Euro Airship’s rigid airships achieve buoyancy through filling their internal envelopes with the lighter-than-air and inert gas helium. The helium is contained within the internal envelopes at atmospheric pressure, so even if holes or openings appear, the helium does not stream out, as in the case of a punctured balloon. In fact, even if the envelope is severely damaged, it can be difficult to cause the airship to “fall”, because the helium gas needs to be pushed out of the envelope to decrease buoyancy, a process which can take literally days to accomplish.
In the 1920s and 1930s, rigid airships frequently crossed the Atlantic Ocean on flights from Western Europe to North and South America. Over 180,000 hours of flight time were logged, and nearly 2 million kilometres were travelled in almost 1,000 flights, without any significant incident.