Historian Rick Zitarosa said that with many great disasters, “there’s always rumor of the other film.”
In the case of the Hindenburg airship disaster, which was commemorated with its 77th anniversary last week, there was another film.
“This is that other film,” Zitarosa with the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society told WCAU-TV.
On May 6, 1937, the German airship burst into flames and went down in New Jersey just before it was supposed to land. Of the nearly 100 passengers and crew that Hindenburg carried, more than 30 people died.
Though there’s well-known footage of the event, hailed as some of the first of an aircraft disaster, it’s all from one angle.
This new angle, which Zitarosa said has never been broadcast as far as he knows, was obtained exclusively by WCAU. It shows the airship in flames and going down tail-first from a side vantage point.
“It does get us a few seconds closer to the actual point when it did happen,” Kevin Pace with the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society told the news station.
Take a look:
The historians also pointed out that the footage shows that the airship was off balance before the fire started.
This newly released footage has been seen by a few people, but overall, Pace told WCAU that overall it “was simply lost through history.”
No one knows what exactly sparked the fire, but theories range from sabotage to static to engine failure.