Hugo Eckener had always made safety his absolute priority during his many years managing airship operations . With Eckener 's management , the Zeppelin company had a perfect safety record with no passenger ever sustaining a serious injury on any of the more than 1 million air miles that the rigid airships flew , until the Hindenburg disaster of 1937 . . Eckener was in Graz , Austria when he heard news of the Hindenburg disaster on 6 May 1937 . In the official inquiry he concluded that a static spark ignited leaking hydrogen in the aft section of the ship . The leak would have been caused by a sharp turn , which he believed overstrained a bracing wire , causing it to snap and rip open an adjacent gas cell
Hindenburg disaster
Hindenburg disaster
Hugo Eckener