers were almost 10 hours late. On average, the journey to New York took from 65 to 70 hours. Finally, at 3 p.m., Manhattan appeared in the distance. According to the recollections of a flight officer Boetsius(Boëtius), sitting near the open windows, the guests of the aircraft admired the panorama of the American metropolis, and gazed at the New Yorkers who met them, who honked their horns with all their might.

An hour later, deafened by sirens and horns, passengers began to get ready to leave, but another unforeseen situation arose. Commander of the Lakehurst military base Charles Rosendal(Charles Rosendahl), due to the impending terrible thunderstorm, did not recommend approaching the mooring mast. In an emergency situation, the captain of the airship Max Pruss(Max Pruss) decided to patrol in the surrounding area in order to wait out the bad weather. The Hindenburg turned around and sailed along the coast towards New York.

Experienced navigator Boetsius took control of the elevators. “When Rosendahl radioed to us that the storm over Lakehurst had cleared, we turned back again and were caught in a storm front,” Boecius recorded. “I clearly felt turbulence in my legs. The heavy intermittent rain also did not stop.”

At 7 pm the airship came in to land for the second time that day. At 19.21 the zeppelin was still above the ground at a distance of 80 meters. The nose of the airship, directed towards the mooring mast, fell sharply down. Eduard Boetsius, still in the chart room, felt the blow. He couldn't believe that disaster was about to strike. At the same time the cabin boy Werner Franz, who was then 14 years old, was in the officers' mess. The teenager was suddenly thrown against the closet with force. After being thrown sharply from side to side several times, he saw a giant wall of fire rushing towards him from the tail section. The Zeppelin, having initially leveled out, again stood on its butt.

The guy was brought to his senses by the water gushing onto his poor head from numerous overturned tanks. Franz saw through the hatch that the ground was no more than two and a half meters away and jumped out of the burning hell. Below, radio reporter Herbert Morrison observed what was happening, leaving us with a description of the disaster through the eyes of an outside witness.

Boetsius also found himself at the open window. One of his comrades shouted: “Eddie, jump!” It was high enough and Edward waited. When the nose of the airship was pulled down again, he jumped off. Three of his colleagues fell next to him, miraculously escaping the flames of a giant furnace. Jumping to his feet, Boetsius rushed to the fallen zeppelin, which was quickly melting before his eyes, to help the other passengers get out.

It was an “instinctive impulse,” he would say many years later in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. And then myself Hitler personally awarded him a certificate of honor for heroism in the fire.

Soon after the disaster, a commission of inquiry considered several reasons for the death of the Hindenburg: thunderstorms, shots from the ground, sabotage on board and a violation in the coating technology of the airship shell. All of them are accepted as working hypotheses. No more. There is not enough evidence to put an end to this matter.

The most ridiculous version seems to be the following. The airship, as you know, repeatedly flew over a certain poultry farm, the owner of which threatened to shoot down the flying colossus with his grandfather’s gun. The farm owner insisted that the noise of the zeppelin caused his chickens to lay eggs poorly and he would soon go bankrupt. The commission confirmed the facts of the threats and the farmer’s possession of an antediluvian gun, but he never used it. Moreover, experts have proven that it is possible to use a gun to pierce the skin of an airship, but not cause it to catch fire.

Considerations regarding a possible terrorist attack can be considered just as wild. This “duck” was launched by Commandant Charles Rosendal, who headed a group of experts from the American side. Then in the 60s, an American of German descent Adolf August Höling(Adolph August Hoehling) was one of the first to state that there was a low-ranking technician on board the Hindenburg, who was persuaded by his “radical-left friend” to destroy this “symbol of Teutonic aggressiveness.” A pensioner who was then living in Hesse called this provocation “slander and slander” when she found out what she was accused of.

Michael MacDonald Mooney, in his book, stated that the disaster was carried out by 24-year-old anti-fascist Erich Spehl, who later died of burns in hospital. Decorated by the Fuhrer, Eduard Boetsius, decades later, said in an interview with Der Spiegel magazine that “Hitler’s policies made us an object of hatred abroad.” The third Zeppelin officer confirmed the existence of a Jewish conspiracy or act of sabotage on the part of the American airline Pan American Airways, who saw the Germans as their competitors. The son of Boetsius developed his speculations about the dark times of Nazism in the book “Phoenix from the Ashes”.

Strangely enough, the Nazi elite themselves were involved in stopping the investigation. First they, through the mouth of the Minister of PropagandaJoseph Goebbels , tried to present the death of the airship as an “act of retaliation” for the destruction of Spanish Guernica. Destroyed by the Condor Legion's raids. But then they turned exactly 180 degrees. Famous World War I pilot Hermann Goering , who was very fond of airplanes, hated airships. He called them “flying sausages” and did not recognize any future for them. The death of the Hindenburg came at the right time to put an end to all projects for the development of this means of aeronautics.

The most serious, but also completely unproven, hypothesis says: the reason is hydrogen and the coating of the airship shell. In the 1930s, the Americans, who had a monopoly on it, prevented the replacement of hydrogen with safer helium. St. Elmo's fire or a brush discharge (some witnesses spoke of a visible glow on the surface of the airship) penetrated through the imperfect coating and inside. One spark was enough to instantly destroy the miracle of technology of the 20th century.

Humanity seems to have grown up and no longer believes in fairy tales. But in vain! The spirits of the four elements have not lost their power and do not willingly allow people into their spheres.