As the 80th anniversary of it approached in 2017, Werner Doehner told Associated Press that he and his parents, older brother and sister were returning from a vacation to Germany on the 804-foot-long zeppelin to Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey.
His father headed up to his cabin after using his movie camera to shoot some scenes of the station from the airship's dining room. That was the last time Doehner saw him.
As the Hindenburg arrived, flames began to flicker on the top of the ship. Hydrogen, exposed to the air, fueled the inferno.
"Suddenly the air was on fire," Doehner recalled.
Doehner said his mother threw him and his brother out of the ship before she left, too.
They suffered burns. He would remain in a hospital for three months before going to a hospital in New York in August for skin grafts.
Doehner was born in Darmstadt, Germany and grew up in Mexico City. In 1984, he moved to the United States to work for General Electric as an electrical engineer. He also worked in Ecuador and Mexico.
Quite an International Man and Quite a History.
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