Overview

Why do planes disappear or fall out of the sky? Brace for Impact traces the evolution of accident investigation and explains why flying is the safest form of travel. The history of air accidents is a harrowing one. Yet today flying is the safest mode of transportation, thanks in no small part to the work of crash detectives. Whenever a plane falls from the sky, the investigators pick through the wreckage for the clues they need to decipher what happened to that flight. Before the invention of the 'black box' and the evolution of forensic accident investigation, the causes often remained a mystery. Since the Wright brothers first took flight, aircraft design, pilot training, aircraft maintenance, and air traffic control have all evolved to current standards of safety. Because of lessons learned from tragedies such as what befell the Comets in the 1950s, the Douglas DC-10s in the 1970s, and ill-fated Air India, TWA, and Swissair flights, flight safety continues to improve. In many ways, the history of aviation is the history of air crash investigation.

Full Product Details

Author:   Peter Pigott
Publisher:   Dundurn Group Ltd
Imprint:   Dundurn Group Ltd
Dimensions:   Width: 17.70cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 25.40cm
Weight:   0.566kg
ISBN:  

9781459732520

ISBN 10:   1459732529
Pages:   272
Publication Date:   25 August 2016
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

Table of Contents

Introduction  1 Flying Too Close to the Sun  2 Knights of the Air and the Great War  3 Barnstormers, Flaming Coffins, and Death Mockers  4 Lindbergh, Leo the Lion, and Air Mail Aces  5 Celebrity Deaths and the Rise of Commercial Passenger Flight  6 Lancasters, LORAN, and the Second World War  7 Make Way for Tomorrow: The Comet Crashes  8 A False Start for the Black Box  9 Kicking Tin and Coping with Disaster  10 No Longer Deaf and Mute: FDRs and CVRs Become Law  11 Douglas Death Cruisers and Mourning Becomes Electra  12 Terror in Tenerife, Pilot Error, and Air Traffic Chaos  13 Deregulation and Fighting Fire with Decrees  14 Aviation’s Annus Horribilis  15 Regional Air Tragedy: The Kegworth and Dryden Perfect Storms  16 Watchdogs of Air Travel and Accidents  17 Nationair and ValuJet: Folly upon Folly  18 Swissair One-Eleven Heavy  19 Complex Systems Failing in Complex Ways  Notes  Acknowledgements  Index

Reviews

Well-researched and presents a definitive history of Canadian aviation. - Winnipeg Free Press What a cool book. - Inside Toronto

What a cool book. - Inside Toronto

Author Information

Peter Pigott is Canada's foremost aviation author. Among his accomplishments are the histories of Air Canada, Trans-Canada Airlines, and Canadian Airlines. He is the author of From Far and Wide, Sailing Seven Seas, Canada in Sudan, and many more books. He lives in Ottawa.

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