On January 3, 1938, the German passenger airship LZ 129 Hindenburg caught fire while attempting to dock at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey. The disaster occurred late in the afternoon and was captured in widely circulated photographs and newsreel footage. Contemporary reports gave varying figures for fatalities and survivors, and subsequent accounts sometimes repeated rounded or context-dependent totals without always specifying the counting methodology. Recent archival review by historians and researchers has prompted a clarification of the casualty figures associated with the Hindenburg disaster. The widely quoted number of 36 deaths commonly refers to the aggregate of both passengers and crew who died as a direct result of the fire and its immediate aftermath. That figure—36—remains supported by primary-source passenger manifests, crew lists, contemporary casualty reports, and subsequent official summaries. It comprises 13 passengers and 22 crew members who perished, plus one ground crew member killed on the mooring field. Survivors totaled 62 people on board (36 crew and 26 passengers), most of whom escaped with varying injuries; several ground personnel were also injured. Where confusion has arisen is in secondary reporting that at times omits or double-counts certain categories—such as excluding ground fatalities, conflating the number of people on board with those who survived, or citing totals that combine dead and seriously injured. Some later references rounded the death toll to “about 36” or reported different sub-totals (for example, listing 35 or 34 deaths) based on incomplete or damaged records, early newswire dispatches, or typographical errors in secondary sources. The recent reassessment did not produce a new count that contradicts the established total of 36 deaths; rather, it clarified which victims are included in that number and corrected a small number of persistent misstatements in popular accounts. Researchers cross-checked passenger and crew lists against hospital, morgue, and cemetery records, as well as contemporary newspaper accounts and the official investigation files, to confirm identities and causes of death where records allowed. The review also emphasized that some early medical reports were provisional and later amended, which explains discrepancies in some contemporaneous reporting. Beyond the numerical clarification, historians note the broader human and technological context: the Hindenburg disaster effectively ended the era of transatlantic passenger airships and had a lasting impact on public perceptions of aviation safety. The dramatic imagery and radio commentary of the event reinforced its place in public memory, sometimes at the expense of precision in later retellings. Limitations remain. While passenger and crew lists are well documented, some administrative records from 1938 are incomplete or were transcribed with errors over decades of retelling. The reassessment therefore emphasizes transparency about sources and counts: the figure of 36 deaths corresponds to the best-supported tally of those who died as a direct result of the disaster, including one ground fatality, and should be treated as the authoritative figure unless new primary-source evidence emerges. This clarification aims to correct minor discrepancies in public accounts and to encourage precise sourcing when commemorating the victims. It does not change the essential facts of the tragedy—the rapid conflagration, the loss of life, the dramatic images that circulated worldwide, or the disaster’s profound effect on the future of lighter-than-air travel. Sources consulted in the reassessment include the Hindenburg’s passenger and crew manifests, contemporary newspaper archives, U.S. Navy and Coast Guard records related to the Lakehurst landing, hospital and morgue documentation where accessible, and scholarly histories of the airship era. Where records remain uncertain or contested, historians note those uncertainties rather than present speculation as fact.