IF, DESPITE the green backlash against aviation, you still plan to fly regularly, don’t read this book. That’s not a criticism: a book on the physics behind air crash investigations was never likely to be a pretty read. The 1001 potential points of failure in an aircraft – including structural failure, exploded engines, fuel starvation, wiring fires and slapdash maintenance – become all too apparent as Bibel takes the reader, chattily and with skill, through his analysis of a series of fatal accidents from the de Havilland Comet crashes of the 1950s onwards. I’m left hoping there’s no need for a sequel.
Beyond the Black Box
Johns Hopkins University Press