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Flight 232

a Story of Disaster and Survival
Mar 14, 2015zipread rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Flight 232: a Story of Disaster and Survival. --- by --- Laurence Gonzales. Riveting. Because this is a true story. Because you know almost how it will end. Because you want to know why it happened. Flight 232 is the story of a United Airlines DC 10 flying Denver to Chicago on July 19th 1989. It had 296 passengers aboard. Late in its flight the giant jet lost all hydraulic control: essentially it couldn't be steered, it couldn't be landed. And yet, the cockpit crew managed to wrestle the plane to the ground where it broke open and burned. Yet amazingly, 184 of the passengers survived. Gonzales takes of number of elements of what events transpired to mould that fateful event: the manufacture of the plane’s huge GE engine; pilots' actions on the flight deck; the experiences of individual passengers before, during and after the crash; the rescue efforts. All these strands are twined together to relate the whole story. A story such as this is intrinsically riveting in a macabre sort of way. But it is also a story that must be told. It is a story of grief and suffering. It is a story of the hand of fate or the work of God. It is a story of survivors who lived while others died. It is a story of heroes. It is a story worth reading.