Destination disaster: From the Tri-Motor to the DC-10, the risk of flying [Paperback]

Paul Eddy (Author), Elaine Potter (Author), Bruce Page (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 434 pages
• Publisher: Quadrangle/New York Times Book Co (1976)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812906195
• ISBN-13: 978-0812906196
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.6 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #735,275 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A riveting story of aviation safety gone awry, November 29, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Destination disaster: From the Tri-Motor to the DC-10, the risk of flying (Paperback)

Though it has been some twenty years since I read this book I have found it impossible to forget, a book that changed what I know. It would be, I imagine of interest to students of engineering and flight as well as a cautionary business tale. Though it is a nonfictional account of the jumbo trijet race is often reads like a whodunit and occassionally rises to the heights of great literature,e.g. describing a 747's take-off roll as " a cathedral in motion."

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating!!, August 31, 2004

By 

George M Woods (Anchorage, AK USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Destination disaster: From the Tri-Motor to the DC-10, the risk of flying (Paperback)

While it has been more than twenty years since I first read this book I have not stopped recommending it to my aviation-minded friends as the best of the breed. Encompassingly researched it sets its story amid the changing histories of the companies racing to be the first to bring a jumbo trijet to market. It meticulously details the engineering and, more critically, the marketing decisions that caused the DC-10 to be built with a fatal weakness that would be expressed so catastrophically (but not for the first time) in 1974 in the skies near Paris. While satisfyingly replete with technical details it also is remarkably well written, referring for example, to a 747 taking off as "a cathedral in motion." It is an exciting book to read, one that had me knowingly shaking my head when a DC-10 expressed its heritage once again,losing an engine on take-off from Chicago in 1979.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An extraordinary account of safety and politics in aviation, May 2, 2001

By 

Thomas D. Tyson III "ARHPG" (High Point, NC United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Destination disaster: From the Tri-Motor to the DC-10, the risk of flying (Paperback)

*Destination Disaster* is a remarkable book of the politics in the (wide-body) commercial-aviation industry, and an accounting of the political warfare between McDonald Douglas and Lockheed Aircraft to gain acceptance of their designs during the early competition for wide-body commercial aircraft. One company, McDonald, pushed hard in Washington to prevent the technically more-advanced L1011 from being accepted in the commercial airline industry, only to see its candidate, the DC-10, later prove to be a safety nightmare. It is a spell-binding account of the troubles that ensued. In the end, Douglas' effort helped prevent acceptance of the L1011 for large-scale orders, and the plane ended production far too soon due to lowered order rate.

This out-of-print book is a must-read chronical of what happens behind the scenes in the highly competitive airline industry. It is well researched and written.