Researchers say they know how the Hindenburg airship came to its fiery end: static electricity.

Seventy-six years ago, the German dirigible was promoted as the future of trans-Atlantic flight, but instead it became the notorious poster child of air disasters.

As the hydrogen-filled blimp was landing in Lakehurst, N.J., on May 6, 1937, it suddenly burst into flames and crashed in front of shocked bystanders, killing 35 of the 100 passengers crew on board—and putting an end to the short-lived air travel program.

Now scientists who have been studying the circumstances that led to the Hindenburg’s end say they know what happened.

The Independent, in an article about a documentary on the Hindenburg airing on Britain's Channel 4 on Thursday, explains that Jem Stansfield, a British aeronautical engineer who led a team of researchers at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, blew up and set fire to models of the dirigible to rule out possibilities including a bomb and exploding paint.

They Independent reports that the actual chain of events, discovered by the scientists, unfolded as follows: