THIS EXPANDED SECOND EDITION Now has 85 accounts, some short, some long, with hard-hitting analyses, ranging from the disappearance of Amelia Earhart to that of Malaysian Airlines MH370, not forgetting the imbroglio of Air France AF447. As before, each chapter covers a specific type of incident in chronological order. Many books in one.

A classic combining several types of aviation disaster book in one. Vividly retells incidents that made headlines at the time, while explaining why they happened and the lessons they provided to make air travel so safe today. Individuals covered include Germany's World War I fighter ace, the Red Baron, aviatrix Amelia Earhart, and Captain Piche who ran out of fuel and managed to glide 80 miles to plunge down safely on a mid-Atlantic island. Includes the Comet disasters that revealed the dangers of metal fatigue, the U.K.'s Kegworth air disaster where the pilots shut down the good engine, the worst-ever aircraft disasters (Tenerife and JL123), the mid-air collision between an airliner full of children and a freighter after which one of the fathers killed the air traffic controller he thought responsible, the supersonic Concorde, 9/11, AA587, the Hudson River ditching, and the mysterious loss of Air France AF447... To avoid repetition, explanations of technical terms and procedures were placed in an appendix, now published separately as "THE FLYING DICTIONARY." Makes the narratives even more interesting and a fascinating read in its own right.

An incredible 30,000 flights – at least – arrive safely at their destinations every day. But a handful don’t, while some come terrifyingly close to crashing. When even the smallest thing does go wrong at 35,000 feet, the result is nearly always a fast-unfolding tragedy. This extensive collection of compelling real-life accounts of air disasters and near-disasters provides a sobering, alternative history of the just over 105 years that passengers have been travelling by air, from the very earliest fatality to recent calamities. But there are incredible stories of heroism against the odds, too, such as that of Captain Chesley Sullenberger who successfully landed his aircraft with both engines gone on the Hudson River in New York, saving the lives of everyone aboard, and of the American Airlines crew who prevented terrorist Richard Reid from exploding a bomb hidden in his shoe three months after 9/11. The book also details the often ingenious, always painstaking work done by air-accident investigators, while a glossary helps to clarify the occasional, inevitable bits of jargon.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface -- 1 Takeoff! -- 2 Takeoff (Never Mind!) -- 3 Controlling the Plane -- 4 Vanished! -- 5 Practice Makes Perfect -- 6 Turbulence -- 7 The 168-Ton Glider -- 8 Approach -- 9 Landing -- Epilogue -- Notes -- References -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y

A former aircraft engineer exposes the dangerous breakdown in airline safety due to lapses in maintenance and quality control. This book chronicles maintenance-related accidents –including the recent Boeing 737 MAX accidents –caused by individual, corporate, or governmental negligence and brings the industry's current state of affairs into sharp focus.The author, a former aviation engineer specializing in aircraft fault diagnosis and maintenance planning, examines how failures of the smallest of parts have brought down airliners, explaining sometimes esoteric mechanical issues for readers with no technical background. Vividly describing the terror of accidents and close calls, the author then follows the painstaking investigations to determine causes. He focuses on maintenance errors, which rank as one of the top three causes of airline accidents, and points to the factors that have led to an alarming situation-- continued reduction of licensed mechanics, the shutting down of maintenance bases in the United States, and the outsourcing of maintenance to lowballing contractors. Outsourcing has forced thousands of licensed mechanics into retirement or different careers. For those mechanics still employed in the United States, the ever-present threat to their jobs does nothing to cultivate loyalty to an employer and devotion to a task. The Federal Aviation Administration, which should be overseeing quality control, is caught in a conflicted dual role--charged with regulating safety on the one hand and assuring the fiscal stability of airlines on the other. This disturbing wakeup call for improved airline safety standards highlights the critical importance of attention to detail. Porter recommends that the numbers and job security of airline mechanics be increased and that they be vested with an authority level akin to medical professionals.

A fascinating exploration of how humans and machines fail - leading to air disasters from Amelia Earhart to MH370 - and how the lessons learned from these accidents have made flying safer. In The Crash Detectives, veteran aviation journalist and air safety investigator Christine Negroni takes the reader inside crash investigations from the early days of the jet age to the present, including the search for answers about what happened to the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. As Negroni dissects each accident, she explores the common themes and, most importantly, what has been learned from them to make planes safer. Indeed, as Negroni shows, virtually every aspect of modern pilot training, airline operation and aircraft design has been shaped by lessons learned from disaster. Along the way, she also details some miraculous saves, when quick-thinking pilots averted catastrophe and kept hundreds of people alive. Tying in aviation science, performance psychology and extensive interviews with pilots, engineers, human factors specialists, crash survivors and others involved in accidents all over the world, The Crash Detectives is an alternately terrifying and inspiring book that might just cure your fear of flying, and will definitely make you a more informed passenger.

“Surviving is a true blessing that few get to experience.” Being strapped in the seat of a plane as it plunges into a nosedive midair is everyone’s worst nightmare. Bracing for Impact’s compilers and contributors know. They have both lived out that fear and survived, albeit badly hurt, in their own plane crashes. In this collection of true-life survivor tales, people from all walks of life—a freelance writer, a crew member of the Lynyrd Skynyrd band, a naval flight surgeon, a teenager, and a newlywed on her honeymoon, among others—recount their traumatic narrow escapes as engines stalled, fuel ran out, hazardous weather conditions descended, and landings did not go according to plan. In the face of death, as life flashed before their eyes—or not, as some wryly note—these survivors encountered the terrific split of before and after the crash. Their lives, though preserved, would change forever. Perhaps more significant than the crash itself is how each story plays out in the aftermath of the ordeal. In heart-wrenching, unrelenting honesty, these stories explore the wide spectrum of impacts on survivors—ranging from debilitating fear, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance abuse, to a renewed sense of urgency, where survivors swear to live each day to the fullest and rededicate their lives to helping others. Including the 1977 story of the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash that killed lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, and vocalist Cassie Gaines, Bracing for Impact is as much a horrific account of air disasters as it is a celebration and recognition of the people who survived them. Fans of the 2016 Clint Eastwood film Sully starring Tom Hanks will enjoy this edge-of-your-seat read!

The investigation and modelling of aviation accident causation is dominated by linear models. Aviation is, however, a complex system and as such suffers from being artificially manipulated into non-complex models and methods. This book addresses this issue by developing a new approach to investigating aviation accident causation through information networks. These networks centralise communication and the flow of information as key indicators of a system’s health and risk. This holistic approach focuses on the system environment, the activity that takes place within it, the strategies used to conduct this activity, the way in which the constituent parts of the system (both human and non-human) interact and the behaviour required. Each stage of this book identifies and expands upon the potential of the information network approach, maintaining firm focus on the overall health of a system. The book’s new model offers many potential developments and some key areas are studied in this research. Through the centralisation of barriers and information nodes the method can be applied to almost any situation. The application of Bayesian mathematics to historical data populations provides scope for studying error migration and barrier manipulation. The book also provides application of these predictions to a flight simulator study for the purposes of validation. Beyond this it also discusses the applicability of the approach to industry. Through working with a legacy airline the methods discussed are used as the basis for a new and prospective safety management system.

Jet airliner operations in the United States began in 1958, bringing, it was thought, a new era of fast, high, safe, smooth, sophisticated travel. But almost immediately, the new aircraft were involved in incidents and accidents that showed jets created new problems even as they solved old ones. This book discusses five disasters or near-disasters of the early Jet Age, experiences which shook the industry, regulators and public out of early complacency and helped build a more realistic foundation for safer air transportation. Special attention is paid to the 1966 destruction of Braniff International Airways Flight 250 in Nebraska. Nearly two years of inquiry helped advance the understanding of jet operations in severe weather and saw the first use of cockpit voice recorder technology in an aviation accident investigation. In addition, a University of Chicago professor, Dr. Tetsuya "Ted" Fujita, conducted a more intensive investigation of the weather system which downed Flight 250. Dr. Fujita's already extensive knowledge of thunderstorms and tornadoes led to his creation of the Fujita Scale of Tornado Intensity, the F-scale that we hear about so frequently during storm season.

Twenty-five years after the catastrophe, a dramatic and extraordinarily rare 360-degree view of the crash of a fully loaded jumbo jet.