Customer Reviews

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

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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."

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.

*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.

First published in 1976, and out of print fairly soon after (accidents fade quickly from public memory) this book is an exceptionally comprehensive and researched work focusing on the Turkish Airlines DC-10 crash of May 1974.

How did 346 people die such a tragic and somewhat brutal death in a forest just outside of Paris?

This book not only answers that question specifically in terms of the structural failure of the airliner, but perhaps just as importantly discusses the events leading up to the crash, and why and how it could and should have been avoided.

I must give full credit to the (British) Sunday Times Insight team for producing what I consider one of the most exceptional works of Journalism of the 20th century.

Most Engineering Students and indeed Engineers will find this book absolutely fascinating. Students of ethics might find it of considerable interest as well, as should the general reader.

I remember, vividly, the crash of THY flight 981 over Ermenonville. I was fifteen. TRT (Turkish Radio TV) was the only show in the country and broadcast in black and white. It was a Sunday afternoon. The news alert of the downed flight was first flashed across the screen during some regularly scheduled program. As the afternoon went on, we started to get special reports in between regularly scheduled programs as black and white images of the crash site got filtered through the news agencies. I remember being glued to the screen, now regarding the regularly scheduled programs as interruptions, listening to theories as to why the plane went down, to the updates on the number of people aboard the jumbo jet, which kept creeping up as the passenger manifesto had to be readjusted due to the confusion caused by the BA strike, and watching the same gruesome black and white images over and over again.
I saw Destination Disaster on the Recently Acquired Books section of my high school library. When I noticed "DC-10" in the subtitle, I immediately checked it out. The vivid account of the Ermenonville disaster in Chapter 1 got me off to a quick start. Although English was not my first language, the book was an easy read. The fact that there were a few words per page which I would have to look up in a dictionary did not deter my appetite; I quickly put the dictionary away and devoured the book like I would a detective novel. I was fascinated by the investigative effort that had gone into this book. I thought, at the time, that it had an excellent balance between sensational (but necessary) accounts, historical fact and technical detail.
When the THY Boeing 737 went down in Amsterdam earlier this year (2009), I somehow remembered reading a book on the DC-10 disasters in my youth. I had long forgotten its title and had never paid attention to its authors in the first place. After poring over results of an Amazon book search, I first ordered a wrong book and then ordered Destination Disaster. The second read through the book, after 30 some years, is as exciting as the first read. Having lived in the United States since 1982, I no longer consider English as my second language and find that, this time, I do not have the urge to consult a dictionary every 5 minutes. I am now reading the book as an engineering educator and am wondering how I can incorporate it in an interdisciplinary book study.
It is an excellent book that documents all aspects of engineering design, from financial, political and competitive factors to unintended yet predictable results of the choices of decision makers in the design process.

Well written and researched, this book not only covers the Turkish DC-10 crash but factors leading up to the ill fated flight, including a similar problem another DC-10 experienced. Book also gives a history overview of McDonnell Douglas. Could have used a bit of editing for length, but all in all an interesting read.