The public will get access to the Hindenburg's crash site for the first time in five years.
LAKEHURST -- For the first time in five years, the public will get access to the site where the Hindenburg crashed and burned as part of a ceremony memorializing the 80th anniversary of the disaster.
The public will get a one-hour window Saturday night starting at 5:30 p.m. to see where the German airship went down after becoming engulfed in flames in just over half a minute, said Carl Jablonski, president of the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society.
Members of the public who are interested should drive up to the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst entrance from Route 547 (South Hope Chapel Road) in Manchester. No per-registration is necessary, Jablonski said.
He said no cars will be admitted into the base after 6:30 p.m., and that all cars are subject to searches.
A ceremony honoring the 36 people who died as a result of the May 6, 1937, crash will start at 6:30 p.m. The featured speaker at the event will be Horst Schirmer, who flew on the Hindenburg when he was 5 years old.
Schirmer's father, Max, designed the aeronautics for the airship. Schirmer, now 85, rode in the 805-foot-long zeppelin during test flights in Germany a year before the Lakehurst disaster.
Col. Frederick D. Thaden, the commander of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, and Jablonski will also offer remarks at the ceremony.
The ceremony will include a reading of the names of all 36 people who died -- 13 passengers, 22 crew members and one ground worker - and wreaths will be presented in honor of the fallen troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Hindenburg burned and crashed in Lakehurst as it started its landing descent. An exact cause of the disaster is still unknown, though a theory is a spark ignited the blaze after a guide wire snapped.
"A small flame became a big flame," Jablonski said.
Addison Bain, a NASA scientist, told The Star-Ledger in 2012 that he believes the Hindenburg's much higher than normal landing descent coupled with the highly electrical sensitivity and flammability of its outer cover led to the inferno.
It only took 34 seconds for the flames to spread from the rear to the front of the airship, Jablonski said. There was a total of 97 people on board, Jablonski said. Some were in the lounge area, which had large windows, and jumped to safety.
The images of the Hindenburg going up in flames would be seen by people throughout the country. The landing was filmed and became the subject of newsreels shown in movie theaters across America.
Never-before-seen footage, which was donated to the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society by someone who had films in a private collection, will be shown at a dinner on Friday night at the Clarion Hotel in Toms River. The dinner starts with a cocktail hour at 6 p.m. Tickets to the dinner, which cost $50, are still available. For more information, visit www.nlhs.com.
Alex Napoliello may be reached at anapoliello@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexnapoNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.