The Crash Detectives: Investigating the World's Most Mysterious Air Disasters

by Christine Negroni

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“Negroni is a talented aviation journalist who clearly understands the critically important part the human factor plays in aviation safety.” —Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, pilot of US Airways 1549, the Miracle on the Hudson

A fascinating exploration of how humans and machines fail—leading to air disasters from Amelia Earhart to MH370—and how the lessons learned from these accidents have made flying safer.
 
In The Crash Detectives, veteran aviation journalist and air safety investigator Christine Negroni takes us inside crash investigations from the early days of the jet age to the present, including the search for answers about what happened to the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. As Negroni dissects what happened and why, she explores their common themes and, most important, what has been learned from them to make planes safer. Indeed, as Negroni shows, virtually every aspect of modern pilot training, airline operation, and airplane design has been shaped by lessons learned from disaster. Along the way, she also details some miraculous saves, when quick-thinking pilots averted catastrophe and kept hundreds of people alive.
 
Tying in aviation science, performance psychology, and extensive interviews with pilots, engineers, human factors specialists, crash survivors, and others involved in accidents all over the world, The Crash Detectives is an alternately terrifying and inspiring book that might just cure your fear of flying, and will definitely make you a more informed passenger.

“Christine Negroni combines her investigative reporting skills with an understanding of the complexities of air accident investigations to bring to life some of history’s most intriguing and heartbreaking cases.” —Bob Woodruff, ABC News 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143127321
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/27/2016
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	240,297
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Journalist, aviation blogger, television commentator, and crash investigator Christine Negroni has twenty years’ experience observing and participating in the international effort to create safer skies. She currently reports for the New York Times, ABC News, and Air & Space magazine, and she writes the popular blog Flying Lessons.

Table of Contents

Introduction vii

Part 1 Mystery 1

Part 2 Conspiracy 79

Part 3 Fallibility 133

Part 4 Humanity 195

Part 5 Resiliency 231

Acknowledgments 261

Bibliography 265

Index 269

Editorial Reviews

Fascinating . . . For all the horror stories in The Crash Detectives, the reasonable reader will leave the book more sanguine about modern commercial airline travel than before.”
—Edward Kosner, The Wall Street Journal

“[The Crash Detectives] will bolster your knowledge of the mysteries of air travel. . . . Aviation journalist Christine Negroni uncovers behind-the-scenes stories of the industry’s most famous heroic saves, catastrophes and mysteries.”
—The Wall Street Journal (Books Every Geek Should Read This Fall)

“Christine Negroni is a talented aviation journalist who clearly understands the critically important part the human factor plays in aviation safety. She ‘gets it.’”
—Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, pilot of US Airways 1549, the “Miracle on the Hudson,” New York Times bestselling author of Making a Difference and Highest Duty (now adapted as the major motion picture Sully starring Tom Hanks)

“Negroni is no wanna-be aviation disaster geek. Her resume qualifies her to understand aviation accidents and speak and write with knowledge about them. . . . This is a must-read for those caught up in the whys and hows of aviation accidents.”
—Scott Hamilton, Leeham News and Comment

“Christine Negroni’s book is a refreshing take on airplane accidents. . . . [Negroni] brings the dual perspectives of an inquisitive journalist and experienced air safety investigator.”
—Aviation History Magazine

“An incredible book. Really fascinating.”
—Larry Rifkin, “Mornings with Larry Rifkin” (Hartford, Connecticut)
 
“I devoured this book. It was extremely interesting.”
—Ron Seggi, USA Radio Network

“In The Crash Detectives. . . . journalist and crash investigator Christine Negroni looks at numerous air crashes—from Earhart’s in 1937 to the 2014 disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370—and explores the different theories about what might have happened and why it can be so difficult to get to the truth.”
—Chicago Tribune

“Recommended. . . . The aviation journalist has her own theories about what really happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 . . . which led her to explore plane crashes and ‘miraculous saves’ that have occurred over the decades, discovering en route startling revelations.”
—Sacramento Bee (12 new nonfiction titles for fall)

“[The Crash Detectives] makes a compelling case. . . . It puts [MH370] into context by chronicling a string of . . . mysterious air disasters. . . . And it plumbs the reasons why some accidents are particularly hard to crack.”
—Condé Nast Traveler

“Has this aviation journalist solved the mystery of MH 370? Negroni’s quest to find answers, and to place MH 370 in the historical context of plane crashes and disappearances, was the inspiration for The Crash Detectives.”
—Observer

“The evolution of air safety is rooted in catastrophe. Christine Negroni pulls back the curtain on the people, the places, and the tragedies that have shaped this process over the decades—an unflinching look at a system that most of us take for granted.”
—Patrick Smith, air travel blogger and bestselling author of Cockpit Confidential

“Mysteries are always fascinating; aviation mysteries are especially so because they involve ordinary people. In The Crash Detectives, Christine Negroni combines her investigative reporting skills with an understanding of the complexities of air accident investigations to bring to life some of history’s most intriguing and heartbreaking cases, reminding us that even in the 21st century, aviation still holds elements of the unknown.”
—Bob Woodruff, ABC News

“This is a completely fascinating book that will interest everyone and belongs in every aviator's library.”
—Patty Wagstaff, aerobatic national champion pilot

From the Publisher