A classic combining several types of aviation disaster book in one. Vividly retells incidents that made headlines at the time, while explaining why they happened and the lessons they provided to make air travel so safe today. Individuals covered include Germany's World War I fighter ace, the Red Baron, aviatrix Amelia Earhart, and Captain Pich who ran out of fuel and managed to glide 80 miles to plunge down safely on a mid-Atlantic island. Includes the Comet disasters that revealed the dangers of metal fatigue, the U.K.'s Kegworth air disaster where the pilots shut down the good engine, the worst-ever aircraft disasters (Tenerife and JL123), the mid-air collision between an airliner full of children and a freighter after which one of the fathers killed the air traffic controller he thought responsible, the supersonic Concorde, 9/11, AA587, the Hudson River ditching, and the mysterious loss of Air France AF447... To avoid repetition, explanations of technical terms and procedures were placed in an appendix, now published separately as ''THE FLYING DICTIONARY.'' Makes the narratives even more interesting and a fascinating read in its own right.