Comment by maxbond

For sure, in my mind a deflagration is a type of explosion, but I certainly don't mean to quibble about terms or to litigate this video more than is interesting to you.

I guess for me, I don't know whether it was hydrogen leaking around the rear or thermite in the paint which caused the ignition, and I don't know whether a helium airship would've also caught fire and how disastrous such a fire would've been. But I do know that what happened next was that the hydrogen ignited and the ship blew up.

That being said I think airships are a criminally under explored mode of transit, and that the Hindenburg shouldn't be a reason to abandon it altogether. At a minimum we're much more experienced in handling hydrogen now, and modern hydrogen blimps don't seem to blow up all that often.