Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I've read all three Air Disaster books, and in my opinion, this is the best one. With all of these books, the authors only include crashes that were caused by true accidents or "mistakes" made by people in the air industry; they do not include disasters based on terrorism or deliberate sabotage attempts.
In my opinion, the most tragic accidents are the ones outlined in chapters 3, 8, 9, 12, 15, 17 and 18. In chapter 8, you witness how a DC9 ran out of fuel and was forced to ditch into the sea - despite having the required fuel to the destination, enough fuel to get to the alternate airport, as well as 30 minutes holding fuel, plus an extra 10%. Extraordinary!
Chapter 12 tells of a flight crew that were so preoccupied with one of the three landing lights not lighting up (for the undercarriage) that none of them noticed that they had bumped the control-column and inadvertantly disengaged the autopilot. The plane crashed, killing over half on board, although afterwards it was discovered that the fimalment of the offending light bulb had simply burnt out and the landing gear was indeed in the down and locked position.
One of the most Catastrophic disasters, was when everyone aboard the Turkish Airline 767 lost their life because a cargo door fell off. In a rare description of the aftermath, another pilot reported on the scene, "There were fragments of bodies and pieces of flesh everywhere that were hardly recognisable. Not far from where I stood were two hands clasping each other, a man's hand tightly holding a woman's hand, two hands that withstood disintegration..."
Finally, the last chapter tells the horrific yet mesmerising story behind the events of the worlds biggest Air Disaster at Tenerife in 1977 involving two 747's (PanAm. and KLM). Ironically, this occurred while both aircraft were still on the ground. I won't go into the details, because it is just waaay to complex (ultimately it was caused by perhaps ten or so "incidents" - and if the outcome had have been different for any one of them, the whole thing would have been averted). Let's just say that the series of events that lead to the tragedy is just astonishing. In reality, it is always a string of highly improbable events that leads to a catastrophe of this magnitude. Ultimately, the death toll rose to 583 - to this day it remains the worst accidental disaster involving one or more aircraft.
Unlikely as it may seem, this book has made me realise how safe air travel is - what I mean is that now I can at least understand how the accidents happened, and therefore how unlikely they are to occur.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Air Disaster (Vol. 1)
Air Disaster 1 looks at the major aviation disasters of thejet age covering 1952 to 1977, from the early Comet, 707, Caravelle andTrident days through to the era of the widebody long range jetliner. Each chapter on each accident is a highly involved detective story initself, one the reader lives through as if you were intimately involvedwith the outcome. Air Disaster 1 begins with the incredible story of the Comet mysterieswhere aeronautical engineers learnt that metal structures andpressurisation were indeed a new art, and follows on to investigate theTriStar which descended into the Everglades at night while its crewfumbled about on the cockpit floor, the early problems with the DC-10'scargo door, and the horrific 747 collision at Tenerife. Some others may come as a surprise - the fate that awaited the Caravellewhose crew used its engines to clear fog from the runway for takeoff, andthe DC-9 caught in the wake turbulence of a DC-10. Each of the 18 accidents has been carefully selected to present adifferent facet of the problems facing the jet age, together with theanswers that were found to them - different, rarely straightforward anduncovered only as a result of lengthy, dedicated, and painstakinginvestigation. Of 186 pages, Air Disaster Vol 1 makes compelling reading and is backed upwith the excellent descriptive artwork, diagrams and maps of MatthewTesch.
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