Rating: 
Summary: An excellent look at some major accidents
Review: I found this book very easy to read. Each accident was covered with great detail. The use of drawings to show the accident as it occured left little to the imagination. The written accounts were very accurate. I compared one accident covered in the book with the actual NTSB report and found them to be almost identical. The only difference is this book is easier to read than the NTSB report. If you are interested in aviation accidents, this book (and volume 2) is for you. It's about as close as you want to come to being in an Air Disaster!!!
Rating:
Summary: WELL worth the money!
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: The why's and how's for history's sake
Review: I've read the Vol.1 and it's an incredible wealth of knowledge it leaves you with about why these accidents happen. Mr. Job's attention to detail is painstaking and done with no stone unturned; but what really grabs you
is Matthew Tesh's pre-accident sketches with the dateline;
you're given those final seconds to take in what's to happen and even so you already know the outcome and from there, you understand the lives of those human beings are about change or end. One the crashes that got me was the BOAC
707 that crashed in 1966 into Mt. Fuji; the fact the place passed over the crash site of a DC-8 and would crash
moments later with pictures before it's crash and afterwards is so sobering. For history's sake, the accidents
are part of aviation and about lessons learned and books
(vol 1,2,3) are reminders in how not to repeat them. This
book and the others are great references for these accidents and also aviation history.
Rating:
Summary: The why's and how's for history's sake
Review: I've read the Vol.1 and it's an incredible wealth of knowledge it leaves you with about why these accidents happen. Mr. Job's attention to detail is painstaking and done with no stone unturned; but what really grabs you
is Matthew Tesh's pre-accident sketches with the dateline;
you're given those final seconds to take in what's to happen and even so you already know the outcome and from there, you understand the lives of those human beings are about change or end. One the crashes that got me was the BOAC
707 that crashed in 1966 into Mt. Fuji; the fact the place passed over the crash site of a DC-8 and would crash
moments later with pictures before it's crash and afterwards is so sobering. For history's sake, the accidents
are part of aviation and about lessons learned and books
(vol 1,2,3) are reminders in how not to repeat them. This
book and the others are great references for these accidents and also aviation history.
Rating:
Summary: An amendment to my previous review
Review: In my previous review I listed as one of the very few and minor faults of the superb series as being - "Volume 4 has the accidents in chronological order whereas Vols 1-3, for some reason, do not." A second reading of the chapter listings revealed this to be erroneous. The year sequence for Vols 1-3 are as follows with each Vol being in chronological order - Vol 1 1954-1977
Vol 2 1977-1991
Vol 3 1988-1998 My apologies to both the author and the publisher.
Rating:
Summary: An amendment to my previous review
Review: In my previous review I listed as one of the very few and minor faults of the superb series as being - "Volume 4 has the accidents in chronological order whereas Vols 1-3, for some reason, do not." A second reading of the chapter listings revealed this to be erroneous. The year sequence for Vols 1-3 are as follows with each Vol being in chronological order - Vol 1 1954-1977
Vol 2 1977-1991
Vol 3 1988-1998 My apologies to both the author and the publisher.
Rating:
Summary: Understanding 1
Review: Macarther Job introduces us to a format of explaining and understanding air distasters par excellence. If you are looking for gratuitous pictures you will be dissapointed. This is a book for those who wish to understand the reasons behind these incidents and the results of. Job takes us to the start of jet travel and the De Havilland Comet disasters of the 1950s when the UK nearly had the world's jet travel for the taking. Pilot error is also included as human factors in this then new tecnology also played it's part. This would be in evidence when the greatest disaster of all is covered by Job, the KLM/Pan Am disaster in Teneriff. The Douglas DC10 makes it's appearance and through Job explains that it is not the aircraft's fault for it's failings but man's failing to understand the technology that has been provided at the time. We all learn from our mistakes and sometimes the lessons needed over-awe us in their consequences.
Rating:
Summary: Understanding 1
Review: Macarther Job introduces us to a format of explaining and understanding air distasters par excellence. If you are looking for gratuitous pictures you will be dissapointed. This is a book for those who wish to understand the reasons behind these incidents and the results of. Job takes us to the start of jet travel and the De Havilland Comet disasters of the 1950s when the UK nearly had the world's jet travel for the taking. Pilot error is also included as human factors in this then new tecnology also played it's part. This would be in evidence when the greatest disaster of all is covered by Job, the KLM/Pan Am disaster in Teneriff. The Douglas DC10 makes it's appearance and through Job explains that it is not the aircraft's fault for it's failings but man's failing to understand the technology that has been provided at the time. We all learn from our mistakes and sometimes the lessons needed over-awe us in their consequences.
Rating:
Summary: An amazing wealth of detail
Review: The entire series is a fairly easy read, and introduces the inexperienced to some of the identified causes of well-known - or in the case of this volume, some not-so-well-known - accidents. These books give a wonderfully even-handed, unbiased review of accidents, using all the evidence available. The stories are then woven with narrative, with actual dialogue where available, that really brings to life how things go wrong and how professional most airline staff are. If you find what the NTSB does fascinating, are interested in aerospace, mechanical or structural engineering, these books are required reading. But they're also great for the rest of us, who just want to know more about what goes wrong sometimes.
Rating: 
Summary: Whoop! Whoop! Pull UP!
Review: These books are truly for the plane crash obsessed, which I happen to be. Next time you fly, make sure you keep an ear open for weird noises or a lack thereof. Also, maybe give a shout out to a flight attendant if you notice a parked plane on the runway as your fight is taking off. Just keeping my eyes open for you all. That's what I do. I'm a giver.
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