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(More customer reviews)Frankly, I was disappointed. The idea behind the book - to publish the content of the CVR tapes of major aircraft accidents - is a good one. However, this is a specialized topic, and MacPherson simply does not have the specialist knowledge to properly edit the recordings. As a result, there are errors. Some are minor - e.g., the fuel quantity for ValuJet 592 is given as 2.300 pounds for the 1000 kilometer flight from Miami to Atlanta. Others are not - e.g., the crash of Delta 1141, which is generally accepted to have been caused by the crew failing to set the flaps, is attributed to fuel imbalance. As a result, much of the crucial tape sequence of the crew making their final preparations for takeoff is edited out by MacPherson. On the plus side, editing is necessary to make the book accessible to the general reader, and it certainly does that. MacPherson thus succeeds in making the drama - and quite often the heroism - of flight crews suddenly caught in terrifying circumstances accessible for everyone. I rate the book as recommendable for the general reader, but unsatisfactory for aviators.
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The Black Box: All-New Cockpit Voice Recorder Accounts Of In-flight AccidentsReaders join desperate pilots in the cockpit as they fight gravity and time in a plane that's falling out of the sky.Anyone who watches the news knows about the "black box." Officially called the cockpit voice recorder, the black box (which is actually Day-glo orange) records the final moments of any in-flight accident. Often it provides the only explanation of a crash -- inevitably, it provides a heart-breaking, second-by-second account of intense fear tempered by unyielding professionalism.This 1984 Quill title has been completely updated to include twenty-eight new incidents occurring between 1978 and 1996. Some are famous, like the 1996 Valujet crash in the Everglades and the ill-fated launch of the space shuttle Challenger; other disasters range from commuter prop aircraft to jumbo airliners and a pair of Air Force planes. Few have ever been revealed in their entirety, each, without exception, is absolutely gripping.In this new edition, editor Malcolm MacPherson has, wherever possible, added weather notes and descriptions of events in the cockpit and cabin, heightening our vivid sense of being there during the final moments. Provided by the National Transportation Safety Board and vetted by an experienced airline captain, these are unforgettable case studies in ultimate emergency -- authentic, immediate, filled with drama, terror, human frailty and error, and unquenchable courage.
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