Tour the historic Hindenburg hangar and crash site in Lakehurst, NJ

Images of the Hindenburg burning while attempting to land at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey are among the most indelible in the history of mass media. But few people know that the huge airship hangar on the site is still standing and can be visited along with the nearby spot where the flaming German zeppelin fell to earth on May 6, 1937.

The airfield remains part of an active military base, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst/ NSA. But you can visit if you sign up for a free tour given by the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society.

The tour led by volunteers, many of them veterans, can last up to four hours. It starts at a historic chapel just off the base where the stained-glass windows document the history of aviation. From there, drivers follow a guide onto the base and to the Hindenburg memorial site.

The guides provide the history of the air base and the story of the Hindenburg near a commemorative plaque in the ground and a pole topped by a silhouette of an airship a few hundred yards from the hangar.

Lakehurst was “the only place the Hindenburg could go” because it had a hangar where airships like the 804-foot-long dirigible could be repaired, noted historical society volunteer Kevin Mulligan. “The hangar from front to back is 807 feet door to door,” he said.

The fire and crash occurred after a gust of wind shifted the nose of the airship and the captain tried to counteract that by making a sharp turn. That stressed the frame and stiffened cables, so it’s likely one snapped and punctured one of the 16 hydrogen cells. “Basically, it boiled down to pilot error,” Mulligan said before playing the famous recording where a radio announcer cries out, “Oh, the humanity!”

There were 97 people on board. “It’s amazing only 35 perished,” Mulligan said. That included 34 people riding the zeppelin and one person on the ground crew.

From the memorial, the tour group will drive to the hangar building, which contains an aviation and military history museum. While there, visitors learn the history of the airfield and the dirigibles assembled and maintained there, as well as the helium-filled blimps that succeeded them starting in 1939.

The final stop is the interior of the cavernous 225-foot-tall hangar, which is a National Historic Landmark. Each hangar door weighs 1,350 tons and the building is so big that it houses a mock-up of an aircraft carrier flight deck used in later years for pilot training.

Tours are offered every Wednesday and the second Saturday of the month from November through March at 10 a.m., and every Wednesday and the second and fourth Saturdays of the month at 10 a.m. April through October. Visit nlhs.com, email navlake@prodigy.net or call 732-818-7520 to sign up.