A Goodyear blimp burst into flames and plunged to earth in a weekend crash in Germany.

The pilot was killed but three passengers managed to jump to safety when the airship caught fire as it was coming in to land at the Reichelsheim aerodrome near Friedberg.

When the airship was just six metres from the floor, the pilot told his passengers, all journalists, to jump to the ground while he tried to land safely.

Once the three had leapt clear of the blimp he took it back up before being it became overwhelmed by flames and crashed to the earth, in a chilling echo of the Hindenburg disaster.

Images and video at source. There was just too much copyrighted material to justify posting it all here, so I just included the opening lines and a link.