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Flight 232: A Story of Disaster and Survival
"A richly detailed story that is equal parts heartbreaking, inspiring…and full of fascinating science…masterful." ― San Francisco Chronicle 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. 8 pages of illustrations
432 pages, Paperback
First published July 7, 2014
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3879 people want to read
About the author
Laurence Gonzales
18 books149 followersLaurence 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. His essays are collected in the book House of Pain.
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November 7, 2021
“When the right wing ruptured, more than ten thousand pounds of kerosene sprayed out and turned to an aerosol. The right landing gear tore an eighteen-inch deep gash in that World War II concrete. The right engine, number three, was ripped off the wing and demolished when it hit the runway as the landing gear collapsed. As Tim Owens watched the eerie mix of sunlight and firelight flood the cabin, the seats between rows 29 and 36 began ripping free and arching high in the air or else tumbling down the runway, including those carrying the Mixons, Cinnamon Martinez, Lena Ann Blaha, who had pointed out the damage on the tail to Jan Brown, and the boy beside her, James Matthew Bohn. Gene Chimura, sixty-three, in the starboard aisle seat in row 28, suffered minor injuries…Brenda Ann Feyh’s scalp was ripped off, her head crushed, as she breathed in a spray of her own blood. Her son, Jason, eight, beside her, survived…”
- Laurence Gonzales, Flight 232: A Story of Disaster and Survival
Driving is probably the most dangerous thing I do on a daily basis. Each morning, I strap myself into thousands of pounds of glass, steel, and rubber, and join hundreds of distracted, hurried, harried people in oversized vehicles on congested roads, some of those people being teenagers with licenses and cell phones. It’s dangerous as hell but I barely think about it.
Flying on a plane, though? Oh, you better believe I’m imagining every possible thing that could go wrong, while pondering my utter lack of control over events.
Airplane travel is statistically safer than just about any other mode of transportation, including automobiles. But airline disasters are influential anomalies, with mass casualties that stop the presses. Besides, there is something uniquely horrifying about the prospect of dying in a plane, spending your last moments falling to earth with the guy who reclined his seat into your lap.
If you’ve never had second thoughts about boarding a plane, United 232 will give them to you. On July 19, 1989, UA 232 – a DC-10 – took off from Denver bound for Chicago. While at 37,000 feet, a microscopic crack in a fan disk caused massive engine failure. Shrapnel from the disintegrating engine severed all three hydraulic lines. The loss of hydraulic fluid meant that the crew lost almost all ability to operate the DC-10’s flight controls.
UA 232 was piloted by Captain Alfred “Al” Haynes, who was Chesley Sullenberger long before Sully put his plane down in the Hudson. When the plane lost hydraulic power, it started a bank that would’ve have ended with the plane inverted. Instinctively, Haynes regained some control of the plane by manipulating the throttles of the two remaining engines. A DC-10 instructor named Dennis Fitch – who happened to be a passenger on UA 232 – came to the cockpit to help the flight crew.
When the crew alerted United’s Systems Aircraft Maintenance center, a collection of engineers refused to believe the plane had lost all hydraulic power. It was a situation that no one had ever trained for. An NTSB investigator later remarked that the pilots “in the cockpit became instant test pilots.”
UA 232 began a slow vertical oscillation, losing altitude with each cycle. Initially, the flight crew thought they’d end up in a field, but they eventually targeted the airport at Sioux City, Iowa. For a plane with such bad luck – the microscopic impurity in the fan disk – UA 232 had lots of little bits of luck as well. The first was having Fitch on board. The second was landing in Sioux City, a minor airport that just happened to have game-planned a mass-casualty air disaster.
On video that can be found everywhere on the internet, the plane comes in fast for a landing, but looks to be level. Then, at the last moment, the right wing drops and the whole concern is tumbling and exploding and there is flame and smoke and everyone must be dead. Somehow, 184 out of 296 passengers and crew survived.
This remarkable story is actually a dozen stories in one: of the long journey of an engine fan disk with a microscopic abnormality; of cockpit resource management; of problem solving under pressure; of preparedness; of pure chance; of heroism, and the limits of heroism. Laurence Gonzales covers all these elements in his epic of disaster reporting, Flight 232.
Most disaster writing tends to follow the same template, beginning with a long setup that allows you to meet the participants. Not Gonzales. He introduces a couple people at the start, but within the first few pages, the engine explodes and the struggle for survival begins. Then he doubles back, introducing new people in a different part of the plane. Gonzales follows this framework throughout the book. He moves two steps forward in one part of the plane; halts; and then takes two steps back to follow events in a separate part of the cabin. This could have been hopelessly confusing, but Gonzales makes it gripping. The non-linear framework also provides a break from the unbearable horror of the crash. Without these cutaways, Flight 232 might have become a relentless assault on the senses, resulting in emotional fatigue and desensitization.
I would rank this among the best disaster narratives I’ve read, and I’ve read my share. Gonzales manages to encompass the whole of the catastrophe with masterful command of the facts. He seems to have talked with everyone, from air traffic control to stewardesses to the flight crew to the passengers to NTSB investigators to rescue workers to ordinary people who happened to live in Sioux City the day that UA 232 fell to earth in their backyards.
There are certain tweaks Flight 232 could have used. I would have liked to see more judicious editing of interview excerpts. There are times when Gonzales quotes his subjects at such length that it ends up doing them a disservice. There is, for instance, the NTSB investigators complaining about the quality of the food and hotels in Sioux City. Obviously, this was their particular experience, but when Gonzales quotes them without any editorial comment, this testimony comes off as really petty, as though the real tragedy is a continental breakfast that consists solely of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.
Gonzales also fails to show enough skepticism for some of the eyewitness testimony. This is especially apparent when describing the gruesome onsite autopsies (which, for some reason, included removing the jaw of every person, even those readily identifiable). Several volunteers who helped with this process described certain victims, untouched, naked, and beautiful, who do not match any descriptions. Instead of leaving this out of the book, as the obvious product of 25 years of memory distortion, he decides to include it.
Finally, Gonzales’s story is heavily dependent on cabin geography – whether one lived or died depended on where one sat – but there is no seating chart or fuselage map. In a book that is otherwise quite generous, this was a glaring absence.
These are the kind of critiques that jump out at me when I am otherwise in the midst of literary perfection. The bottom line is that Flight 232 took the air from my lungs. It is about a disaster, to be sure, but is it also about how people can rise above themselves in times of unimaginable distress. It is awe-inspiring: the pilots who kept their cool; the stewardesses who kept the cabin calm; the passengers who helped each other from the wreckage; the rescue workers who had prepared for this very thing. In Young Men and Fire, Norman Maclean said of his tale of the Mann Gulch Fire that it was a tragedy, “but tragedy would only be a part of it, as it is of life.” So it is with Flight 232.
- Laurence Gonzales, Flight 232: A Story of Disaster and Survival
Driving is probably the most dangerous thing I do on a daily basis. Each morning, I strap myself into thousands of pounds of glass, steel, and rubber, and join hundreds of distracted, hurried, harried people in oversized vehicles on congested roads, some of those people being teenagers with licenses and cell phones. It’s dangerous as hell but I barely think about it.
Flying on a plane, though? Oh, you better believe I’m imagining every possible thing that could go wrong, while pondering my utter lack of control over events.
Airplane travel is statistically safer than just about any other mode of transportation, including automobiles. But airline disasters are influential anomalies, with mass casualties that stop the presses. Besides, there is something uniquely horrifying about the prospect of dying in a plane, spending your last moments falling to earth with the guy who reclined his seat into your lap.
If you’ve never had second thoughts about boarding a plane, United 232 will give them to you. On July 19, 1989, UA 232 – a DC-10 – took off from Denver bound for Chicago. While at 37,000 feet, a microscopic crack in a fan disk caused massive engine failure. Shrapnel from the disintegrating engine severed all three hydraulic lines. The loss of hydraulic fluid meant that the crew lost almost all ability to operate the DC-10’s flight controls.
An airplane is a submarine of the air. Like a boat, it is steered by rudders, but since it moves in three dimensions, it has rudders for moving left and right (yaw), rudders (called elevators) for moving the nose up and down (pitch), and even rudders (called ailerons) to roll the airplane into a bank when it turns. On small planes all of these movable surfaces can be controlled by cables, a direct physical connection between the pilot’s hands and the controls. On jumbo jets, the control surfaces are so large and the airstream produces forces so great that the power of human muscle cannot overcome them. Hydraulic power is needed to move those surfaces.
If the driver of a forklift wants to life a thousand-pound pallet, he moves a lever and the object rises off the ground. But the lever isn’t moving the pallet. The lever turns on hydraulic power. The same is true of the DC-10. When the pilot moves the yoke, he is moving cables that move switches that turn on the hydraulic power to move the rudder or elevators or ailerons…Without fluid in the hydraulic lines, [the crew] were unable to steer with the precision needed to land safely.
UA 232 was piloted by Captain Alfred “Al” Haynes, who was Chesley Sullenberger long before Sully put his plane down in the Hudson. When the plane lost hydraulic power, it started a bank that would’ve have ended with the plane inverted. Instinctively, Haynes regained some control of the plane by manipulating the throttles of the two remaining engines. A DC-10 instructor named Dennis Fitch – who happened to be a passenger on UA 232 – came to the cockpit to help the flight crew.
When the crew alerted United’s Systems Aircraft Maintenance center, a collection of engineers refused to believe the plane had lost all hydraulic power. It was a situation that no one had ever trained for. An NTSB investigator later remarked that the pilots “in the cockpit became instant test pilots.”
UA 232 began a slow vertical oscillation, losing altitude with each cycle. Initially, the flight crew thought they’d end up in a field, but they eventually targeted the airport at Sioux City, Iowa. For a plane with such bad luck – the microscopic impurity in the fan disk – UA 232 had lots of little bits of luck as well. The first was having Fitch on board. The second was landing in Sioux City, a minor airport that just happened to have game-planned a mass-casualty air disaster.
One of the reasons for the level of the response and its coordination – rather than pure chaos – was that for many years before the emergency, [Emergency Management Director] Gary Brown had lobbied for a disaster plan for Siouxland. Specifically, he wanted to have a drill that simulated the crash of a jumbo jet. People rolled their eyes and referred to Gary as Chicken Little. They thought it made no sense. Sioux City was a small town, and big things don’t happen out in the Iowa cornfields. But Gary was a young and energetic bulldog of a man who believed in his mission, and with some crucial help from fire fighters, the Air National Guard, and the two hospitals in town, he managed to stage a full-scale exercise on the airfield in the fall of 1987, simulating a plane crash with scores of people injured. They performed the simulation on Runway 22, on the spot where United Flight 232 would come down.
On video that can be found everywhere on the internet, the plane comes in fast for a landing, but looks to be level. Then, at the last moment, the right wing drops and the whole concern is tumbling and exploding and there is flame and smoke and everyone must be dead. Somehow, 184 out of 296 passengers and crew survived.
This remarkable story is actually a dozen stories in one: of the long journey of an engine fan disk with a microscopic abnormality; of cockpit resource management; of problem solving under pressure; of preparedness; of pure chance; of heroism, and the limits of heroism. Laurence Gonzales covers all these elements in his epic of disaster reporting, Flight 232.
Most disaster writing tends to follow the same template, beginning with a long setup that allows you to meet the participants. Not Gonzales. He introduces a couple people at the start, but within the first few pages, the engine explodes and the struggle for survival begins. Then he doubles back, introducing new people in a different part of the plane. Gonzales follows this framework throughout the book. He moves two steps forward in one part of the plane; halts; and then takes two steps back to follow events in a separate part of the cabin. This could have been hopelessly confusing, but Gonzales makes it gripping. The non-linear framework also provides a break from the unbearable horror of the crash. Without these cutaways, Flight 232 might have become a relentless assault on the senses, resulting in emotional fatigue and desensitization.
I would rank this among the best disaster narratives I’ve read, and I’ve read my share. Gonzales manages to encompass the whole of the catastrophe with masterful command of the facts. He seems to have talked with everyone, from air traffic control to stewardesses to the flight crew to the passengers to NTSB investigators to rescue workers to ordinary people who happened to live in Sioux City the day that UA 232 fell to earth in their backyards.
There are certain tweaks Flight 232 could have used. I would have liked to see more judicious editing of interview excerpts. There are times when Gonzales quotes his subjects at such length that it ends up doing them a disservice. There is, for instance, the NTSB investigators complaining about the quality of the food and hotels in Sioux City. Obviously, this was their particular experience, but when Gonzales quotes them without any editorial comment, this testimony comes off as really petty, as though the real tragedy is a continental breakfast that consists solely of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.
Gonzales also fails to show enough skepticism for some of the eyewitness testimony. This is especially apparent when describing the gruesome onsite autopsies (which, for some reason, included removing the jaw of every person, even those readily identifiable). Several volunteers who helped with this process described certain victims, untouched, naked, and beautiful, who do not match any descriptions. Instead of leaving this out of the book, as the obvious product of 25 years of memory distortion, he decides to include it.
Finally, Gonzales’s story is heavily dependent on cabin geography – whether one lived or died depended on where one sat – but there is no seating chart or fuselage map. In a book that is otherwise quite generous, this was a glaring absence.
These are the kind of critiques that jump out at me when I am otherwise in the midst of literary perfection. The bottom line is that Flight 232 took the air from my lungs. It is about a disaster, to be sure, but is it also about how people can rise above themselves in times of unimaginable distress. It is awe-inspiring: the pilots who kept their cool; the stewardesses who kept the cabin calm; the passengers who helped each other from the wreckage; the rescue workers who had prepared for this very thing. In Young Men and Fire, Norman Maclean said of his tale of the Mann Gulch Fire that it was a tragedy, “but tragedy would only be a part of it, as it is of life.” So it is with Flight 232.
July 21, 2014
Twenty five years ago this month, a United Airlines flight from Denver to Chicago burst into a fireball and crashed in a cornfield outside of Sioux City, Iowa. It was one of the worst plane disasters in history--but it could have been worse. Of the 296 people on board, 184 survived. In his very long and gripping Flight 232: A Story of Disaster and Survival, journalist Laurence Gonzales takes us through the moments before and after the crash (as best remembered by those survivors and observers on the ground). He also goes back through records, scientific documents, and his own experience as a pilot and aviation reporter to piece together what went wrong with the jetliner that was as majestic (and, ultimately, doomed) as the Titanic. (The last third of the narrative delves into the tiny, microscopic flaw that likely brought the plane down.) As you might expect, there was plenty of terror on Flight 232, but what is surprising is how much inspiring behavior Gonzales discovered there as well--flight attendants who truly did put the passengers’ needs first, crew members whose quick thinking probably made the crash less devastating than it would have been, not to mention the plain dumb luck in evidence, as well--at least one woman moved out of first class at the last minute. Her original seat was eviscerated; she survived. This is a hard book to read because it addresses some of our worst fears and some we’d never even thought of (apparently, the blue water in the toilets on planes can leak out, freeze and get stuck, as ice, to the outside of the plane). But it is also a story of survival, a tale of science, of heroism and of faith.
July 2, 2014
More reviews (and no fluff) on the blog http://surrealtalvi.wordpress.com/
Flight 232 is an extremely well researched, compelling, and especially harrowing story of the ill fated United Airlines Flight 232 in 1989. The reason that flight merits an entire book has to do with the sheer amount of survivors on what should have been a non survivable catastrophic engine failure situation. As well, it was a watershed event leading to the development of many modern safety practices as well as crash response procedures and investigation. It's also notable for laws that did not (and perhaps should have) been changed about airline safety.Flight 232 was an afternoon flight originating in Denver and scheduled to land in Chicago in 1989. On a clear day with no weather conditions, the DC10's rear engine (mounted in the tail) exploded, severing all hydraulic lines in the process. With no steering and very little control of the plane, the aircraft was heroically kept aloft for 45 minutes until it eventually crashed into a horrific fireball on a small airport runway. Amazingly, 184 of the 296 passengers survived.
Author Gonzales, a commercial pilot, uses meticulous research to give a very complete story of the crash. From passengers to crew, hospital workers to ground support, manufacturer reps, radar operators to crash investigators, all provide a very large picture of the airline industry at the end of the 1980s. Inside these 400 packed pages, Gonzales will give us the scope of the issues the plane encountered, the harrowing tales of escape and death, survivor remorse, PTSD not only from the survivors but also the workers and volunteers who had to handle the morgues and hospitals, to those who were near the airport when the plane crashed and ran to help. The stories are tragic, uplifting, horrifying, intriguing, daunting, and most especially emotive. I don't think anyone reading this book could be left unaffected.
Most will likely read for the human aspect of the crash. But very detailed descriptions of the metal fatigue issue (from how the metal is made, manufactured, etc.) as well as complex flying technical and physics are also included. Readers can really read in detail about all aspects of the crash (technical, personal) or choose to hone in on the detective aspects of finding the cause or the experiences of those inside the plane when it went down. For me, I skimmed through the very detailed technical aspects while reading the first time and then went back and spent my time on the physics descriptions at leisure. The people story was far too compelling to stop and suddenly get a physics manual in the middle of their tales.
The only detractor for me was that the book started to switch up very emotional and harrowing scenes with hard science around the middle and through to the end. I would have liked to see the book broken down into three distinct sections: personal experiences of those involved, the detective work and changes in the industry, and then the hard physics. It was truly frustrating and annoying to read about a mother going through the crash watching her 2 year old fly through the air - then changing abruptly to 20-30 pages of metallurgy and titanium anomaly detection techniques before we find out what happened to the 2 year old and if he survived.
Those who are faint of heart with blood and gore descriptions would probably want to avoid this book and stick to Air Craft Investigation/Mayday episodes instead. The book is very thorough and descriptions of injuries/deaths and how the morgue worked right after the crash are especially horrifying. As well, keep in mind that the plane was full of young children due to a promotion from the airline - most with no seats to be belted into.
I have seen a lot of crash documentaries/tv shows and nothing compares to what I read in this book. It wasn't just the terrifying crash itself that was harrowing - it was the account of everyone who had to deal with what happened or what they saw that day. Most people never realize that someone has to work with horribly disfigured bodies strewn across an airport and find ways to quickly identify, process, and preserve those bodies for relatives - all while others are saving the injured, placating shocked relatives and media, or trying to find out exactly what happened to the plane - so it doesn't happen again.
This particular air crash really gives all aspects of what happens when a plane makes an 'unscheduled landing.' Thorough, well documented with resources listed, and with interviews of nearly everyone still alive connected in any way to the crash, whether in Japan or San Diego, the author has done an impressive job. The book contains 16 color images but I recommend also checking sites or videos online to see the people/crash.
Reviewed from an ARC.
October 2, 2014
When my friend, and surviving flight attendant, Susan White first mentioned to me that she was making a trip to meet with Laurence Gonzales because he wanted to interview her and fellow survivors about United 232, my interest in the book was first peaked. I was only 5 when the crash occurred and so have no recollection of the initial news coverage. My first understanding and introduction to the tragedy came with the made for TV movie which starred Charleton Heston which aired a few years after the crash. Upon coming to work for United myself, many years later, I was fortunate to get to meet and fly with Susan White, although at the time I did not know that she had been one of the flight attendants from 232. Over the years I have been glad and proud to count Susan amongst one of my wonderful friends and flying partners at United, she is a woman who has had to deal with so much but manages to always have a smile and friendly personable demeanor towards her co-workers and all of our customers on every flight.
I really enjoyed reading this book, not only because it gave me more insight into what my friend experienced that day, but also a deeper understanding of the incident itself and all of the factors which led up to the crash and just how remarkable of a job the pilots did in getting that plane on the ground. My father, who later became a pilot with United and flew briefly on the DC-10 before it was retired, had always told me that in all simulations which followed the crash, no one had ever been able to duplicate it to have survivors, all simulations came up with the same result, all souls onboard lost in the crash. Although I knew that 232 has long been considered one of those air incidents that should not have had any survivors, it was really interesting to be able to read and to finally understand just what an amazing job the pilots accomplished that day with their CRM skills and quick thinking in a high stress situation that had never been experienced before.
Other readers have commented on the layout of the book and how they would've preferred that Gonzales make three differing sections: one dealing with the crash itself, the second dealing with the survivor experiences and reflections and the third with the mechanics of the airplane. Although I can understand being able to read about each part of the overall story in three uninterrupted sections, I liked that the writer would interject all that was happening with the technical aspects of the airplane and then switching to survivor stories and then to the events of the crash for I found that by doing this at no point was I overwhelmed with the emotions of the event and what the survivors experienced both during the flight and after the crash.
I really enjoyed reading this book, not only because it gave me more insight into what my friend experienced that day, but also a deeper understanding of the incident itself and all of the factors which led up to the crash and just how remarkable of a job the pilots did in getting that plane on the ground. My father, who later became a pilot with United and flew briefly on the DC-10 before it was retired, had always told me that in all simulations which followed the crash, no one had ever been able to duplicate it to have survivors, all simulations came up with the same result, all souls onboard lost in the crash. Although I knew that 232 has long been considered one of those air incidents that should not have had any survivors, it was really interesting to be able to read and to finally understand just what an amazing job the pilots accomplished that day with their CRM skills and quick thinking in a high stress situation that had never been experienced before.
Other readers have commented on the layout of the book and how they would've preferred that Gonzales make three differing sections: one dealing with the crash itself, the second dealing with the survivor experiences and reflections and the third with the mechanics of the airplane. Although I can understand being able to read about each part of the overall story in three uninterrupted sections, I liked that the writer would interject all that was happening with the technical aspects of the airplane and then switching to survivor stories and then to the events of the crash for I found that by doing this at no point was I overwhelmed with the emotions of the event and what the survivors experienced both during the flight and after the crash.
August 10, 2021
I was about a a third of the way into this book when I realized that I would be on a United flight across the country a few days later. I thought maybe it would be a mistake to read a gruesome account of a crash of the same airline so close to flying, but it actually helped because it does give very vivid explanations for why certain safety features exist. Prior to this book, I always counted the seat backs to the nearest exit and memorized “5-to-touch” “9-to-touch” in case there was no visibility. However, in this book I learned about wearing clothes made of natural material that covers as much skin as possible, and not to have anything in your pockets while bracing so it doesn’t hurt you. Things like that actually make me feel *more* prepared because this book exemplifies exactly how a series of smallish factors can rapidly add up. In the unlikely event of an accident, I’ll feel more comfortable knowing that I’ve increased my own chances through small actions.
One thing I am conflicted about is the inclusion of so much talk of religion, which I found generally insensitive until near the end when the Chaplain, Clapper, sort of explained how he believes in total freedom of humans to make mistakes, with those mistakes leading to disaster, and that who was saved is a ~mystery~ that he just has faith in or something. I wish this were included earlier because as someone who does not believe in God, I found the inclusion of passages such as:
“[Sister Mary] credited her special red rosary with saving all the people who had survived. Terry Moran and the others who had prayed the rosary on the high bluff before the crash also credited the rosary with saving many lives. ‘It really was a miracle,’ said Sister Mary.”
Yes, a miracle that unrestrained infants were rocketed back into a burning, cartwheeling plane, and people literally lost their faces in the devastation or all their limbs and still maintained consciousness on the asphalt for a little while, sometimes still strapped into their seats, before dying. I can empathize with how the praying people felt, I guess, but I wish there had been a bit less of the reverence throughout the book to balance it between belief systems.
Finally, this book does emphasize the marvel of engineering that aircraft as a science is. I learned a lot of engines and hydraulics and looked up many diagrams while reading.
One thing I am conflicted about is the inclusion of so much talk of religion, which I found generally insensitive until near the end when the Chaplain, Clapper, sort of explained how he believes in total freedom of humans to make mistakes, with those mistakes leading to disaster, and that who was saved is a ~mystery~ that he just has faith in or something. I wish this were included earlier because as someone who does not believe in God, I found the inclusion of passages such as:
“[Sister Mary] credited her special red rosary with saving all the people who had survived. Terry Moran and the others who had prayed the rosary on the high bluff before the crash also credited the rosary with saving many lives. ‘It really was a miracle,’ said Sister Mary.”
Yes, a miracle that unrestrained infants were rocketed back into a burning, cartwheeling plane, and people literally lost their faces in the devastation or all their limbs and still maintained consciousness on the asphalt for a little while, sometimes still strapped into their seats, before dying. I can empathize with how the praying people felt, I guess, but I wish there had been a bit less of the reverence throughout the book to balance it between belief systems.
Finally, this book does emphasize the marvel of engineering that aircraft as a science is. I learned a lot of engines and hydraulics and looked up many diagrams while reading.
January 30, 2015
I remember where I was on this day in July 1989, and I distinctly remember hearing audio from ATC asking "how many souls aboard" as I drove back to Frankfort after Wednesday night church, because it really struck me how they acknowledged the part of us that will never die, at a moment when no one knew that 2/3 of the passengers would actually live. Watching the video of the accident was stunning all over again, with the plane cartwheeling down the runway. Then I was at an air show in Sioux City about 2 years after the accident, and I remember seeing the skeleton of the airplane in between a couple of hangers as we drove into the field, a sober reminder of a tragic and yet miraculous day.
Overall, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone that enjoys reading the details and anatomy of an aviation accident, but I didn't particularly care for the way it was written, with the chapters skipping around from stories of specific passengers, to what was happening with the accident, to analysis of the fan failure. It would have earned the fourth star if it weren't presented in such a disjointed fashion. The confluence of events that resulted in the accident occurring as it did, and then the survival and rescue of so many of the passengers, is a fascinating tale and a great story to read. It kept my interest pretty good and I'm glad I took the time to read this book.
Overall, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone that enjoys reading the details and anatomy of an aviation accident, but I didn't particularly care for the way it was written, with the chapters skipping around from stories of specific passengers, to what was happening with the accident, to analysis of the fan failure. It would have earned the fourth star if it weren't presented in such a disjointed fashion. The confluence of events that resulted in the accident occurring as it did, and then the survival and rescue of so many of the passengers, is a fascinating tale and a great story to read. It kept my interest pretty good and I'm glad I took the time to read this book.
September 16, 2014
Definitely the most gut wrenching book I've read in a long time.
Laurence Gonzales spends most of the book writing about the timeline of the disaster from when the engine blew to what happened in the cockpit and the experiences of the plane crashing and tumbling on the runway. Details are not spared, so if you are weak on hearing about tragedy don't read this book. What I liked about his style is that he presents the mounting evidence on the faulty titanium as a weave throughout the book rather than a lineal style where you read about the disaster and then the cause and aftermath. Until the very end of the book you will be hearing people's stories of the effects of the crash. The style of writing and the unfolding of events as Laurence presents them is gripping.
In this tale you will find many familiar themes of life: the hero stories of those sacrificing themselves for others, weird timing coincidences of a military surgeon and priest who happened to be in the area at the time of the crash, mysteries like the piles and piles of $100 bills in cash that blew for days after the crash (why are commercial airlines carrying loads of cash? United Airlines denied this existed even though witnesses had to stuff the loose bills in extra body bags because they were so prevalent)
On a related note: if you like this book there is an excellent TV show on Smithsonian Channel that I am obsessed with called Air Disasters. They did an episode on flight 232 called "Impossible Landing" that is really great. Dennis Fitch is heavily interviewed as are the captain. Worth a watch if you can find it online or catch it on re-runs: http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/sc/...
Laurence Gonzales spends most of the book writing about the timeline of the disaster from when the engine blew to what happened in the cockpit and the experiences of the plane crashing and tumbling on the runway. Details are not spared, so if you are weak on hearing about tragedy don't read this book. What I liked about his style is that he presents the mounting evidence on the faulty titanium as a weave throughout the book rather than a lineal style where you read about the disaster and then the cause and aftermath. Until the very end of the book you will be hearing people's stories of the effects of the crash. The style of writing and the unfolding of events as Laurence presents them is gripping.
In this tale you will find many familiar themes of life: the hero stories of those sacrificing themselves for others, weird timing coincidences of a military surgeon and priest who happened to be in the area at the time of the crash, mysteries like the piles and piles of $100 bills in cash that blew for days after the crash (why are commercial airlines carrying loads of cash? United Airlines denied this existed even though witnesses had to stuff the loose bills in extra body bags because they were so prevalent)
On a related note: if you like this book there is an excellent TV show on Smithsonian Channel that I am obsessed with called Air Disasters. They did an episode on flight 232 called "Impossible Landing" that is really great. Dennis Fitch is heavily interviewed as are the captain. Worth a watch if you can find it online or catch it on re-runs: http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/sc/...
July 8, 2014
I never expected Flight 232: A Story of Disaster and Survival by Laurence Gonzales to be so absorbing and informative as much as no one expected survivors from the fireball that burst forth when United Airlines Flight 232 somersaulted across the airfield in Sioux City on July 19, 1989. It’s a miracle that as many as 184 passengers of the 296 people who were on board the crumbling aircraft survived. It deserves a place in Ripley’s Believe It or Not.
What is stunning about the survivors is that many of the escaped without injuries. In reconstructing the crash, Laurence Gonzales has crafted an epic tale of hope and determination, which is especially noteworthy when all lives are at great risk. The author has painstakingly researched for his book which could be noticed from the minutest details that he has included in so far as the specifics of the technical aspects and history of the aircraft is concerned. Coming as it is to coincide with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the crash, it is well worth remembering the heroes, the survivors and especially the less fortunate passengers whose bodies were made to lie in the field overnight, provoking widespread resentment and condemnation.
Twenty-five years ago, there were many heroes and some truly incredible stories, like passengers walking from the cornfield without any injury. Twenty-five years later, there is only one hero. And it is Laurence Gonzales! He has written a truly fascinating account of the crash and reminds the world of of the fate of the less fortunate passengers and the fortunate survivors who lived to tell their tales.
What is stunning about the survivors is that many of the escaped without injuries. In reconstructing the crash, Laurence Gonzales has crafted an epic tale of hope and determination, which is especially noteworthy when all lives are at great risk. The author has painstakingly researched for his book which could be noticed from the minutest details that he has included in so far as the specifics of the technical aspects and history of the aircraft is concerned. Coming as it is to coincide with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the crash, it is well worth remembering the heroes, the survivors and especially the less fortunate passengers whose bodies were made to lie in the field overnight, provoking widespread resentment and condemnation.
Twenty-five years ago, there were many heroes and some truly incredible stories, like passengers walking from the cornfield without any injury. Twenty-five years later, there is only one hero. And it is Laurence Gonzales! He has written a truly fascinating account of the crash and reminds the world of of the fate of the less fortunate passengers and the fortunate survivors who lived to tell their tales.
September 15, 2022
I do distinctly remember this event as a long-time Iowa resident and was very interested in reading this very thorough account of events. The first hand reports of survivors were gripping. The stories of passengers who risked their lives to save others were amazing. The only thing that kept me from giving this book 5 stars was that I felt at times the author was overly graphic when describing the fatal injuries caused by the crash (as well as the postmortem identification process). Having worked my entire career in hospitals (including trauma and burn units) this was difficult for even me. I’m not sure this level of detail was necessary. However, apart from this I would recommend this book.
January 7, 2020
Fascinating account of the causes, event, and aftermath. Main takeaway: never fly in synthetic fabrics! Stick to cotton and wool.
June 30, 2022
United Flight 232 crashed in Sioux City, Iowa in 1989. It’s nearly unique as an airline disaster caught on video, and you’ve probably seen the footage. You can take another look here. Like most people you’d think that no one could have possibly survived. Yet somehow, 184 of the 296 passengers did. This is their story, and also the story of the investigation into what happened and why.
Matt, who loved the book more than I did, wrote an excellent review (he writes many excellent reviews):
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Matt, who loved the book more than I did, wrote an excellent review (he writes many excellent reviews):
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
January 29, 2015
Excellent and very compelling book, detailing the entire history of this flight, in effect: persons involved (those who survived and some of those who did not); how the disaster occurred, from in the air to the actual machinery involved; to the investigation by the NTSB, GE, and McDonnell-Douglas; to flying the crippled aircraft and why it was a miracle that anyone survived at all; and even to the people of "Siouxland", the tri-state Sioux City, IA/Woodbury County Disaster services people, who were used to dealing with disasters due to their location on a major floodplain and who had just recently been told that they should prepare for a major aircraft disaster as they were in the perfect spot - midway across the USA - for an emergency setdown.
Laurence Gonzales tells the story in sections, going back and forth between the history of the flight itself, the experience in the sky from the pilots' perspective; that of various passengers and flight personnel; what was happening across the country between air traffic control in Denver to Minneapolis/Chicago. Along the way, he explains the engine, the mechanics of a jet engine, and even the titanium used in jet engines and the fan blades in words that someone who isn't knowledgeable about such things can have a good grasp of just what went wrong with this flight.
This book was gripping for me for several reasons: its writing; the fact that I'd remembered seeing it crash the summer I moved from Colorado to North Dakota, and its burning, wheeling crash haunted and frightened me; and, as I read the book, learning that the engine itself was built at the Evendale, OH, plant in the metro area where I live and where a (late) friend of my father's once worked. Indeed, during WWII, my paternal grandfather worked building airplane engines at that very plant.
Laurence Gonzales tells the story in sections, going back and forth between the history of the flight itself, the experience in the sky from the pilots' perspective; that of various passengers and flight personnel; what was happening across the country between air traffic control in Denver to Minneapolis/Chicago. Along the way, he explains the engine, the mechanics of a jet engine, and even the titanium used in jet engines and the fan blades in words that someone who isn't knowledgeable about such things can have a good grasp of just what went wrong with this flight.
This book was gripping for me for several reasons: its writing; the fact that I'd remembered seeing it crash the summer I moved from Colorado to North Dakota, and its burning, wheeling crash haunted and frightened me; and, as I read the book, learning that the engine itself was built at the Evendale, OH, plant in the metro area where I live and where a (late) friend of my father's once worked. Indeed, during WWII, my paternal grandfather worked building airplane engines at that very plant.
July 4, 2021
This book has been on my to-read list for YEARS and it did not disappoint. Meticulous, unflinching, compassionate, recursive - this is a nearly perfect book. It reminded me of Flashes in the Night: The Sinking of the Estonia in that by the time you finish reading it, you have gone through the crash (or sinking) dozens of times, through many different victims' eyes. (In my irreverent moments, it also reminded me of that gif of a truck endlessly speeding toward a pole from multiple angles but never crashing into it.)
I said this book was nearly perfect - I think Chapter 17 should have been cut out. It details the process each deceased victim's body went through to be identified and although I think its purpose was to show how respectful the process was, writing about it actually seemed...disrespectful? There is also a truly outlandish line in that chapter talking about a dead woman's perfect breasts and the dip of her pelvis?? There is humanizing, and there is...whatever that is. I also initially thought this book was written longer ago than 2014 because of all the quaint ways the author described women (live ones this time): they are slim, trim, gorgeous, with doe-eyes and miniskirts and panythose (OK the pantyhose is relevant because it turns out synthetic fibers will burn you up in a plane crash). I think the author meant well but it made me wrinkle my nose as I read.
Still: nearly perfect.
I said this book was nearly perfect - I think Chapter 17 should have been cut out. It details the process each deceased victim's body went through to be identified and although I think its purpose was to show how respectful the process was, writing about it actually seemed...disrespectful? There is also a truly outlandish line in that chapter talking about a dead woman's perfect breasts and the dip of her pelvis?? There is humanizing, and there is...whatever that is. I also initially thought this book was written longer ago than 2014 because of all the quaint ways the author described women (live ones this time): they are slim, trim, gorgeous, with doe-eyes and miniskirts and panythose (OK the pantyhose is relevant because it turns out synthetic fibers will burn you up in a plane crash). I think the author meant well but it made me wrinkle my nose as I read.
Still: nearly perfect.
September 24, 2014
I have weirdly, morbidly, been drawn over my lifetime to disaster nonfiction, from the first I recall reading at about eleven (about the Jamestown flood) to this offering. And while there was a lot of good information and first-hand recollections, I was not pleased with the way Gonzales delivered the story. I prefer a more chronological narrative. I want to know the actors upfront, or as they become involved. I don't like repetition (often many times) in the telling of the story, I don't like the narrative of how they discovered the causes while the tragedy is unfolding. I don't like the author putting himself in the story (unless he was a participant and it is a memoir). I want to know a little about all the victims and survivors, not just a cross section. He chose a different delivery, and that was his right, but it just didn't satisfy me. I got this feeling that he decided to stay mostly with the individuals who granted him interviews, rather than doing a bit more research and legwork to flesh out the story. Maybe I am too attached to certain forms. Still, these people went through an horrendous ordeal and many miracles occurred.
August 15, 2014
Every wonder what it would be like on an airplane that has a catastrophic failure and having almost 25 minutes before the plane strikes earth? Read about in Flight 232 from those that survived in this amazing book. The technical look at what caused the crash is very well researched as well, just a bit over on the technical side. This is an amazing story of something just short of a miracle. If you have ever seen the footage of the crash it is bizarre to think of the sheer number of people that actually walked away from the crash. And to hear the people tell their stories is really almost haunting. If you decide to read this check out the authors website. He has some great tie ins for the book including actual transmissions from 232 and the airport tower. I know that this one will be one of those that will stick with me long after I have finished reading it.
April 15, 2014
No one expected survivors from the fireball that erupted when United Airlines Flight 232 cartwheeled across the airfield in Sioux City on July 19, 1989. That 184 of the 296 people aboard the disintegrating aircraft survived, many of them without injuries, makes for a stunning tale of hope and determination. Laurence Gonzales has written a moment-by-moment reconstruction of the crash of a jumbo jet, based on meticulous interviews with all of the survivors, crew, witnesses, first-responders and experts. There are so many powerful moments in this book. Gonzales has carefully probed what it means to face certain death, then walk away through the cornfield at the edge of the runway. Here is the Publishers Weekly review
August 1, 2014
I don't even know what to say about this book. It was definitely riveting, especially the first half. Just...you can't stop reading it, because you just have to know. Some of the later chapters that focus more on the cause of the accident are a leeeeetle technical, and hard to understand, (at least they were for me) so that's the reason I gave this only 4 stars. But if you can stomach this, it's just an amazing read.
Also I am never wearing synthetic fabrics on a plane again. In case you were wondering.
Also I am never wearing synthetic fabrics on a plane again. In case you were wondering.
August 1, 2014
This is a well written and researched story of the flight that crashed in an Iowa corn field in 1989. The writing is excellent and I enjoyed reading the detail of the forensics involved in preventing further crashes as a result of the engines defective fan. I highly recommend this book, the survivors narratives were compelling and this is a story people should read and know how hard the FAA, airlines, and manufacturers of airplane parts work to make flying safe for all of us.
March 12, 2016
Gripping book. And parents of small children, I implore you, please don't endanger your children in favor of saving a few hundred bucks by seating them in your lap! In the words of Jan Brown, the lead flight attendant on Flight 232, "It's heart-wrenching after 25 years, how truly pathetic that you can still take a lap child, the most vulnerable of our population, and risk flying with them on our lap."
June 12, 2014
This book goes into details about all the passengers on this ill fated flight. It also talks about the background of the plane and the technical aspects of this crash. It is quite a harrowing ride to read this book. At times you can feel what it would be like to have survived this flight. It is amazing to read about some of the heroic acts of the passengers.
April 3, 2022
This is a very thorough look at this accident, so thorough that for somebody as scared of flying as I am, it often made for some stressful reading. The details are impeccable and the information contained in some of the survivor accounts is both amazing and utterly terrifying. This book really gives you a glimpse into a situation that very rarely leaves survivors, so in that respect it's a very unique piece of history.
My one criticism would be that sometimes the book can feel repetitive. It's not boring or dull, but the book is structured in a non-linear way. If you're not a fan of non-linear timeliness, you might find that this book can be a little choppy, but I didn't mind the layout so much as I did just notice that many scenes are repeated in similar ways. Obviously this can't be helped, as a lot of the survivors commented on the same kind of sounds or sights at the beginning of the emergency, but beware that when reading this book the scene will often skip back in time and begin in a familiar way. I don't think it's detrimental to the book for me (it was just something I noticed) but others might not enjoy it as much. I did think that that epilogue was a little disjointed, however; all the information was interesting, but there was no real order to it.
These are pretty minor gripes compared to the sheer amount of interesting information in here, though. Something I really appreciated was the author's choice to integrate the investigation alongside the account of the crash and the victims' stories, because even though the investigation was written in the same engaging way, the author does clearly understand that there's only only long you can go into detail about metallurgy or engine construction without it getting a little dense. The author mitigates this by introducing concepts and explaining succinctly and quickly, before moving on to more personal aspects of the disaster for a while, and then returning to the investigation. This makes the more technical information bite-sized and easier to understand, and stops the book from getting bogged down in heavier details. It was a very good choice of layout that definitely helped my understanding of the more complicated technical aspects.
My copy of the book contains several illustrations as well, which add to the understanding and impact of the book. The pictures are in black and white, however, which did make identifying people from the red hat etc mentioned in the captions a little complicated! I imagine these pictures and captions were taken from online resources, and can likely be viewed in colour there.
My one criticism would be that sometimes the book can feel repetitive. It's not boring or dull, but the book is structured in a non-linear way. If you're not a fan of non-linear timeliness, you might find that this book can be a little choppy, but I didn't mind the layout so much as I did just notice that many scenes are repeated in similar ways. Obviously this can't be helped, as a lot of the survivors commented on the same kind of sounds or sights at the beginning of the emergency, but beware that when reading this book the scene will often skip back in time and begin in a familiar way. I don't think it's detrimental to the book for me (it was just something I noticed) but others might not enjoy it as much. I did think that that epilogue was a little disjointed, however; all the information was interesting, but there was no real order to it.
These are pretty minor gripes compared to the sheer amount of interesting information in here, though. Something I really appreciated was the author's choice to integrate the investigation alongside the account of the crash and the victims' stories, because even though the investigation was written in the same engaging way, the author does clearly understand that there's only only long you can go into detail about metallurgy or engine construction without it getting a little dense. The author mitigates this by introducing concepts and explaining succinctly and quickly, before moving on to more personal aspects of the disaster for a while, and then returning to the investigation. This makes the more technical information bite-sized and easier to understand, and stops the book from getting bogged down in heavier details. It was a very good choice of layout that definitely helped my understanding of the more complicated technical aspects.
My copy of the book contains several illustrations as well, which add to the understanding and impact of the book. The pictures are in black and white, however, which did make identifying people from the red hat etc mentioned in the captions a little complicated! I imagine these pictures and captions were taken from online resources, and can likely be viewed in colour there.
February 9, 2025
this blends compelling narrative with technical detail to comprehensively chronicle the human and scientific aspects around the crash of United 232, two days before I was born (perhaps instilling some of my innate fear of air travel?)
nearly 300 were aboard what has been called “the impossible landing” and Gonzales details how each of the 184 lives miraculously saved can be credited to the selflessness and skill of flight crew, FAA staff, and first responders, as well as “regular” people who sacrificed their own safety and wellbeing to help others
cool AF to know that the NTSB slogan is “From Tragedy We Draw Knowledge to Improve the Safety of Us All”, which is why it’s always stupid when people say not to “politicize” a tragedy; indeed, it’s worth investigating said tragedies to create policies that make people safer, as is often the case after disasters like this
a few months ago, this might have been inspiring for me. now, planes are falling from the sky for the first time in decades while (and/or because) a deeply unfunny and bigoted troll who made billions by selling ugly exploding cars is somehow making massive cuts to U.S. aviation safety funding and staffing, and now i’m more scared to fly than ever
nearly 300 were aboard what has been called “the impossible landing” and Gonzales details how each of the 184 lives miraculously saved can be credited to the selflessness and skill of flight crew, FAA staff, and first responders, as well as “regular” people who sacrificed their own safety and wellbeing to help others
cool AF to know that the NTSB slogan is “From Tragedy We Draw Knowledge to Improve the Safety of Us All”, which is why it’s always stupid when people say not to “politicize” a tragedy; indeed, it’s worth investigating said tragedies to create policies that make people safer, as is often the case after disasters like this
a few months ago, this might have been inspiring for me. now, planes are falling from the sky for the first time in decades while (and/or because) a deeply unfunny and bigoted troll who made billions by selling ugly exploding cars is somehow making massive cuts to U.S. aviation safety funding and staffing, and now i’m more scared to fly than ever
September 7, 2020
This book is intense! I had a hard time putting it down-but when I was done I felt a little bit like I wished I hadn't read it because it was so sad and detailed. It's an account of Flight 232, which crashed in Iowa in 1989. You hear the passengers stories, which are heartbreaking. The pilots and crew managed to keep the DC-10 aloft and crash landed on a runway. 184 passengers (out of 296) survived the crash-though everyone on the ground thought there was no way anyone would have survived the crash. I skipped some of the pages that were pretty technical about the causes of the crash and how airplanes are manufactured. I know air travel is the safest way to travel nowadays, thanks to many lessons learned in plane crashes in the 80's. Also-safety tip-don't bring your child as a lap passenger. There were many babies on the flight and parents had to put the children down on the floor when they braced for impact. Buy a ticket for them!
Read
March 28, 2018Flight 232, is a United Airlines aircraft and the craft was ready to fly! The day was July 19th, 1989. It started as a beautiful day in Colorado for the 296 passengers on the flight. The flight took off at 10:09 A.M. and the landing wasn't as peaceful, as 111 of the 296 passed away and 185 survived in total. When the crash happened people were asking a lot of questions, and we get a lot of answers. Around 11:16 A.M. they were approx. 37,000 feet and they took a shallow right turn and they blew the CF6-6 engine had blown. Autopilot turned off and the pilots immediately started to figure out how to land this craft safely on the ground. But when they tried to land, the back wing first touched down and the gas immediately ignited, leaves some people to die in flames. This day was very tragic for families and the world and we will always remember Flight 232.
April 24, 2025
A very detailed account of the crash. A thorough look into what went wrong with the flight and how the investigation evolved. Lots of details from the accounts of the survivors. This was a very well researched book!
August 5, 2019
Poor timing on my part seeing as I’m getting on a plane in a few days, but a harrowing and incredibly clear and well researched book nonetheless.
July 15, 2022
I think I met my disaster book of all disasters with this one. Crystal clear writing, haunting.
January 1, 2015
Suppose you are a huge sports fan of a particular football team. Suppose that team is playing in the NFL championship. Your team is up 1 point, they have ball, it's 4th and 1 yard with 2:01 on the clock. The last three plays were run but defense is holding tight. The ball is snapped to the quarterback who fakes a pass then throws a real pass too long for the receiver. The ball is intercepted and the opposing team runs the ball forty yards for a touch down. Rather than kick for the extra point, they complete a 2 point conversion. Your team gets the ball again and the quarter back is sacked three times and fumbles on fourth down. The opposing team has the ball, it's snapped and the quarterback takes a knee.
Who lost the game? A good coach will commend the team, praise the quarterback for the first half, then concentrate on the game holistically without singling out any player. It is a team sport and took nearly three hours to play out on the field, after all. The fans remember the overthrown ball, the sacks, and the fumble. The coach disaggregates all of the plays throughout the game.
If you are still reading after my football story, know that it was an analogy. What the author of this book does beautifully is twofold; the crash of 232 is personalized as he retells the stories of the victims on the airplane. Know this much - they were all victims and suffered greatly from the experience even those few who were uninjured. The reader is taken through the grueling forty some odd minutes from the time the engine blew and the fan disk damaged the hydraulic lines, to the harrowing crash on the runway then continues to the aftermath - clean up then life continued for many. The other chapters interspersed in the book explores, in fascinating detail, the journey of making a DC10, the chemistry of forging the perfect titanium, and measures put into place to maximize safety.
Like the fans of the football team, many want an easy scapegoat; the last person that touched the ball or checked the engine fan disk integrity. The truth of the matter is that the crash in 1989 of Flight 232 was a rare confluence of circumstances (an irregularity in the titanium, multiple checks that missed the resulting slow growing crack, the architecture of the DC10, the fact that it is impossible to fly a DC10 without hydraulics, etc.) that resulted in a catastrophic event.
There is a third element to the book that is miraculous. Another rare confluence of circumstances that resulted in the survival of one third of the people on that airplane that crashed on an airfield in Iowa, that nearly just had a rough landing but instead, without hydraulics and manipulated mostly by throttle by a passenger who happened to be a flight instructor, the copilot who instinctively pushed in a throttle that prevented the plane from spiraling, the airfield situated in farmland, and many other miracles that added up to people surviving.
The book details the landing, the dip of the right wing, the resulting nose to the ground and tail perpendicular to the ground, the breaking apart like the Titanic, the fireball, the sounds, the smoke, the smells, and even the dissonance of the beautiful sunny day. The details are uplifting and heart wrenching. The book is very well researched then explained in terms that even the non chemistry person can understand. I'll admit to cheating a bit. I googled the crash. Someone caught it on tape. An unusual feat in 1989. Go look at the images. Pull up the short video of the crash then come right back.
I'll wait for you. Go ahead. But come back.
Go on.
Are you back?
Good. Now I will reiterate that people survived. Don't get me wrong. It was a a horrific catastrophe. 112 people died. Yet 186 people lived. Many walked out of the plane and out of the cornfields. So bad was the crash, when some walked out of the fields, first responders yelled at them for being too close to a major catastrophe, what are they doing wandering around an old aiffield, anyway. They weren't expecting any survivors.
So well researched is this book that I completely agree with the author's conclusion. Like a good coach who knows every member of his team, the author disaggregates the information and the fault does not solely rest on the last person that checked the engine fan disk. Conversely, the miracle of flight 232 can not be solely attributed to any one person. Building and flying the DC-10 was a team effort. Bringing it down in the safest manner on two engines, no hydraulics, and a couple of holes in the ship took a team of capable, skilled, and, I'd add, inspired team of people.
http://amusingreviews.blogspot.com/20...
Who lost the game? A good coach will commend the team, praise the quarterback for the first half, then concentrate on the game holistically without singling out any player. It is a team sport and took nearly three hours to play out on the field, after all. The fans remember the overthrown ball, the sacks, and the fumble. The coach disaggregates all of the plays throughout the game.
If you are still reading after my football story, know that it was an analogy. What the author of this book does beautifully is twofold; the crash of 232 is personalized as he retells the stories of the victims on the airplane. Know this much - they were all victims and suffered greatly from the experience even those few who were uninjured. The reader is taken through the grueling forty some odd minutes from the time the engine blew and the fan disk damaged the hydraulic lines, to the harrowing crash on the runway then continues to the aftermath - clean up then life continued for many. The other chapters interspersed in the book explores, in fascinating detail, the journey of making a DC10, the chemistry of forging the perfect titanium, and measures put into place to maximize safety.
Like the fans of the football team, many want an easy scapegoat; the last person that touched the ball or checked the engine fan disk integrity. The truth of the matter is that the crash in 1989 of Flight 232 was a rare confluence of circumstances (an irregularity in the titanium, multiple checks that missed the resulting slow growing crack, the architecture of the DC10, the fact that it is impossible to fly a DC10 without hydraulics, etc.) that resulted in a catastrophic event.
There is a third element to the book that is miraculous. Another rare confluence of circumstances that resulted in the survival of one third of the people on that airplane that crashed on an airfield in Iowa, that nearly just had a rough landing but instead, without hydraulics and manipulated mostly by throttle by a passenger who happened to be a flight instructor, the copilot who instinctively pushed in a throttle that prevented the plane from spiraling, the airfield situated in farmland, and many other miracles that added up to people surviving.
The book details the landing, the dip of the right wing, the resulting nose to the ground and tail perpendicular to the ground, the breaking apart like the Titanic, the fireball, the sounds, the smoke, the smells, and even the dissonance of the beautiful sunny day. The details are uplifting and heart wrenching. The book is very well researched then explained in terms that even the non chemistry person can understand. I'll admit to cheating a bit. I googled the crash. Someone caught it on tape. An unusual feat in 1989. Go look at the images. Pull up the short video of the crash then come right back.
I'll wait for you. Go ahead. But come back.
Go on.
Are you back?
Good. Now I will reiterate that people survived. Don't get me wrong. It was a a horrific catastrophe. 112 people died. Yet 186 people lived. Many walked out of the plane and out of the cornfields. So bad was the crash, when some walked out of the fields, first responders yelled at them for being too close to a major catastrophe, what are they doing wandering around an old aiffield, anyway. They weren't expecting any survivors.
So well researched is this book that I completely agree with the author's conclusion. Like a good coach who knows every member of his team, the author disaggregates the information and the fault does not solely rest on the last person that checked the engine fan disk. Conversely, the miracle of flight 232 can not be solely attributed to any one person. Building and flying the DC-10 was a team effort. Bringing it down in the safest manner on two engines, no hydraulics, and a couple of holes in the ship took a team of capable, skilled, and, I'd add, inspired team of people.
http://amusingreviews.blogspot.com/20...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 30, 2018
In 2010, I was leading a mountain search & rescue team that was being inserted, via a military Chinook helicopter, on top of a cliff at 13,000' in southern Colorado. My team's objective was to rescue/recover an 18 y.o. climber who had fallen hundreds of feet near the summit of Little Bear Peak.
As I prepared the team to leave the helicopter, a warm updraft lifted the nose of the craft, and the rear rotor disintegrated in the granite behind us; having been in the military and knowing the results of what happens to helicopters, in the air, suddenly without rotors, especially surrounded by cliffs and steep snowfields, I tucked into crash position, I hoped death would simply be me blacking out (not burning and watching my team burn), and I kissed my ass goodbye.
Miraculously (this is what the Army called it), the pilot made a hard landing into the ONE tiny swamp in the gorge, and almost a dozen of us beat the odds with no major injuries. A year later though, this same skilled pilot was the one who was flying the Extortion 17 mission, in which he and 37 others perished in Afghanistan (the deadliest helicopter crash in U.S. special operations history).
This incident catalyzed years of trauma catching up to me, and I began suffering obvious signs and symptoms of PTSD. This led to me becoming fascinated not only with survival science, but also people's different responses to PTSD.
As L. Gonzales has pointed out in his previous writings on survival science, we humans are fascinated and study the catastrophes of others to help us frame our own risk analysis, risk-taking, and desire to avoid suffering and death.
Although I experience some minor PTSD s/sx when flying, two things have helped me face the realities of the risks of flying, and both have lessened my PTSD.
Several years ago I booked an appointment to learn to jump from airplanes, solo (static line). Although this experience made me physically ill (I turned my stomach inside out upon hitting the deck), psychologically it helped stop nightmares of helicopter crashes, and my sweaty palms, at the sound of a helicopter rotor beat, diminished.
The other thing was reading this book, WHILE flying on jumbo jets around the country on vacation. This may be counter intuitive, reading about the realities of commercial jet manufacturing, maintenance, investigations when fatalities occur, statistics, etc., while I'm feet from a GE jet engine, but this book significantly helped my anxiety DECREASE.
Instead of getting on planes and seeing barbecued corpses (like some of those souls that Gonzales interviewed and features in this book), now I see happy families on vacation. Now when my wife and I go backpacking in the mountains, instead of seeing rotting bodies, I see fly fishing enthusiasts and cautious peak baggers.
If by chance the author ever has time to read these reviews (I'm an author and appreciate my book's reviews), Mr. Gonzales, thank you for your work. It has helped some of us in deeply therapeutic ways.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this book to anyone interested in survival science and / or surviving survival (PTSD and resilience).
As I prepared the team to leave the helicopter, a warm updraft lifted the nose of the craft, and the rear rotor disintegrated in the granite behind us; having been in the military and knowing the results of what happens to helicopters, in the air, suddenly without rotors, especially surrounded by cliffs and steep snowfields, I tucked into crash position, I hoped death would simply be me blacking out (not burning and watching my team burn), and I kissed my ass goodbye.
Miraculously (this is what the Army called it), the pilot made a hard landing into the ONE tiny swamp in the gorge, and almost a dozen of us beat the odds with no major injuries. A year later though, this same skilled pilot was the one who was flying the Extortion 17 mission, in which he and 37 others perished in Afghanistan (the deadliest helicopter crash in U.S. special operations history).
This incident catalyzed years of trauma catching up to me, and I began suffering obvious signs and symptoms of PTSD. This led to me becoming fascinated not only with survival science, but also people's different responses to PTSD.
As L. Gonzales has pointed out in his previous writings on survival science, we humans are fascinated and study the catastrophes of others to help us frame our own risk analysis, risk-taking, and desire to avoid suffering and death.
Although I experience some minor PTSD s/sx when flying, two things have helped me face the realities of the risks of flying, and both have lessened my PTSD.
Several years ago I booked an appointment to learn to jump from airplanes, solo (static line). Although this experience made me physically ill (I turned my stomach inside out upon hitting the deck), psychologically it helped stop nightmares of helicopter crashes, and my sweaty palms, at the sound of a helicopter rotor beat, diminished.
The other thing was reading this book, WHILE flying on jumbo jets around the country on vacation. This may be counter intuitive, reading about the realities of commercial jet manufacturing, maintenance, investigations when fatalities occur, statistics, etc., while I'm feet from a GE jet engine, but this book significantly helped my anxiety DECREASE.
Instead of getting on planes and seeing barbecued corpses (like some of those souls that Gonzales interviewed and features in this book), now I see happy families on vacation. Now when my wife and I go backpacking in the mountains, instead of seeing rotting bodies, I see fly fishing enthusiasts and cautious peak baggers.
If by chance the author ever has time to read these reviews (I'm an author and appreciate my book's reviews), Mr. Gonzales, thank you for your work. It has helped some of us in deeply therapeutic ways.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this book to anyone interested in survival science and / or surviving survival (PTSD and resilience).
October 28, 2014
"Flight 232" is about a famous commercial airliner crash in 1989. A United Airlines DC-10 was travelling from Denver to Chicago when a manufacturing flaw in the titanium primary turbine rotor of the #2 engine caused the turbine to break in half. Turbine parts exploded from the engine, shooting through the tail of the plane and crippling all three hydraulic flight control systems. The pilots could not steer the plane or control its attitude except by manipulating the thrust on the two remaining engines. Amazingly, they flew the plane to Sioux City airport, where it crashed attempting to land. More than a hundred people died, but even more were saved.
Laurence Gonzales has written a wonderful book. With every page he demonstrates his dedication to telling the story, and to the many people involved: victims, survivors, rescuers, investigators, and families.
As part of the official investigation, NTSB investigators programmed flight simulators with the same damage as UA 232 - dead #2 engine and loss of all control hydraulics - and experienced DC-10 pilots tried to find a reliable way to fly the stricken plane to safety. They never found one. The plane always crashed, usually well short of an airport. The accident report concluded that "The simulator reenactment of the events leading to the crash landing revealed that line flightcrews could not be taught to control the airplane and land safely without hydraulic power available to operate the flight controls ... After carefully observing the performance of a control group of DC-10-qualified pilots in the simulator, it became apparent that training for an attempted landing, comparable to that experienced by UA 232, would not help the crew in successfully handling this problem."
Maybe UA 232 really was a singular miracle, whose outcome was so unlikely no useful lessons can be learned from it. But because of the steadfast determination of the crew to get to an airport and try to land, lives were saved. So I choose to be inspired by Denny Fitch, one of the pilots on UA 232: "One lesson learned is that you can do more than you possibly believe you can. We had to. We rose above anything we believed of ourselves."
Laurence Gonzales has written a wonderful book. With every page he demonstrates his dedication to telling the story, and to the many people involved: victims, survivors, rescuers, investigators, and families.
As part of the official investigation, NTSB investigators programmed flight simulators with the same damage as UA 232 - dead #2 engine and loss of all control hydraulics - and experienced DC-10 pilots tried to find a reliable way to fly the stricken plane to safety. They never found one. The plane always crashed, usually well short of an airport. The accident report concluded that "The simulator reenactment of the events leading to the crash landing revealed that line flightcrews could not be taught to control the airplane and land safely without hydraulic power available to operate the flight controls ... After carefully observing the performance of a control group of DC-10-qualified pilots in the simulator, it became apparent that training for an attempted landing, comparable to that experienced by UA 232, would not help the crew in successfully handling this problem."
Maybe UA 232 really was a singular miracle, whose outcome was so unlikely no useful lessons can be learned from it. But because of the steadfast determination of the crew to get to an airport and try to land, lives were saved. So I choose to be inspired by Denny Fitch, one of the pilots on UA 232: "One lesson learned is that you can do more than you possibly believe you can. We had to. We rose above anything we believed of ourselves."
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