Cool new footage shows the Hindenburg disaster in bright colors 83 years after it exploded in mid-air and caused 63 cases near New Jersey.
More than 80 years after the Hindenburg disaster became one of the world’s most notorious aircraft failures, the group used AI to refine and add color to the original news coverage that captured the accident.
Neural Networks and Deep Learning first shared the retouched footage on their YouTube channel, as well as their Instagram and Patreon page, in February.
They used Gigapixel AI, a standalone app that uses artificial intelligence to enhance images, and DeOldify, an open-source artificial intelligence tool for image enhancement.
In the video, the 804-foot-long zeppelin traveled nearly 4,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean from Frankfurt, Germany, to the United States on May 3, 1937.
The colossal airship, which had completed 63 successful flights, cruised over New York City with relative ease as it prepared to land at its anchor mass at Lakehurst Naval Station in New Jersey.
The LZ-129 Hindenburg (pictured) traveled from Frankfurt, Germany, with nearly 100 people on board to Lakehurst Naval Station in New Jersey in May 1937.
Pictured: A side-by-side photo comparison showed how the shots were altered by neural networks and deep learning to add stunning color to 83-year-old shots.
As Hindenburg was preparing to land at Naval Station Lakehurst in New Jersey, the balloon exploded in flames and fell 200 feet from the sky.
Suddenly, however, Hindenburg erupted into a terrifying inferno that swept through the hot air balloon in blazing flames and billowing dark smoke.
The huge airship fell 200 feet from the sky on the grassy fields below.
The color footage captured the sheer ferocity of the crash as the fire crept along the exterior of Hindenburg, burning him to his bones. Hindenburg finally collapsed from heavy damage.
Radio journalist Herb Morrison arrived to report the Hindenburg landing, but when Hindenburg caught fire, he said out loud: “Oh, humanity!”
The color footage captured the sheer ferocity of the crash as the flames crawled along the outside of the Hindenburg, burning it to its bones.
Hindenburg finally collapsed in self after Hell burned through much of its outer shell and inside the balloon.
Pictured: Images developed from Neural Networks and Deep Learning show the Hindenburg disaster in shocking detail and color more than 80 years after its crash in New Jersey
The US Commerce Department determined that the accident was caused by a hydrogen leak that kept the balloon aloft. It got mixed in with the air, causing a fire
Firefighters and emergency crews approached the “hot white twisted” steel as they attempted to rescue 36 passengers and 61 crew members.
History.com reported that 13 passengers, 21 crew members, and one civilian died that day as a result of the crash.
Many survivors suffered severe injuries from the accident and had to undergo additional medical treatment for several months afterward.
Just last year, the last survivor of the Hindenburg disaster died at the age of 90.
Werner Gustav Donner died in Laconia, New Hampshire in November, more than eight decades after the German airship was set ablaze and destroyed while it was docked at Lakehurst.
Doener, who was only eight years old at the time of the accident, was on the airship with his parents, older brother and sister.
“He didn’t talk about it,” his son Bernie Donner told The Associated Press on Friday, adding that his father took him to visit the naval station years later, but not the Hindenburg memorial itself.
At the time of its completion in 1936, the LZ 129 Hindenburg was the largest aircraft ever built, and was a source of pride for the German Third Reich.
It was definitely a repressed memory. He lost his sister, he lost his father.
In 2017, Doehner gave a rare interview to the Associated Press, recalling the moment when flames began to flash at the top of an airship, as hydrogen caused Hell.
A total of 13 passengers, 21 crew members, and one civilian died that day as a result of the plane crash on May 3, 1937, at Lakehurst Naval Air Force Base in New Jersey.
Dohner: “ I remember lying on the floor, and my brother told me to stand up and get off there, ” he remembers. Their mother joined them and asked the agent to take her daughter who was carrying her from the burning debris’
Werner Gustav Donner was the last surviving traveler from the Hindenburg disaster before his death in November 2019. Pictured: Firefighting crews and eyewitnesses watch in Hindenburg on fire
Pictured: Side-by-side comparison of photos shows Hindenburg flying over New York City on its way to New Jersey in May 1937.
Donner recalls: “ Suddenly, the air was on fire.
We were close to the window, and my mother took my brother and kicked him out. She grabbed me and fell back and then kicked me out.
I tried to get my sister, but she was too heavy, and my mom decided to go out by the time the balloon was almost on the ground.
Donner added, “I remember being on the ground, and my brother told me to stand up and get out of there,” he remembers. Their mother joined them and asked a stewardess to take her daughter, who carried her from the burning debris.
He will stay in the hospital for three months before going to another facility in New York City in August for a skin graft.
Pictured: The moment a fire burns in Hindenburg and crashes in New Jersey in 1937
The US Commerce Department determined that the accident was caused by a hydrogen leak that kept the balloon aloft. It got mixed in with the air, causing a fire.
“The theory that a brush discharge ignited such a mixture seems more likely,” the ministry report said.
Doehner and his family – who were German citizens – were on their way to Mexico City, where his father was a pharmaceutical executive. Funerals for his father and sister were held there.
Dohner was born in Darmstadt, Germany and raised in Mexico City. In 1984, he moved to the United States to work for General Electric as an electrical engineer, according to his obituary. He also worked in Ecuador and Mexico. He retired from the New England Electric System in Westboro, Massachusetts, in 1999.
He moved to Parachute, Colorado in 2001. He and his wife, Elaine, aged 52, moved to Laconia in May 2018.
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