Synopses & Reviews
July 19, 1989. While the crippled airliner—United Airlines flight 232—wallowed drunkenly over the bluffs northwest of the airport at Sioux City, Iowa, hundreds of fire and rescue workers were waiting. The plane slammed onto the runway, broke into pieces, and burst into a vast fireball. The rescue workers did not move; they stared: nobody could possibly survive that crash. And then people began walking out of the cornfield lining the runway. Miraculously, 184 of 296 passengers lived, and 138 of those came away without a scratch. Laurence Gonzales, a pilot himself, has interviewed dozens of the survivors of Flight 232. He takes us through the gripping detective work that found the fatal flaw in an exploded titanium fan disk. More powerful still is the heroism of this unforgettable narrative: pilots flying a plane with no controls; flight attendants keeping their calm in the face of certain death; passengers sacrificing themselves to save others.
Review
"Intense, gripping, alive with knowledge and compassion, is a new masterpiece of calamity and courage." Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb
Review
"A kind of miracle. Gonzales combines meticulous research, intense and even agonizing drama, and a soaring intensity of emotion. leaves one feeling exalted, not depressed, at the end of a book about a grisly air crash that spares no details. The instances of heroism and self-sacrifice in the face of unimaginable horror are countless, and rendered with a spare dignity that rises above the macabre." Michael Korda, former RAF pilot, and author of Clouds of Glory: The Life of Robert E. Lee
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"A powerful, unforgettable look at a devastating accident." Booklist
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"Gonzales presents an engrossing, cinematic account of the crash and the ordeal that preceded it." Publishers Weekly
Review
"The definitive account of this catastrophe... stands alone: for its absolutely riveting depiction of the flight's last minutes and the horrendous aftermath; for its vivid and sympathetic portraits of many of those aboard the plane, the crew most particularly; and for its meticulous inquiry into the mechanical failure." Jonathan Yardly
Review
"Fascinating...a remarkably vivid, cinematic account, with one cliffhanger after the other." The Washington Post
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"Gonzales...tells a richly detailed story that is equal parts heartbreaking, inspiring, gruesome and full of fascinating science. Through his masterful reporting we come to know both the survivors and the doomed as the story unfolds." John Quinlan Sioux City Journal
Review
"A white knuckle read, so vividly detailed that it's like watching an accident in slow-motion and being unable to look away." Phaedra Hise San Francisco Chronicle
Review
"A book that bears witness to the dead, and to the extraordinary courage of ordinary people; ...a thriller, with a mystery at its core." Jennifer Latson Boston Globe
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"Gonzales offers an astonishingly in-depth reconstruction of the events... destined to stand as the definitive book on its namesake... One could hardly finish without a new respect for both the genius of flight and the army of trained professionals who make it happen tens of thousands of times each day across the United States alone." Rachel Rose Rumpus
Synopsis
A dramatic and extraordinarily rare survivors’ view of a major air crash, twenty-five years after the tragedy.
Synopsis
Twenty-five years after the catastrophe, a dramatic and extraordinarily rare 360-degree view of the crash of a fully loaded jumbo jet.
Synopsis
As hundreds of rescue workers waited on the ground, United Airlines Flight 232 wallowed drunkenly over the bluffs northwest of Sioux City. The plane slammed onto the runway and burst into a vast fireball. The rescuers didn't move at first: nobody could possibly survive that crash. And then people began emerging from the summer corn that lined the runways. Miraculously, 184 of 296 passengers lived.
About the Author
Laurence Gonzales is the author of Surviving Survival and the bestseller Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why. He has won two National Magazine Awards and is a fellow of the Santa Fe Institute. His essays are collected in the book House of Pain. He lives in Evanston, Illinois.