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Air Disasters:Dramatic Black Box Flight Recordings
Compelling and dramatic insights into crucial moments inside the cockpit. Discover the most sensational air disasters of recent years. Transcripts of actual black box recordings of conversations between captains, their crew, and air traffic control on the ground reveal the final moments during which life-and-death decisions were made. In some cases, disaster is averted; in others, the results are fatal. Every one of these real-life stories contains heroism and terror, and shows the sheer professionalism of those involved when under extreme pressure. They enable the reader to get right inside the cockpit and relive what happened, minute-by-minute, second-by-second.
- GenresNonfictionAviation
291 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
4 people are currently reading
41 people want to read
About the author
Malcolm MacPherson
34 books17 followersMalcolm Cook MacPherson was an American national and foreign correspondent for Newsweek magazine and the author of numerous fiction and nonfiction books.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 16, 2017
A bit of a disappointment. I am interested in the subject of air disasters and forensic investigations, and the specific key point of the book - using transcripts from cockpit audio recordings - was an intriguing one with plenty of appeal and potential insights.
It just didn't quite work though. I felt there was too little information putting each of the featured disasters in context and often too little explanation of key aspects of the recorded cockpit conversations being presented. This meant I failed to properly understand all that was going on or relate possibly very important aspects of what I had read to the disasters taking place. Because so much trivial chatter was mixed in with so much (important but often not understood by me) aircraft jargon, the overall effect was that the author seemed to have just included all the transcripts he could get his hands on - when concentrating on half as many on twice the detail would have made for a more informative and illustrative book.
It just didn't quite work though. I felt there was too little information putting each of the featured disasters in context and often too little explanation of key aspects of the recorded cockpit conversations being presented. This meant I failed to properly understand all that was going on or relate possibly very important aspects of what I had read to the disasters taking place. Because so much trivial chatter was mixed in with so much (important but often not understood by me) aircraft jargon, the overall effect was that the author seemed to have just included all the transcripts he could get his hands on - when concentrating on half as many on twice the detail would have made for a more informative and illustrative book.
August 9, 2011
An exciting and heartbreaking read. A great introduction by the author sets the tone for a very informative book. Great description and explanation allowing for the lay-person to read this and not find it too much of a struggle. What would of made it perfect would have been some sketches or diagrams to show the position of the plane. Angles, altitudes and speed are all mentioned but it is hard to imagine the actual position of the plane during the emergency on upon landing. Nose down, leaning to one side or the other and to which degree would have been easier to see in a sketch. Its sometimes tough to read the crew talking casually to each other about day to day life, their families and a few jokes between colleagues all the while knowing that something bad is coming. Definitely an interesting quick read.
May 7, 2014
This book promised to be interesting, but alas didn't live up to that. There were a few gripping recordings, which showed cockpit crews struggling to prevent disaster, but most involved accidents that happened so quickly it was difficult to see what useful information the recordings could contain.
Also detracting from the book were the large number of typos, I'm not sure if that was just the edition I had, but the copy-editor fell down on the job there!
Still, I did find a few of the chapters very interesting, so this book gets 3 stars from me.
Also detracting from the book were the large number of typos, I'm not sure if that was just the edition I had, but the copy-editor fell down on the job there!
Still, I did find a few of the chapters very interesting, so this book gets 3 stars from me.
February 9, 2012
Far too technical for me and I lost all interest quickly and gave up!
February 11, 2018
Right from the beginning of this book, I didn't have high hopes for it. The back of the book makes it sound rather good, and I was anticipating an easily three-star book, but nope. I feel like one star was generous. This book was bad, how some people rated it five stars is beyond me.
The main problem with this book was that the transcripts, not only were they not focused on the disaster area so you had to read sections of unnecessary dialogue from people in the cockpit, but it was overly technical. I will admit that the author used [ ] and wrote what the non-technical term was, but it was such a heavy load of information that my brain was struggling to keep up.
There was a really good chapter in this book (CHARLOTTE, North Carolina, USA. 2 July 1994) that had accounts from the survivors, and that blew me away. It was an addictive chapter reading about how they felt, and what was running through their minds. But, when you compare that to the other chapters it felt like a different book. I'd much rather read someone's accounts that read transcripts, but since in the past I've read and listened to black box recordings and enjoyed it, I thought this would be perfect for me. Something slightly different to what I normally read.
I just feel like the author didn't really reread his own book, because if he did then he would have noticed that he could cut out three-quarters of the dialogue and save trees. This book is a total of 291 pages and realistically half of this book could have been removed because it was not relevant to the crashing. I feel if that was done I'd enjoy it a bit more.
The main problem with this book was that the transcripts, not only were they not focused on the disaster area so you had to read sections of unnecessary dialogue from people in the cockpit, but it was overly technical. I will admit that the author used [ ] and wrote what the non-technical term was, but it was such a heavy load of information that my brain was struggling to keep up.
There was a really good chapter in this book (CHARLOTTE, North Carolina, USA. 2 July 1994) that had accounts from the survivors, and that blew me away. It was an addictive chapter reading about how they felt, and what was running through their minds. But, when you compare that to the other chapters it felt like a different book. I'd much rather read someone's accounts that read transcripts, but since in the past I've read and listened to black box recordings and enjoyed it, I thought this would be perfect for me. Something slightly different to what I normally read.
I just feel like the author didn't really reread his own book, because if he did then he would have noticed that he could cut out three-quarters of the dialogue and save trees. This book is a total of 291 pages and realistically half of this book could have been removed because it was not relevant to the crashing. I feel if that was done I'd enjoy it a bit more.
February 15, 2021
Grim and Nerdy
I read a review of this book's predecessor (not on Kindle) in the Guardian in the 80s, and I was always interested in giving it a go. The results are, perhaps not surprisingly both grim and nerdy - a lot of the technical dialogue is incomprehensible to the layman and almost reads like avant garde poetry. What is striking is that when the disasters come, they come mercifully fast - the crew hardly have a chance to appreciate what is happening, and even then their professionalism (largely) shines through.
The introduction reminds us again of the miniscule chances of being caught in accident like this, but when the cause can be anything from cabin hi-jinks to an ungreased nut in the machinery, I'm still relieved I no longer have a passport.
I read a review of this book's predecessor (not on Kindle) in the Guardian in the 80s, and I was always interested in giving it a go. The results are, perhaps not surprisingly both grim and nerdy - a lot of the technical dialogue is incomprehensible to the layman and almost reads like avant garde poetry. What is striking is that when the disasters come, they come mercifully fast - the crew hardly have a chance to appreciate what is happening, and even then their professionalism (largely) shines through.
The introduction reminds us again of the miniscule chances of being caught in accident like this, but when the cause can be anything from cabin hi-jinks to an ungreased nut in the machinery, I'm still relieved I no longer have a passport.
June 18, 2019
Fascinating to hear the audio recordings at the end as things went wrong and then a summary of what had actually gone wrong.
September 16, 2020
Scary!
January 2, 2009
A collection of 21 transcripts of black box recordings from crashes ranging from 1991 and 2006. very compelling reading and a fascinating insight into a world of the pilot. The Air France Concorde transcript was the most interesting and I remembered the news of flight TWA 800 going down and reading the transcript was very interesting.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews