Plane Crash Nonfiction: Misc

[rachelmanija]

Before this becomes all Stephen King, all the time, I thought I'd do some quick write-ups of nonfiction I read a while back. All of these are survival stories of plane crashes. I am putting them in order of quality, from best to worst.

Flight 232: A Story of Disaster and Survival

Comments

[ckd]

Some others you might find interesting, if you haven't read them already:

35 Miles From Shore: The Ditching and Rescue of ALM Flight 980, by Emilio Corsetti III.

Before US1549 there was this water landing...in much worse conditions, and not in the middle of a river thronged with ships that could come to the rescue.

Freefall, by William Hoffer and Marilyn Mona Hoffer.

The somewhat more well-known "Gimli Glider" incident, where an Air Canada 767 ran out of fuel at 41,000 ft while flying over Manitoba...luckily, piloted by an experienced glider pilot and a former RCAF officer who'd flown from the Gimli airfield before it was closed.

[autopope]

Not a book, but a website: The Aviation Herald catalogues aviation incidents, accidents, and crashes as they happen, with daily updated situation reports based on the official notices posted by airlines and investigatory authorities. Very technical, aimed at the flying community rather than laypeople, and rigorously curated -- you won't see articles culled from newspapers here, only official incident reports. Search for MH17 if you want to see a chronological transcript of how the unfortunate incident (the shoot-down of a Malaysian Boeing 777 over the Ukraine last year) unfolded, and how the investigation(s) proceeded and reported: it's dry but very engrossing.

[klwilliams]

I'm horrified by accidents that happen at random. One I think is particularly mean is a car crash on Hwy 101 near San Francisco. A tow truck was driving on an overpass about 101 and swerved to miss somebody else. The tow truck then went off the road and fell onto 101, landing on an SUV and killing all four passengers. I mean, what can you do, if you're driving down the road and a tow truck falls out of the sky and lands on your car? That really freaks me out.

[rachelmanija]

I once had a metal car wheel fall off an overpass, land right on front of my car and bounce. I had no time to swerve, so if it had bounced at me, i would have gone through my windshield. Luckily it bounced to the side and went off the road. I didn't hear a crash, so I think it was being carried in a truck load or some such.

Totally could've been a "death by freak accident." It was the middle of the night, with no one else on the road. A few seconds later, and it would have endangered no one.

[tool_of_satan]

Another website of possible interest is Fear of Landing by Sylvia Wrigley, who also apparently writes SFF stories. She has published a few books about aviation accidents but I have not read those (nor her stories).