What Went Wrong on the Hindenburg Luxury Airship (with Chelsea Handler)

Chelsea Handler is a world traveler. Ed and Chelsea discover whether they're cut out for luxury Air Travel of the 1930's; the catch being it's aboard the infamous Hindenburg Zeppelin. Oh, the Humanity! And watch this week's episode on the SNAFU YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@SNAFUPod http://www.youtube.com/@SNAFUPod Buy the SNAFU book: www.snafu-book.com http://www.snafu-book.com/ See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• 2:35Speaker 01

  Welcome to Snafu, the show about history's greatest screw-ups, or shall we say, the real eye-opening disasters that kind of show us who we really are. I am your host, Ed Helms, and my guest today, and I honestly don't know any other way to say this. She's just a fucking badass. She's a hilarious stand-up actor, writer, TV host, podcaster, producer, and just general force of nature. She's written seven number-one New York Times bestsellers, which is, like, honestly obscene. Like, how do they even allow you to do that? Her latest book is "I'll Have What She's Having", which is yet another expression of her raw honesty, power, and zero tolerance for bullshit.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  She hosts the incredibly popular advice podcast, Dear Chelsea, and her latest Netflix special was Chelsea Handler: The Feeling. She's one of the funniest people on the planet, and you probably know who I'm talking about. Welcome, Chelsea Handler.

• 3:36Speaker 00

  Hi.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  Howdy.

• 3:38Speaker 00

  Good morning, good afternoon, good evening.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Yes, to all of our listeners, whatever time of day you are downloading this. What's happening? How are you?

• 3:47Speaker 00

  I'm well, thank you, Ed. How are you doing?

• 3:50Speaker 01

  I'm pretty splendid, I have to say. I mean, the world is burning down, but I'm trying to stay positive. I'm in this like, deep state of denial. And so I'm just saying I'm great.

• 4:01Speaker 00

  I too am also trying to remain positive. But, yes, it's very interesting. I find myself dipping in and out of the news, but when I dip in, I feel so guilty for not having, for having dipped out, that I can't, then it's a vicious, vicious cycle. I feel like I'm much better suited to handle the issues when I'm not reading about them all day.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:23Speaker 00

  But when so many people are impacted, it's impossible not to want to know what's happening. So it's a, it's a good thing to be optimistic. There's that.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  I also feel like when you dip into things by yourself, like if you kind of get into the news, or you get into the social media, sort of like, black hole by yourself, it's just like despair. You don't, whereas if you kind of engage with other people, or if you're in a larger conversation, whether it's a dinner party, or just a whatever, then at least you can commiserate and feel like there's, I don't know, more humanity to the whole situation.

• 5:00Speaker 00

  Yes, yes. It's very comforting to know other people, especially people in other countries, when they're as concerned, because I'm in Canada right now. I spent a long time here in the winter, and Canadians, immediately, whenever I'm at a dinner party, immediately just make a beeline for me going, what is going to happen? And I'm like, uh, but it makes me feel, it's heartwarming to know so many other people are as concerned about our country as we are.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  I don't think there's any question how you feel, Chelsea Handler.

• 5:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  That's part of what's amazing about you. You crush it in so many different disciplines. Does any particular kind of outlet come more easily to you, or feel like sort of the most natural fit, whether it's writing books, or doing stand-up, or hosting, like your podcasts, like which one is kind of like, the most?

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Easy fit.

• 5:55Speaker 00

  You know, if I do the same thing over and over again, I have a low tolerance for that. So everything's a little bit different than the other thing. Like, writing a book is a lot different than my stand-up, even though they're both storytelling. My podcast is like me giving advice to people that are calling in. So, real people, I love communicating with real people. There's overlap with that doing stand-up. You know, I'm about to start this tour this month called the High and Mighty Tour, where I get to see and, you know, have like, you know, live audiences and thousands of people and you're right in front of them. And that also means a lot to me, too, definitely during times like this that we're experiencing, when you can get up and really look out into the crowd and see definitely two strangers who definitely did not arrive together, laughing together and rubbing shoulders together. Like, that makes me feel purposeful.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Is touring hard? Is it fun? Is it like, I'm sure it's all those things, but what's the...

• 6:46Speaker 00

  It's tiring to travel all of the time and to go to a different city each day, but I'm so used to this. You know, I've been doing this my whole life, that I operate the best out of a hotel room. That's when I'm peaking. It's when I get back to my house where I start to go, wait, wait, where is everything? I've grown so accustomed to being on the road that it's really not a big deal for me. I could tolerate a lot more travel than, than your average person.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just like whatever patterns you get into, you just want to kind of stay in that. All right, well, the subject of today, it's interesting we're talking about travel, because the subject of today's snafu is about that. I'm really psyched to have you on the show, so I wanted to pick something really sort of juicy and iconic. This one's pretty epic and memorable. Today, we're going to take a ride on the Hindenburg.

• 7:34Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, that big ol', yeah.

• 7:37Speaker 00

  Very sexual.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  It is the most phallic snafu in the repertoire. What do you remember or know about the Hindenburg disaster?

• 7:47Speaker 00

  Oh, God, the Hindenburg is a German ship that was sunk? Was, was it sunk?

• 7:54Speaker 01

  It did crash.

• 7:56Speaker 00

  Okay, so no.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Yes, essentially, it sunk from the sky.

• 8:00Speaker 00

  Okay, so great.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  First, I'm gonna ground you with a little bit of airship history. So we're gonna go back to the 1930s, which was the golden age of zeppelins. Now, a zeppelin is a large, rigid airship. It is not to be confused with a blimp, which is basically just like a big balloon. Think of it as like a blimp is soft and a zeppelin has structure. So in aviation terms, a zeppelin is like an erect blimp.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  An erect blimp, okay. And that but a passenger carrier.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  Yes, well, they're used for all kinds of things that they can like they started out in World War I. They were actually used for bombing missions and reconnaissance. But it was all it all originated in Germany by a German inventor, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the late 1800s.

• 8:54Speaker 00

  I wonder why Led Zeppelin, the band, didn't name themselves Von Zeppelin?

• 8:58Speaker 01

  I love this. You you just brought up such a cool little nugget of music history, which is that I believe it was Keith Moon from The Who, who was making fun of Jimmy Page when he first because Jimmy Page put this band together and they were originally called the New Yardbirds, I think.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  That's a terrible name, Yardbirds.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  It's a terrible name. And then Keith Moon and The Who was like, yeah, you guys will go down like a lead balloon. And so Jimmy Page just thought that was hilarious and decided to call the band Led Zeppelin.

• 9:30Speaker 00

  Um, on terms of back to The Who for a second, I just want to make a quick shout out to The Who because I went to go see a show of theirs at the Hollywood Bowl a few months ago. And who is the lead singer of The Who? Daltrey?

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Roger Daltrey, yeah.

• 9:42Speaker 00

  Roger Daltrey is like 80 something years old, or I mean, something like that. He's old and he is out there with his little nugget body and his little belly with his like stonewashed Levi's on and his, you know, high heeled Reeboks, whatever these old guys who are still performing at this level.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  Hoka's, he's probably wearing Hoka's.

• 10:02Speaker 00

  Oh, fucking hokas. Honestly, it's enough with the hokas. I can't take it. Anyway, he was with, wearing his hokas. You've got a pair on right there.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  I have to. I have plantar fasciitis.

• 10:12Speaker 00

  The most exciting thing about this Hindenburg so far is that there will be no hokas mentioned about this because it was too soon. And he was swinging, in lieu of dancing, because he can't really dance anymore. He was swinging his microphone around. It was the, it was one of the best shows I've ever been to. And Roger Daltrey was just like, just screaming and jumping on the stage, going, "Who are you? Who, who?" And I was like, this guy, I'm attracted to this guy. Like, I was attracted at his tenacity, at his passion for his music. I mean, I've seen Springsteen perform at this age, you know, similar ages.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:47Speaker 00

  It's pretty impressive what these guys are up to. And I would like to know exactly what peptides and blood transfusions they all have access to.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  That's awesome. I'm so glad to hear that. That's, and it's, it's like Mick Jagger, right? The guy can just still move and groove at, and he's like 900 at this point.

• 11:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, he's, I don't know, nobody can even keep track. He's already aged out of what we're keeping track of age-wise.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  All right, well, let's get a little more specific about what a zeppelin is. It's basically a fabric-covered metal framework of transverse rings and longitudinal girders, kind of like a big metal rib cage. And inside are a number of bladders filled with either hydrogen or helium gas, because those are both significantly lighter than air. However, only one of those gases is also highly flammable. And which one is that? Well, let's just say there's a reason we don't give kids hydrogen balloons at parties. So, at first, Germany used zeppelins as bombers and scouting craft during World War I, as I mentioned before. And they were surprisingly effective, but not everyone was buying the zeppelin hype.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  One very early hater was Orville Wright. In 1909, The New York Times ran an article titled, "Wright Sees No Hope in Zeppelin Airship." And I mean, come on, he's the inventor of the airplane. Of course, he's gonna shit on a rival.

• 12:09Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Air travel, right? Right, come on. Would you ride in a, in a, in like a blimp? Is that something that would be cool?

• 12:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm not scared of any sort of height, air travel type thing, situation. The higher, the better is my theory.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  I was researching this story and I, and I got so into the idea of riding in a blimp that I looked how you get tickets to ride on the Goodyear blimp.

• 12:32Speaker 00

  Uh huh. And are there tickets available for that?

• 12:34Speaker 01

  No, they're not. They're only like occasional sort of like buzz, you know, like the charity buzz auctions or whatever.

• 12:42Speaker 00

  Aren't blimps unmanned?

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Oh no, they have little.

• 12:46Speaker 00

  Men?

• 12:47Speaker 01

  They have, they have men. They have little men.

• 12:49Speaker 00

  Little men.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  Okay, so Count von Zeppelin died before World War I ended in 1917. The whole operation passed over to Hugo Eckner. Eckner was not into war blimps. He believed Zeppelins had enormous potential uh just in long distance travel. So he thought, he was like, these can become the slow, elegant, floating, luxurious cruisers of the sky.

• 13:14Speaker 00

  And that's a little bit too slow, even for World War I, no?

• 13:18Speaker 01

  It's not. These things were quick.

• 13:20Speaker 00

  How, how many miles per hour?

• 13:22Speaker 01

  They could get up to like 80 or 90 miles an hour.

• 13:25Speaker 00

  So, okay, so nothing close to what a plane can accomplish.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  But a lot faster than a ship. So when you're talking like transatlantic travel, the Hindenburg could cross the Atlantic in a couple of days as opposed to five or 10 days on a cruise ship.

• 13:41Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. They're, they're pretty cool, I have to say. So this guy who's taken over the company, he's like, I think we can do luxury air travel on these things. And that brings us to the Hindenburg, which was named after former German President Paul von Hindenburg. Construction began in 1931 and it was the biggest airship ever built. There had been actually a lot of airship work over the last 30 years. Like I said, they were used in World War I, but they were starting to be used for cargo and all these different kinds of things. This thing was over 800 feet long, which is basically like a small stadium size.

• 14:21Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:22Speaker 00

  To get that up in the air is quite a feat.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And there's, here's the, my favorite little dark detail. It was partially built using metal salvaged from another hydrogen airship that had already crashed, which is less like recycling and more like tempting fate, I think.

• 14:40Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, listen, recycling had to start at some point.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Chelsea, why do we keep equating the biggest ever built with the best or like the smartest thing?

• 14:50Speaker 00

  I think that's a very American thing, even though we're talking about Germany right now. I feel like that's a very Western thing, right? The biggest and the best, rather than the most efficacious or the most, like, yeah, bigger is America, better is America. We need the tallest buildings. We need the skyscrapers. We need the biggest phones. Remember when phones first came out and they were like little flip phones and then all of a sudden you were talking on a fucking iPad?

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:14Speaker 00

  Like, why? Why do they keep going around in circles? Just leave them small and manageable. But I don't know. I find that to be a very American thing and a very war thing.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Well, you're so right. Also SUVs, right? There was a time in the 80s when cars got very small and efficient. And then all of a sudden, everyone just wanted like these tanks.

• 15:34Speaker 00

  Right. And now we have that Tesla truck that is loitering around everywhere. They're very ugly.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, they give off to me Robocop vibes.

• 15:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  It's like, it's like 80s violence. It just looks like a violent vehicle.

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• 18:49Speaker 01

  So this Hindenburg, it was 800 feet long. It was absolutely massive, but it had a cabin. It so underneath was this sort of structure in which the crew and the passengers would ride. And it was really incredible. There it had private cabins, a dining room with fine crockery, two promenades with large observation windows, a bar and a lounge that featured a custom-built Blautner baby grand piano that was made from aluminum so that it would be a lot lighter. It was only 350 pounds.

• 19:24Speaker 00

  Okay, just for some modern reference, do we know how many feet a 747 is long?

• 19:29Speaker 01

  I love this question, and I wish I could pull it up.

• 19:32Speaker 00

  Probably 747 feet.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Okay, Boeing 747 is 231 feet long.

• 19:40Speaker 00

  Okay, great.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  This is four times longer.

• 19:43Speaker 00

  And it sounds like it was before, I mean, obviously, this were when planes came on this closer to when planes came on the scene to begin with. So they weren't into stacking us like sardines in a plane. So they didn't know about that yet, which

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:55Speaker 00

  which accounts for some of their luxury, like

• 19:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:58Speaker 00

  the bar, the lounge.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 20:00Speaker 00

  cabins, fine dining.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  It was so expensive to operate. They wanted to attract high-paying customers, kind of like, I mean,

• 20:09Speaker 00

  The Orient Express?

• 20:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, or the or the Titanic, which had like crazy first-class accommodations. For the wealthy passengers, the Hindenburg was essentially an airborne luxury hotels, graceful, glamorous, and effortlessly refined. One of my favorite details is that they had a smoking room on the Hindenburg, which seems insane because it was filled with hydrogen gas, which is highly explosive. But the smoking room was like this pressurized room. The room itself was pressurized so that nothing could leak into it. And the theory was if there's a hydrogen leak, it'll keep it from entering the smoking room and we'll be fine.

• 20:47Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Well, the Hindenburg and the Titanic, which, well, how many years apart were those two things? When was the Titanic?

• 20:53Speaker 01

  1912.

• 20:54Speaker 00

  1912. Okay, Titanic, 1912, 1930, and then 1913. Thirty one, we're talking. Okay, great.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's not like fresh.

• 21:02Speaker 00

  So both of them had great, great big plans and huge demises.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:07Speaker 00

  So there are analogies in those ways.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  Totally. It's a, it's a very apt comparison and it's often made. Basically, they're both just a monument to human hubris. If you were to travel on a luxury airship for like three or four days, what do you bring with you?

• 21:24Speaker 00

  Well, probably LSD, definitely some microdosing. You know how I feel about that. I would have to have alcohol. I would have to have some LSD. I would bring like a really good book because I would definitely get a book done in that amount of time. I would enforce myself to read a book before I could really enjoy, you know, the luxury aspect. Because I feel like in order to have fun, I have to also put some stuff into my brain. So I would read a book and then I would start to party. And then I would mingle. I would, and I would bring a friend that I, hopefully I could either have sex with or just have a really good time with.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  That's a fricking perfect hot take. I love the idea of, of going on a zeppelin like this because they don't fly that high. Like you're, you're probably about a thousand feet up, maybe less. And so you can really see what's around you. And it's a really beautiful flow. People describe, people who rode in these airships described the ride as like very gentle and you're just floating. There's very little turbulence effect on the, the airship. It just feels like such a cool, special way to get around.

• 22:31Speaker 00

  I mean, not everybody loves helicopters. I'm aware of this. But I love a helicopter ride. And one of the reasons I love a helicopter ride is because you are so close to the ground that you can actually see the terrain and the topography of what you're flying over rather than see it from, you know, 30,000 feet in the sky. And so I was just on a helicopter two days ago. We went to these ice caves in Pemberton, north of Whistler. And so we took a helicopter ride through the mountains and you can spin around. And with helicopters, people think that they're so dangerous and, you know, they're probably right. But with a helicopter, you can land three different ways. You can land with your propeller. You can land anywhere pretty much on a mountain. You know, a plane can't, doesn't have the ability to. Land on the jagged edge of a mountain, whereas a helicopter can. And if the engines go out, you have the propeller. So that's like a good thing about helicopters.

• 23:16Speaker 00

  And also not being so high in the sky also really allows for a more enjoyable sightseeing adventure.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure. Yeah, I am so with you. I love, love a helicopter ride. Okay, so finally, interesting detail about the Hindenburg. On the tail fins were a couple of massive swastikas. Yep.

• 23:36Speaker 00

  Whoopsie doo.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, Hugo Eckner, actually, he had huge disagreements with the Nazis, but was apparently happy to take their money. And then when it was done, it actually became a massive symbol of Nazi pride.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Here's the kicker, the Hindenburg was designed to be filled with helium, which is a very safe gas. But instead it was filled with hydrogen. This is because the US had locked down the global helium supply under the Helium Control Act of 1927.

• 24:07Speaker 00

  Who was trying to control the helium? What was, people were just using that at parties to get their voices high?

• 24:12Speaker 01

  You know, it has, I guess it has a lot of industrial uses or something. It was a hot commodity back in the day. It still is because it's a limited, there's only a finite amount of it.

• 24:22Speaker 00

  Of helium. Yeah, well, why are they putting it in balloons then? I mean, shouldn't we hold on to it?

• 24:26Speaker 01

  I agree. I agree. Why are we putting it in children's party balloons?

• 24:31Speaker 00

  First of all, we should get rid of balloons altogether.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:33Speaker 00

  Balloons are terrible for the environment.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  Yes, they are.

• 24:36Speaker 00

  And I know we're watching the world end right now, but there's no reason to accelerate it beyond what we're already doing.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  Come on, humanity, let's do better. But evidently, and I don't know the reason why, but helium was, America had a stranglehold on the world helium supply, and they did not give it to anybody. The Hindenburg design was for helium, but then they were just like, I guess if we're not going to get helium, we'll just put hydrogen in there. And interestingly, that actually made it, gave it more lift. Hydrogen is a lighter gas than helium, so it gave the whole airship more lift. They were able to add more cabins to the Hindenburg for passengers. But it was a lot riskier. But they just decided like, hey, we're the Germans.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  We're like the kings of engineering. We've got this. We've got a lock on the safety protocols. It's going to be all good. So here's a picture. Let's take a look.

• 25:34Speaker 00

  Oh, I like that body type.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  You do? Alright.

• 25:37Speaker 00

  I like corpulent things, you know? Things that are a little bit heavy and thick around the middle.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Alright.

• 25:43Speaker 00

  And also truncated a little bit.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  Go on.

• 25:45Speaker 00

  But that is, but that is, that is very long.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's four 747s long.

• 25:53Speaker 00

  Wow, that's amazing that they were able to get that in the sky.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, and here's, it's such a cool piece of engineering. You can definitely see the lateral struts through the skin of the blimp there.

• 26:07Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  And then it also had these giant circular things inside. And the little gondola there is where the pilots operated. The rest of the cabins and crew facilities, so forth, were inside the belly of this tube. I think you can kind of see the observation windows sort of cut into the side there. They look like gills in the front.

• 26:33Speaker 00

  So the guy who's, the pilot is outside?

• 26:37Speaker 01

  Well, he's in that little gondola.

• 26:39Speaker 00

  But is he exposed to the elements?

• 26:42Speaker 01

  No, no, no, it's like a little cabin that's, that's hanging from under there.

• 26:46Speaker 00

  I'm like, this guy is just flying, yeah, flying free while everybody else is, okay. Wow.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  And then there, there were a series of bladders throughout the airship, filled with, with the gas. But there were catwalks and various ways that crew could kind of like maneuver around inside the zeppelin itself, which is really cool. And they would get to, you can also see the engines, the propellers off the side here, which were big diesel engines. And, and the crew could actually climb out onto those things and perform maintenance while in flight. So it was a really cool, just feat of design and engineering.

• 27:27Speaker 00

  Sounds like a great place for a birthday party.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, right? It's like, do you want a helium balloon for your birthday party? Or do you want a ride in a fucking balloon? You want a ride in a giant one? Yeah, come on, let's do it.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  So we're gonna get to the disaster in a second, but a lot of people, a lot of people forget that the Hindenburg actually made a lot of successful flights before it actually crashed. So in 1936, the ship flew round trip across the Atlantic 17 times, including trips to both the US and Brazil. That same year, the Hindenburg made an appearance at the Berlin Summer Olympics. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Garibals thought it would be a powerful symbol of German strength and technological superiority, which is an interesting take, given how this story ends. All this brings us to May of 1937. The Hindenburg sets off on a routine flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Lake Hurst, New Jersey. Onboard,

• 28:29Speaker 01

  we have 97 passengers and crew. Now, you might be wondering, how much does a ticket cost? It was $450 in 1937, which in today's dollars is about 10 grand.

• 28:39Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:41Speaker 00

  That's almost exactly how much I'd like to pay for a flight.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  It's like a lot of first-class tickets on airplanes are in that zone.

• 28:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  Even like those, I haven't been on one yet, but I'm, I wanna, I wanna fly on one of those like Emirates cabins.

• 28:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  Where you just get your own frickin' hotel room.

• 28:59Speaker 00

  Your own bathroom. You get your own shower and bathroom. And then you get a bedroom in your room.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  Like, I just wanna make a round trip.

• 29:07Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  I don't even wanna get off the damn thing.

• 29:09Speaker 00

  You don't even wanna go to Singapore. You just wanna fly there and then fly back.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  I love long flights.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  Me too. I love, there's nothing that gets me more excited than a 10-plus hour flight.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Oh, I love it. We're weird that way.

• 29:23Speaker 00

  I don't know. I mean, it's pretty luxurious.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  I also think, in this case, on the Hindenburg, if you're dropping 10 grand on a ticket, you shouldn't have to ask, "But will it explode?"

• 29:33Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Which, uh...

• 29:36Speaker 00

  But you know, that's not the intention of the flight to have it explode. So obviously, you know, nobody is going to be like, yeah, there's a good chance this will explode.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, it should. You should have a reasonable expectation that you're not going to explode. I feel like for that ticket price.

• 29:51Speaker 00

  Or a reasonable expectation that you'll be landing. You know, when you're on a plane and people clap when they land, when nothing untoward has happened.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:59Speaker 00

  And you're like, this is an unnecessary reaction to what was supposed to be in the schedule.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  Right. So you're not, you don't support clapping for a pilot, for a successful landing.

• 30:09Speaker 00

  Not unless you're landing on the Hudson, like Sully, Sullenberger. Then, then that deserves a round of applause.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. You guys, before we get off the plane, I just want to get, get in a round of applause for Sully. Oh my gosh.

• 30:22Speaker 00

  While we're standing on the wing that's floating in the Hudson River.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Um, I still think any, any airplane landing is like kind of a miracle. It's like, I'm, I'm, I'm for, I'm all for like.

• 30:33Speaker 00

  You're for the clapping.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm for the clapping.

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• 33:37Speaker 01

  So, May 6th, 1937, the Hindenburg arrives in Lake Hurst Naval Air Station. And the weather is garbage. There's thunderstorms, delays, the Hindenburg circles for a while. This is, it's nothing unheard of, but the vibes are definitely off. So, finally, at 7:25 PM, the ship comes in to dock. It's an interesting process. In this instance, they were going to drop ropes from the, from the Zeppelin that would then be attached to winches and they kind of pull it down to the ground gently. It also has ballast tanks inside of it, full of water, which it can drop to change its sort of buoyancy in the sky. It's very cool

• 34:21Speaker 01

  technology. Anyway, it's coming in for the landing, it drops the winch cables, and then something just goes horribly wrong, and it's like the sky itself explodes. In just 34 seconds, the largest airship ever built turns into a catastrophic inferno, as it's still in the sky and it collapses down onto the airfield in a massive, massive explosion. It is truly an incredible thing to watch. You can Google the newsreel footage. It is, it is wild. We can look at a photo here.

• 34:57Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:59Speaker 00

  You know what? That reminds me of the Challenger Space Shuttle, watching that implode.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 35:04Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  So, in this picture, it looks like it's crashing into a tower. That's actually a, just in the foreground. The Zeppelin is way in the background of this photo. It's just simply exploding. This, I believe, is the same photo that Led Zeppelin used on their first album cover.

• 35:25Speaker 00

  Did they?

• 35:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:27Speaker 00

  Really?

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, and apparently, the Zeppelin family estate was outraged by this and tried to sue Led Zeppelin or something. But yeah, this is the beginning of the explosion. It then sort of drops and hits the ground, and the whole thing is enveloped in flames. There are a lot of harrowing firsthand accounts of what went down. One passenger was thrown out a window by his mother and survived. A cabin boy was miraculously saved by a ruptured water tank, which ended up tipping over and drenching him so that he could then kick open a hatch and escape without burning.

• 36:05Speaker 00

  And did he survive?

• 36:06Speaker 01

  He did. There's a really famous radio recording of Herb Morrison was recording a broadcast during this. It became one of the most iconic disaster broadcasts of all time. It's where we get the phrase, "Oh, the humanity."

• 36:21Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  This is what he shouts in real time as he's watching the Hindenburg crash. It's a really wild recording. I suggest Googling it because it's just such a fascinating little nugget of history. But he's sort of narrating in a very calm, like, "Oh, here we are in Lake Hurst, New Jersey with the famous Hindenburg dirigible coming in for a land." I mean, I'm making this up, but then all of a sudden, he's like, "Oh, no. Oh, the fire's starting. What is this? This is the worst catastrophe in humanity." And then he says, "Oh, the humanity." And that's like something people say to this day.

• 36:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, it is. It's interesting that that's how it was coined. "Oh, the humanity," because it's, "Oh," it's almost the opposite of humanity.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  What he thought he was witnessing was total loss. He thought everyone onboard the Hindenburg was just scorched. He was so mortified that he thought he was just witnessing a mass death. As we will learn, there were a lot of survivors, which is incredible. When you watch the footage, it's totally incredible.

• 37:24Speaker 00

  I would credit that with it not being a plane in the sky, don't you think? The proximity to the ground is a major factor. You could actually jump out.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure. And it's a much more gentle process. The landing of a Zeppelin is like just sort of like a balloon coming down. And so it's inherently more, like, there's no high speed, all the things that make air travel so much more inherently dangerous.

• 37:51Speaker 00

  Now disaster happens. And there's no decency, a moment of decency where anybody can hold back their comments or actually mourn for the loss of a life.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:04Speaker 00

  It's just an attack. So, yeah. God, I never thought I would want to be around during the Hindenburg, but now you're making me melancholy and nostalgic.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  Well, that's what we do here at Snafu.

• 38:14Speaker 00

  I didn't even know exactly what the Hindenburg was when we started this podcast. So, look how far I've already come.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  I know. This is the fun. You get to come on and learn something, maybe have a few chuckles, and I might tug at your heartstrings a little bit. Who knows?

• 38:32Speaker 01

  Here's the wild part. Despite the scale of this disaster, which was huge, out of the 97 people onboard the Hindenburg, only 35 were killed. That's 13 passengers and 22 crew members. Now, there was also, one of the ground workers also perished, which brings the total to 36. Now, this is obviously still very tragic, but honestly, it's astonishing, given that photo we just looked at, right?

• 38:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's pretty incredible, that many people survived. Wow, I would never have guessed that.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's totally incredible. So what actually happened? Why did it explode? The investigations that followed were murky. The US and Germany both had strong incentives not to take the blame. Germany pushed sabotage theories, quietly pointing to crew members. Others floated the idea that Hitler himself might have ordered it as a way to punish Hugo Eckner for being openly anti-Nazi. Most historians today agree there's no solid evidence for sabotage. No single cause was ever proven beyond doubt. The leading theory is that a static charge from the storm ignited a hydrogen leak somewhere in the zeppelin itself.

• 39:49Speaker 00

  Well, what was their reasoning for using the hydrogen rather than the helium? Because they didn't have access to the helium?

• 39:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, because we wouldn't give them any helium.

• 39:56Speaker 00

  Oh, okay, so it wasn't a secret that they used the hydrogen?

• 39:59Speaker 01

  No, no, no, they definitely chose to use the hydrogen and they, you know, they thought they had enough safety protocols in place. And to their credit, they had a lot of successful transatlantic flights with this thing.

• 40:14Speaker 00

  Right, okay.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  So they just thought they could manage the risk, and it turns out they couldn't. If you really, if you do some real deep dives on it, there are some really interesting theories on what might have caused the spark. All it would take is a spark. The prevailing theory is that it was a static charge from the storm. So in the 1960s, a former NASA scientist argued...

• 40:40Speaker 01

  That it may not have been the hydrogen at all, but in fact, the flammable outer coating, that idea has some merit, but most scientists are skeptical of that. However, it started, the result was that the Hindenburg permanently killed the dream of airship travel. And not because it was the first Zeppelin to burn, lots had gone up in flames before. Uh, this one was just too big and too hyped and too public. It was like such a massive thing. All of a sudden, the public is like, we ain't getting on those things anymore.

• 41:10Speaker 00

  Tell me this, if you have the answer to this, Ed. So in terms of flight and air travel, this was happening while planes were also starting to be built? Or regular planes, like, you know, what we know as jets? Or it was this a prelude to, to air travel?

• 41:27Speaker 01

  There's a lot of parallel development going on.

• 41:29Speaker 00

  Cause that would have been a totally different way to travel than what we're doing. I mean, I don't know how long it would have lasted before, you know, there was another incident or, but I mean, it's an airship we're talking about, and we're talking about a blimp. You know what I mean? Like it's a wholly, a whole different kind of, uh, air philosophy.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. And I, I still kind of hope that it comes back. I mean, there are some companies that are trying to develop modern airships. They do have certain advantages that are extremely efficient. They can be very effective in disaster recovery because they can deliver things very gently, uh, to, you know, horrible disaster areas or remote areas. I personally hope that it starts to become passenger travel again because I'm, I'm just so fucking psyched to ride a blimp. I don't know why.

• 42:16Speaker 00

  You are very passionate about it and I'm not disagreeing with you. It kinda sounds like, I just, I worry about the alacrity with which you can get there. You know what I mean? Yeah. Why would you, why would you opt for that when you can get somewhere in half the time?

• 42:30Speaker 01

  It's, it's the slowness is the point, right? Like that's, we were just talking about how, how long, we love long flights. To me, like, I don't know, two or three days to get to Hawaii or whatever. It's like, I'll take it. I'll just chill out.

• 42:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, that would be an interesting survey to see how many people would be willing to forego. People wanna go to Hawaii, right? They wanna go for seven days. They don't wanna go for three days. If it takes you three days there and three days back, or maybe you just use it on the outbound and then you take a regular plane on the way home. It's very retro.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. All right, so that's, that is essentially the Hindenburg story. It's an Icarus story. We flew too close to the sun and, and we just, we crashed and burned. Are there any modern comparisons? I, I weirdly think that AI is like our modern Hindenburg, right? It's, it's like this awe inspiring marvel. It's wildly hyped. It's insanely powerful, but maybe it's rolling out a little faster than anyone understands. And everyone's, everyone insisting that it's safe while it's quietly cutting corners.

• 43:33Speaker 00

  I think the general consensus around AI is that we know it's not safe. You know what I mean? There's a lot of upside and there's a lot of downside and no one has really, you know, obviously without any regulation, it's just going to be a shit show. But I would also say traveling to space is probably similar to this. Like all these flight travels that everyone wants to take to go to the moon. And I mean, I don't have any desire to go to the moon. Do you have a desire to land on the moon?

• 43:58Speaker 01

  I don't.

• 44:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  If it turns out that like big, comfortable, like space cruise ships are a thing in my lifetime, then like, that could be cool. I would love to be in zero gravity. That seems like, like a ton of fun.

• 44:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I like adventure. I like to bounce around. I just went to Antarctica. So that was, that was a really fun adventure.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Oh, that's so cool. Did you get on, on a ship or?

• 44:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, on a vessel. We crossed the Drake's Passage, which was another example of getting, taking three days to get somewhere. Yeah. It takes about three days to get, you have to pass 60 degrees latitude to get into Antarctica. And then, so you're there for like two and a half, three days, and then it's three days travel back and forth. And all I wanted to do was be in Antarctica. You know what I mean? I was like, is there another way to return? Because I don't really need to be on, on that ship crossing Drake's Passage for another three days.

• 44:50Speaker 01

  Which is, Drake's Passage is notorious. Supposed to be like a super rough crossing, was it?

• 44:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, turbulent for sure. I mean, people, and you're walking around the boat and you're, everyone's falling all over the place, holding on to the railings. You know, it's kind of a hot mess situation. And so anybody who has a weak stomach or gets seasick should not be taking that trip.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  Did you get sick?

• 45:10Speaker 00

  I did not. Well, no, not from the seasick mess.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  Oh, God. So there's another kind of trip that I feel like you're an expert in that I just am not, and I want to know more about. Will you sell me on microdosing hallucinogens?

• 45:25Speaker 00

  I just feel like, you know what, the best way to describe it is, we just took some LSD, me and my friends, when we went to these ice caves in Pemberton. And I would say the best way to describe it is, it puts an exclamation point on whatever experience you're having. So if you're outside, especially if you're in some sort of cool nature environment, we were in a glacier, in a cave underneath a glacier. So that was pretty cool. And it just kind of makes you really sit and appreciate whatever experience you're having. It adds a little giggle, too, to the situation, which is always welcome for me. I like to laugh and like to not be, you know, taking myself too seriously. But it's just an accentuation of life. And it kind of makes you have a little bit extra gratitude, which is one of the aspects that I don't think people talk about enough. It makes you really grateful

• 46:09Speaker 00

  to be exposed to the things that we're exposed to. Even if I go skiing for an afternoon with my girlfriends up here, you know, and if I take a microdose, it's like, I spend more time looking at the trees, looking at the view, looking at all the beauty that's surrounding me, rather than just, you know, kind of being in your head. You kind of, it gives you a release. So I feel like the whole world needs a microdose.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  I am very interested in this. Now, would you also advocate the occasional macrodose?

• 46:33Speaker 00

  I would, I would. It really depends on your personality and how much you can handle. But those years of me and the macrodosing, that was like years and years ago. Now I like just a little punch. Like, I like, I like a little, an MDMA, they do, everything's a microdose now. So you don't have to be scared to do it, you know? And also, I would like to say, you know, not everybody gets along so well with drugs. I do. We have a good working relationship. So I know what my limits are. I've done lots and lots of testing. So I know exactly what's going to work for me and what isn't. And in Canada, they have the cleanest drugs. So that's, so yeah, so I'm a big advocate of that. I think it helps a lot of people. And helps people, you know, in more serious ways than it's helping me. And I love sharing my drugs, too. I love giving them away. My whole tour

• 47:17Speaker 00

  is basically about me traveling around the world, handing out LSD to strangers.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  That's so great. You're just, you're like the, the little.

• 47:26Speaker 00

  I'm a Sherpa healer.

• 47:27Speaker 01

  You're the Pied Piper of microdosing.

• 47:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, I like to think of myself as a Sherpa. It's unexpected, you know, coming for me, but that's where I'm at in my life.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  I honestly, you're so transparent in everything that you think, feel and believe. And I, I think in many ways you are like an aspirational figure for a lot of people because of just how, just how much you, just how in touch you are with yourself. Um, which I think a lot of people are, but then you are also, uh, just an open book. And like, you don't hold back when it's when you've got something like difficult to say. And you also don't hold back when you have like these sort of joyful, fun expressions. And it's, it's awesome. So keep doing what you're doing.

• 48:17Speaker 00

  Thank you, Ed. I appreciate that. Thank you.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  So this tour coming up, very exciting news. Uh, I'm hoping to catch you on the road.

• 48:26Speaker 00

  I'm currently on the High and Mighty Tour, you guys. So you can get your tickets at chelseahandler.com. I will be coming to a city near you.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Amen. Well, thanks for being on Snafu. It was super fun to have you.

• 48:37Speaker 00

  Well, thanks for my learning lesson today. I mean, now I'm gonna go, this was such a nice way for me to start my day. I'm much more well informed about the Hindenburg than I was when I started this podcast.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I'm more informed about microdosing. So.

• 48:49Speaker 00

  Exactly. Okay. Well, there you have it.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  All right. Thanks, Chelsea.

• 48:53Speaker 00

  Okay. Thanks, Ed. Take care.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  Snafu is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Snafu Media, a partnership between Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company. Post-production and creative support from Good Egg Audio. Our executive producers are me, Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Glenn Bazner, Andy Kim, and Dylan Fagan. This episode was produced by Alyssa Martino and Tori Smith. Our managing producer is Carl Nellis. Our video editor is Jared Smith. Technical direction and engineering from Nick Dooley. Additional story editing from Carl Nellis. Our creative executive is Brett Harris. Logo and brand. ...by Matt Gosson and The Collected Words. Legal review from Dan Welsh, Megan Halson, and Caroline Johnson.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  Special thanks to Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn, Blaine Klein, and everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but especially Will Pearson, Carrie Lieberman, and Nikki Ator. While I have you, don't forget to pick up a copy of my book, Snafu: The Definitive Guide to History's Greatest Screwups. It's available now from any book retailer. Just go to snafu-book.com. Thanks for listening and see you next week.

• 50:15Speaker 04

  The scariest part of Halloween isn't the full moon or a chainsaw starting up in the distance, it's running out of Reese's cups. Because when you open the door to four princesses, six superheroes, and three Draculas all reaching for your Reese's cups, things can get scary fast. Especially when you were kind of counting on some leftovers. So this Halloween, buy extra. Because your neighbor Jeff dressed like a kangaroo? That's scary enough. Running out of Reese's cups doesn't need to be.

• 50:45Speaker 03

  Halloween's almost here, and I've got plans. My first stop is Total Wine & More for cold beer, ready-to-drink cocktails, and a bottle of wine to share, and I know I'm getting the lowest prices. Get the fun started at Total Wine & More. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly, be 21.

• 51:00Speaker 02

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.