The Disaster of the Hindenburg: The Last Flight of the Greatest Airship Ever Built - Softcover

Almost as long as the Eiffel Tower is tall, the Hindenburg would have dwarfed today's 747's; it offered majestic, rapid, very comfortable Atlantic crossings and traveled (with its sister airship the Graf Zeppelin) over two million miles before its fiery demise. Tanaka takes readers on that last voyage in the company of Irene Doehner, 16, and her family, touring crew stations and the moderately luxurious passenger accommodations, observing icebergs and whales from above, hearing conversations about the airship's structure and safety, and going from mild relief to panic as a calm landing is transformed into a blazing disaster. Though some scenes and dialogue are invented, all of the people here are based on actual crew members or passengers--poignantly, Irene was one of 13 who didn't survive--and the text is liberally illustrated with contemporary photos and paintings. The author opens with a look at the uses of airships today and closes with a summary of the post- tragedy investigation and a page on the history of lighter-than-air flight. A lively alternative to James Day's The Hindenburg Tragedy (1989). Glossary; reading list. (Nonfiction. 10-13) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Gr. 3-7. The Hindenburg was the pride of Germany, the largest and most luxurious zeppelin ever built. Modern blimps are to zeppelins what modern lizards are to brontosauruses. The Hindenburg, in 1936, spent its first year as a propaganda piece for Hitler's Germany. In 1937, it crossed the Atlantic, and as it hovered above Lakehurst, New Jersey, preparing for landing, it suddenly burst into flames. In a matter of minutes, the huge, hydrogen-filled craft burned to ashes. Formatted like the other books in the Time Quest series, this is profusely illustrated with photographs, diagrams, paintings, and drawings of the Hindenburg and its passengers, but Tanaka chooses to tell her history as a narrative revolving around Irene Doehner, a 16-year-old passenger who died in the explosion. Much of the narrative consists of conversations between Irene and her family or other passengers that must be conjecture and that detract from what appears, otherwise, to be a well-researched and compelling documentary. Sheilamae O'Hara