Description
The black box is orange—and there are actually two of them. They house the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, instruments vital to airplane crash analyses.
But accident investigators cannot rely on the black boxes alone. Beginning with the 1931 Fokker F-10A crash that killed legendary football coach Knute Rockne, this fascinating book provides a behind-the-scenes look at plane wreck investigations. Professor George Bibel shows how forensic experts, scientists, and engineers analyze factors like impact, debris, loading, fire patterns, metallurgy, fracture, crash testing, and human tolerances to determine why planes fall from the sky—and how the information gleaned from accident reconstruction is incorporated into aircraft design and operation to keep commercial aviation as safe as possible.Reviews
"Bibel takes the reader, chattily and with skill, through his analysis of a series of fatal accidents."—Paul Marks, New Scientist"A good book that explains how and why airplanes can crash through descriptions of a wide variety of crashes and near-crashes followed by explanations of the science that governed those incidents. The stories of the accidents, and their explanations, read like mysteries; I found myself reading faster to get to the end of the story and find out why things happened the way they did. Bibel clearly has a love for all things aeronautical and that shines through on every page."—John M. Henshaw, author of Does Measurement Measure Up? "Offering insights into how aviation accident investigations are conducted, Bibel addresses the causes of such accidents, from in-flight breakup to metal fatigue and combustion, and the lessons learned. Enriched with many drawings, graphs, and equations . . . Highly recommended."—Library Journal "A fascinating book."—Steven D. Levitt, Freakonomics Blog "A fascinating book."—Steven D. Levitt, New York Times "The author succeeds in both science and storytelling. . . This book is valuable as a supplemental text for the targeted students, but also for college students studying introductory design engineering. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers' lower-division undergraduates; researchers/faculty."—Choice
Author Information
George Bibel, a former NASA summer faculty fellow, is a professor of mechanical engineering at the School of Engineering and Mines, University of North Dakota. He recently completed the Air Line Pilots Association Advanced Accident Investigation Course.
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