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Unheeded Warning: The Inside Story of American Eagle Flight 4184
Was the 1994 crash of the American Eagle flight 4184 the inevitable result of an appalling lack of concern among government and airline officials? This account, by a key player in the subsequent FAA-ordered grounding of all ATR-72 aircraft, probes every aspect of the disaster. The author weaves together technical information culled from aircraft performance experts; FAA, NTSB, AARS, and ALPA findings; the airline and aircraft manufacturer; accident recovery reports; and personal interviews with the victims' families and associates.
Hardcover
First published April 1, 1996
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April 15, 2012
This is not really a book about Flight 4184 so much as it is a book about the lax safety and regulatory culture that surrounded the crash. Fredrick really did his homework here, even going as far back as the plane's initial testing in the 1980's (which also showed icing problems) and early, ice-related crashes of the ATR in Europe that were swept under the rug before the plane was marketed in America. The complacency of the FAA in these arrangements is pretty damning. The problem is that Fredrick's research is obsessive and dully presented, in a way that becomes tedious for all but the very patient.
This book was also written by a non-writer, and it shows. There's a lot of really good information here, but it's presented unevenly and with bad editing throughout. Some sections, especially those dealing with the people who died in the crash of Flight 4184, are trying way too hard to be emotional and come off as too "Lifetime". Others, such as any discussion of Fredrick flying a plane, devolve into "pilot's jargon" way too quickly, leaving whole pages unintelligible to the layperson. It's as though Frederick learned to write from the sensationalistic popular magazines of the early 90's (which is likely), and filled in the rest with his professional knowledge without thinking to make those portions intelligible to the layperson.
The biggest problem with this book now is that it's no longer necessary - the negative publicity from media coverage of the ATR in ice (including this book) forced the FAA to finally ban the aircraft from operating in icing conditions. Only a few are still operated in the United States at all, and then only on warm-weather routes in Florida and the Bahamas. This book is still excellent reading for aviation safety historians, who probably comprise the book's only audience at this point. Just expect to wade through a lot of irrelevant details and trite nineties "dramatic" writing to get to the information you need. While I give Fredrick a lot of credit for writing this at the time, it's really not a book that's still necessary today, unless you're doing large-scale research on the history of bad decisions made by commercial airlines.
This book was also written by a non-writer, and it shows. There's a lot of really good information here, but it's presented unevenly and with bad editing throughout. Some sections, especially those dealing with the people who died in the crash of Flight 4184, are trying way too hard to be emotional and come off as too "Lifetime". Others, such as any discussion of Fredrick flying a plane, devolve into "pilot's jargon" way too quickly, leaving whole pages unintelligible to the layperson. It's as though Frederick learned to write from the sensationalistic popular magazines of the early 90's (which is likely), and filled in the rest with his professional knowledge without thinking to make those portions intelligible to the layperson.
The biggest problem with this book now is that it's no longer necessary - the negative publicity from media coverage of the ATR in ice (including this book) forced the FAA to finally ban the aircraft from operating in icing conditions. Only a few are still operated in the United States at all, and then only on warm-weather routes in Florida and the Bahamas. This book is still excellent reading for aviation safety historians, who probably comprise the book's only audience at this point. Just expect to wade through a lot of irrelevant details and trite nineties "dramatic" writing to get to the information you need. While I give Fredrick a lot of credit for writing this at the time, it's really not a book that's still necessary today, unless you're doing large-scale research on the history of bad decisions made by commercial airlines.
Displaying 1 of 1 review