Customer Reviews

The Mystery of Flight 427: Inside a Crash Investigation

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The idea of a book about an airline crash and the following investigation is not new. There have been plenty of books using this formula. But this one is special. Very readable. As an airline pilot who has taken (but thankfully never had to use) crash site courses the technical aspects are pitch perfect, and as a reader of tons of aviation books, the writing is engaging and accessible. Just about anybody could read, understand, and become involved in this text.

The epic story of the world's most popular jet with an unknown fleeting flaw is the story. Adair avoids the clichés of the Airplane! genre, but the whole book smoothly reads like a novel. He seemed to have interviewed everybody involved in the 737 investigations. And as a professional journalist he knew how and what to ask. Balanced without preaching. It is clear the 737 was safe, but had a fatal flaw. Thanks to folks at the NTSB that never gave up, and people like Adair who track and report on the detective story, airline flying becomes even safer.

If you want to know what it is really like inside a crash investigation, without the hyperbole, but with all the smells and politics, this is a super book to start with.

I am generally skeptical of aviation accident books, but Adair's account of the USAir 427 accident is near the top of the heap. As an airline pilot who has flown (and generally disliked) the 737 among other airliners for a major US airline, I was pleased with the pains that Adair went through to be balanced in telling this story. It is generally a very accurate account of the accident sequence and investigation.

Of particular note is the ability Adair has to tell the story from all points of view, particularly from the victim's family and NTSB's point of view, without giving short shrift to Boeing (despite their general arrogance). In fact, the book, if anything, goes too easy on Boeing. The mantra about how safe the plane is repeated frequently. The reader is constantly told how safe the plane is, and then is told that the NTSB says it is less safe than it's peers, which seems hard to swallow. That it has a low accident rate (but NOT the lowest, as some have incorrectly stated, by any accepted statistical methodology, i.e., accidents per departure, accidents per flight hour, etc.) seems to permeate the book without emphasizing that so do all western built airliners. At the end of the day when the NTSB does rule against the 737 rudder, it almost seems that Boeing is redesigning the rudder actuators out of the goodness of it's corporate conscience, rather than the FAA mandates, which doesn't really square with reality. (Bottom line, airlines have until 2007 to replace the faulty system with the new design, so basically you have 737s flying around with a known defect for upwards of 13 years, which is one reason I personally avoid flying on 737s unless there is absolutely no other choice available.)

My hat is off to Mr. Adair. Though I may quibble with the tone of certain sections of his book, it is, nonetheless, a masterpiece. Enjoyable for professionals and laymen alike.

This book is a must read for any commercial aviation enthusiast. It details the investigation of USAir Flight 427 which crashed on approach into Pittsburgh in September 1994. The crash claimed the lives of 132 passengers and crew. The book humanizes the passengers and crew, the victim's families and the investigators themselves as they undertake the longest aviation investigation in aviation history.

The book follows path of the investigation from the moment the passengers board the ill-fated 737-300 until the final report is released by the NTSB five years later. It documents what the victim's families went through dealing with USAir, the lawyers and the government. It reads more like a fiction novel rather than a non-fiction piece. I read the entire book in 6 hours and could not put it down. It is the best piece of work on the crash of Flight 427 I have seen, and I have read them all. I definitely recommend to anyone interested in air safety.

Adair has written a compelling, easy to read book but the sub-title "inside a crash investigation" is perhaps a slight exaggeration. Huge chunks of the book are devoted to the plight of a bereaved husband seeking compensation for the loss of his wife. It's a moving story but not really part of a crash investigation. In fact, compared to some other books I've read recently, Adair is quite light on the science and technology of air crash investigation and skims over some of the details. He barely mentions the subsequent FAA probe into the 737 which is now leading to the redesign of the airplane's tail and is covered in much more detail in Flight 427: Anatomy of an air disaster by Gerry Byrne. Another useful book on air crash investigation I've recently read is Aircraft Accident Analysis: Final Reports by James M. Walters and Robert Sumwalt although it is much drier than both Adair and Byrne.

As an avid reader of NTSB crash investigations I have always been fascinated by the forensic skills of the NTSB and the "party system". Although I have always been interested in these reports - they are quite voluminous - often 300 to 600 pages in length. I was very familiar with the investigation into the crash of USAir Flight 427 long before I read this book but I have to say that the author did an outstanding job of laying out the details of the crash and the ensuing investigation. His portrayal of the personalities involved (only names in an official NTSB report) gave me a great deal more insight into the investigation. If you are interested in what happens when a commercial aircraft crashes but do not have the time or interest to delve into a document that reads like a corporate tax return this book is your 'ticket'.

It's ironic, but crashes are making flying safer, and this book again demonstrates Henry Petroski's (my favorite civil engineer) aphorism that we learn more from failure than we do from success. Adair has painstakingly reconstructed the investigation into the crash of a Boeing 737, one of the world's safest airplanes. It was Boeing engineers who discovered the peculiar flaw in the special and unique design of the power control unit (PCU) that caused the rudder to go into hardover - a full application of the rudder, the large moveable section in the plane's tail that in a 737 is used mostly during crosswind landings. The problem was rudder movement in the wrong direction, opposite to what was indicated by the rudder pedals. In the end, this investigation also resulted in computer data that lead to a determination that something similar happened in the crash of a United 737 over Colorado Springs.
Crash investigations throw together a multitude of people, each with a particular agenda or point of view, and places them under extreme pressure. One of the criticisms of the NTSB had been the "party" system that permitted each agency or group its bias: Boeing (which had a desire to implicate the pilots and clear the airplane), ALPA (the Airline Pilots Association that had a special interest in clearing the pilots), USAir (that would have been happy to blame anyone other than itself), and the FAA (an agency often accused of having a contradictory role: promoting aviation yet making it as safe as possible).
The NTSB is charged with overseeing investigations and making a final determination as to the cause of transportation accidents. It could be a demanding and uncomfortable job, but most investigators knew that the results of the investigation would make things safer, and they considered it a failure when they could not determine a cause, as in the case of the Colorado Springs 737 crash.
There was a multitude of clues, but one of the key points that led to an ultimate resolution was a radar track that showed flight 427 crossing the wake of a 727 at the exact moment when things started to go wrong. The exact sequence was duplicated under similar weather conditions and the slight bounce was easily handled by the pilots, but they suspected some relationship. The other key finding came several years into the investigation. Several PCU units, including one from an Eastwind Airlines flight that had suffered a rudder hardover, and the one from flight 427, were sent to a lab to be tested. In the Eastwind Airlines flight, the pilot, who had many hours of experience in turboprops, was able to counteract the influence of the rudder forcing the plane in the wrong direction, by applying asymmetric thrust, i.e., speeding up the engine on the opposite side, counteracting the thrust of the rudder. Using the engines in this manner was common in small turboprops but would rarely be used in a jet. His quick thinking saved many lives. A misconnected yaw damper was at first suspected, but when the pilot reported the unusual behavior to the NTSB, they decided to take a close look at the PCU. The factory unit tested out fine under all conditions, and so did the Eastwind and 427 units until they simulated moving the plane from a high altitude where it would be -300 and then pump 170 degree hydraulic fluid through it. A Boeing analysis of the data revealed that in rare instances the double valve construction would line up incorrectly, and the rudder would move in the direction opposite to what the pilot intended. Even more remarkable, the malfunction left no marks on the unit at all, so there was no evidence of a malfunction when examined after the fact.
After many years of painstaking work by the NTSB, the pilots' union and Boeing, they were able to come to a decisive conclusion as to what happened on flight 427 and what most likely happened at Colorado Springs. Boeing, even though they stood to lose millions, redesigned the valve and paid to have the PCU valves replaced on 737's despite obvious evidence that the plane had the safest record of any aircraft.

I have always been interested in aircraft crashes, or more accurately the investigation into what caused them, thus I have read a number of books on the topic. This book is one of the better ones I have read. The author gives the reader a very enjoyable and interesting to read account of the accident and investigation. He also highlights one of the accident victims surviving spouse, which gives the reader an insight not normally covered in this type of book. I do not think the author could have covered the story in any other angel unless he would have been able to become a fly on the wall at either USAir or Boeing.

The book covers all the staples of this type of non fiction read, we have the pre-crash detail of the crew, aircraft and some passengers, the very compelling description of the crash its self and the post crash start to the investigation. No matter how many of these books I read I never get accustomed to the rather scary chance that everyday life can turn upside down in the blink of an eye. From the start of the incident to crash it took 28 seconds, the drama packed into those seconds is detailed in this book, at least from the perspective of the voice cockpit recordings. The author also does a good job of describing how a NTSB investigator conducts an investigation. The work that these people do is not well known which is too bad given the advances in safety they have been responsible for.

Probably the most under reported aspect of this crash investigation, and probably something that takes place with most accidents where the cause is not immediately known, is just how much lobbying the airline, aircraft manufacture and pilots union do to the NTSB. All three of these organizations were pushing for their versions of the story regardless of what the facts were showing them. As you can probably guess their versions of the cause all directed the blame for their respective companies or members. It left a rather bad taste in my mouth given that the goal of the NTSB is to find the cause of accidents so they can be eliminated. Overall I really enjoyed the book. It was very interesting and well written. If you enjoy this type of book then you will devour this one. It is just simply one of the best books of this type that I have ever read. If you are looking for other books of this type I would suggest "Nine Minutes, Twenty Seconds: The Tragedy & Triumph of ASA Flight 529".

In just 28 seconds, Flight 427 went from normal flight to impact. This book tells the story of the years of detective work that followed. Excellent account of the personalities involved in a NTSB investigation with the added hook of trying to solve the unanswered question of why-did-it-happen. This one investigation may have solved two crashes -- flight 427 itself and a crash of another 737 many years earlier.

Not too technical and not too graphic either, two big pluses for the general reader.

Although this book concerns the mechanical intricacies of a mysterious airplane crash, it is written so clearly that I could follow it even though I didn't take high school physics.

Adair does a lovely job of following the human dimension (survivor of crash victim, wife of lead investigator, personal rivalries among investigators, owner of land on which plane crashed), the political dimension (how Boeing, the NTSB, and the Air Line Pilots Association manage to read the same data different ways, each favorable to their own constituency), and the scientific dimension (why there is redundancy in airplane steering systems, how the Smithsonian's expert on feathers was able to rule out a bird in the engine as a cause, how experts perform tests on intricate equipment).

This book reminded me of one of my favorite books of all time, And The Band Played On, in which the late Randy Shilts detailed the scientific competition and mystery of the discovery of the AIDS virus. Like Shilts, Adair did incredibly exhaustive research on each of the players, their motivations, and their backgrounds. The science is detailed, but Adair shares Shilts's gift for assuming that the reader knows nothing while also not talking down to the reader.

If only high school textbooks were written this way, students could enjoy a fast-paced mystery without knowing how much they were absorbing about the underlying subject. And I might have fulfilled my destiny as an engineer!

The Book itself was very good and it kept my attention throughout. One of the main characters in the book, however, the husband of a victim, was made to be, in my opinion, too much a part of the story. The book often mentioned how he stayed away from the other grieving families, preferring to remain in the background, yet he seemed to have plenty to say when it came to getting his story told in this book. It was continually stated that he was not "in it for the money" (referring to the lawsuit he filed, etc), yet that seemed to be exactly what he was in it for. It was as if his wife's life was the most important one on the plane and none of the other victims mattered. There should have been other families stories in the book, along with his, or his should have been left out. His story was not really needed, and it didn't really add anything to the book.

Besides that, this was a great book and I would recommend it. It sheds a great deal of light on the complex job of the accident investigators and should give most readers a reason to doubt the so-called "cause of the day" that the news media puts out and changes with every new twist.