Werner Doehner was eight years old when he boarded the zeppelin with his parents and older siblings after their vacation to Germany in 1937.
The 88-year-old now living in Parachute, Colorado, tells The Associated Press that the airship pitched as it tried to land in New Jersey and that “suddenly the air was on fire.”
His mother threw Doehner and his brother out of a window, but his sister was too heavy. She perished, along with his father. Doehner spent nearly eight months in hospitals for treatment of his burns.
A ceremony commemorating the disaster will take place at the crash site on Saturday night.
