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

Written by Christine Negroni

Narrated by Christine Negroni

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 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Audio
• Release date: Sep 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524702908

Christine Negroni

Christine Negroni is an award-winning broadcast journalist. She has worked for various local television stations, as well as CBS News, PBS, and CNN, where she covered aviation. She lives in Connecticut with her husband, the writer Jim Schembari, and their four children.

[rivkat_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Stories of airplane crash investigations from a journalistic perspective, investigating the human factors and possibilities. Look, my spouse is reading a bunch of these for a class he’s teaching and now so am I. This didn’t stand out particularly.

[wildrequiem · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Review There's nothing mysterious about any of these plane crashes save for that conspiracy section that imo was totally unnecessary. I'm sure that political coverups for certain cases must occur, but it doesn't really have a place in an otherwise pretty scientific book. It's all wild conjecture and not particularly revealing.

Basically, if you're an aviation enthusiast and you've already seen every episode of Air Crash Investigation plus all airline disaster documentaries, none of the crashes here will surprise you (because there are only so many, after all). I came into this wanting to know more about the NTSB though.

Overall, the book is a bit disjointed and all over the place. I think someone who came into it not knowing anything about the aviation industry would be especially confused.

[niaomiya · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found this book very interesting. It covered a myriad of air mishaps, ranging from the days of the Wright Brothers to the 2014 disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. What was really interesting was author Christine Negroni's discussion of the changes in airline technology and pilot training, as well as the purported causes of the various air disasters. I only wish that she had gone more in depth with each case instead of discussing each case in a cursory fashion. Also, Negroni jumps around far too much. In the middle of discussing a case, she'll jump to another one that the same pilot was involved in years ago, and then she'll come back to the current case. Similarly, she will start talking about a big case, then leave it, come back to it in a future chapter, leave it again, pick it up again a few more chapters later, etc. It makes for a very disjointed read, and I don't like being left hanging, even though Negroni actually comes out and says that she is leaving the reader hanging.

With a more in-depth focus on fewer cases and a more cohesive presentation, the book would be more engaging. The topic is quite fascinating; it just needed better editing, I think.

[fastforward-46127 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book takes a look inside some airline crash investigations including the author's opinion about what happened on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. I have absolutely no experience as pilot but I do watch the tv show Air Disasters from time to time. While there is a lot of technical information provided in the book I thought it was explained in a way that the average person should be able to follow most of it.

The main thing to keep in mind while reading this book is that it is more of an overview about what happened during a few disasters and the investigations that followed. It's a good starting off point for learning of a few cases and how the industry works. It is scary to think how a government or airline's own interests might affect the outcome of an investigation. I also discovered that I don't want to be a passenger on a Dreamliner aircraft anytime soon.

Overall, I thought this was an interesting read that makes me look a bit differently at the aviation industry and the people who are supposed to look out for the safety of the passengers.

This is my fair and honest opinion after winning this book in a giveaway.