About a week ago, we warned about the infamous bearish stock market pattern developing in US equities coined by some as the ‘Hindenburg Omen’. The pattern is known for its bearish tendencies developed after the Hindenburg disaster of 1937. The key understanding is breadth deterioration, when more stocks hit 52-week lows than 52-highs. Since the warning, a liquidity gap has developed in stocks thwarting any attempt at new all time highs.
Fast forward to this morning and a very ironic situation has unfolded in the skies 50-miles north of London. And no – it’s not a giant penis drawn by US-Navy pilots in F-18s - it’s a true ‘Hindenburg Omen’ as the world’s longest airship crashed early this morning. The £25m airship called ‘Airlander 10’ appeared to “break in two,” a witness told the BBC. Reports suggest the airship broke free from mooring less than 24-hours after a successful test. At the time, no-one was on board of the aircraft, but Bedfordshire police, paramedics and fire crews were alerted and treated a women who suffered minor injuries.
According to the Guardian,
The roads around the airfield were closed amid concerns that aviation fuel and helium could escape from the airship. However, police said they believed the helium would soon dissipate.
Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), the company that developed the airship confirmed there had been an incident. It said the craft was not on a flight at the time and had since been deflated.
An investigation has been launched to find out what happened.
Local residents took to social media and snapped shocking pictures of the crashed airship appearing to be more deflated than Tom Brady’s footballs.
#Airlander has died ????anyone know what happened? pic.twitter.com/0kYdWKHRkr
— Mark Jefferies (@airdisplays) November 18, 2017
Another concerned resident indicated ground crews rushed to slice open the aircraft to release helium after the crash.
Nobody's laughing as #Airlander blows over and techs rush to cut it open to release helium. pic.twitter.com/pxYdG5igvN
— Annabel Ossel (@AnnabelOssel) November 18, 2017
Airship community is in tears this morning...
.@STEMAirlander We are very sorry to see this wonderful aircraft looking so sad this morning. Lots of people feeling gutted. #STEM #avgeeks #bedfordshire #cardington #Airlander pic.twitter.com/AzT7pvO52F
— Sci-Hi Education (@SciHiEd) November 18, 2017
The Airlander 10 is/was the world’s largest aircraft produced by Hybrid Air Vehicles. The airship is classified as a helium airship powered by four diesel engines driving large propellers on each side of the craft. Hybrid Air Vehicles originally built this aircraft for the United States Army’s Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) program in 2012, but was cancelled one-year later.
To give perspective of the Airlander’s size, a Boeing 747 can pretty much fit inside the craft.
Perhaps the United States Army made the right decision in 2013, as it appears the Airlander 10 has many kinks that still need to be worked out. In late 2016, the Airlander 10 had a slow motion crash during a landing approach where damage to the cockpit was heavily sustained, but the crew of two was untouched.
Bottomline: Back to back ‘Hidenburg Omens’ for US-stocks and now the largest aircraft in the world crashing this morning is an ominous sign and we hope it’s not a redux of 1937 where markets crashed in excessive around 50%.