Flight 232: A Story of Disaster and Survival - Rilegato

Gonzales, Laurence

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0393240029 ISBN 13: 9780393240023

Casa editrice: W W Norton & Co Inc, 2014

Riassunto

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.No one has ever attempted the complete reconstruction of a crash of this magnitude. Drawing on interviews with hundreds of survivors, crew, and airport and rescue personnel, Laurence Gonzales, a commercial pilot himself, captures, minute by minute, the harrowing journey of pilots flying a plane with no controls and flight attendants keeping their calm in the face of certain death. He plumbs the hearts and minds of passengers as they pray, bargain with God, plot their strategies for survival, and sacrifice themselves to save others.Ultimately he takes us, step by step, through the gripping scientific detective work in super-secret labs to dive into the heart of a flaw smaller than a grain of rice that shows what brought the aircraft down.An unforgettable drama of the triumph of heroism over tragedy and human ingenuity over technological breakdown, Flight 232 is a masterpiece in the tradition of the greatest aviation stories ever told.

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Recensione:

A kind of miracle. Gonzales combines meticulous research, intense and even agonizing drama, and a soaring intensity of emotion. Flight 232 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"

A ferociously detailed account [...] --Charles Bremner, The Times

Although a journalist, Gonzales writes with a novelist's feel for drama, and the opening chapters on the flight and the crash are nerve-shredding in their tension and friction. His descriptions of the crash and the aftermath are clear, concise and never overegged[...] --Doug Johnstone, The Big Issue

L'autore:

Laurence Gonzales, a pilot himself, is the author of Surviving Survival (ISBN 978 0393 34663 3) and the bestseller Deep Survival (ISBN 978 0 393 32615 4). He has won two National Magazine awards.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Data di pubblicazione: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0393240029
• ISBN 13: 9780393240023
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 415