Thank you to Donald J Porter, Rowman & Littlefield/Prometheus and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This is my kind of book. True life disasters and why did it happen? Morbid I confess but the simplest error/oversight can have disastrous consequences. Some crashes covered in this book have also been featured on Air Crash Investigation / Mayday and it was interesting to get a different perspective of these crashes/more detail. I found this a gripping and informative read.

“There are dozens of accidents, some old, some new - many fatal -, all caused by missing bolts and pins.”
Well there’s a sentence to cause sleepless nights and nightmares, no need for fictitious horror movies or books. As a student pilot, maybe it was not such a good idea to dive right into this endless pit of accident reports but I could not hold myself.
This book investigates the aircraft incidents and accidents resulted from mechanical failures, missing bolts, cotter pins, tiny connection pieces that bear vital importance for aircrafts. This crucial aspect of accidents is especially horrific because once the aircraft is airborne with a missing part, there is nothing that even an experienced and skilled pilot can do. And every part of aviation, from ground handling to cargo loading, to maintenance requires upmost care and attention. A simple mistake can be catastrophic.
I both loved and hated this book. It triggered a lot of emotions, that’s for sure. I especially appreciated the detailed first chapter on Boeing 737 Max aircrafts. This was the hot topic of last year. The reason why the internally flawed Boeing 737max aircrafts were recalled and what really happened is very well explained. I enjoyed the narration, the technical explanations and insights, this was an enlightening read and recommended for all professionals and aviation enthusiasts.

This book offers readers a complete history of how airlines failing us came to be commonplace in the commercial sector. The book really focuses a lot on the fault of airlines and the lack of accountability by regulatory bodies in preventing errors, an oversight that has led to crashes and accidents, as well as the need for better practices by the FAA in making flying safter and more efficient.

I thought this book was very interesting. There were many primary sources and testimonies offered by pilots and those in the field who have dealt with these issues first-hand, who offered a lot of interesting narratives and humanized the issues.
.

4 Stars
Publication date: 19 May 2020
Review can be published: 19 April 2020

Flight Failure takes a deep look into multiple airplane incidents from the beginning of regular commercial air travel to the still ongoing investigation of the Boeing 737 MAX. The common threads through the book are the role of maintenance errors and oversight in incidents or accidents and the failure or negligence of the FAA to ensure flight safety. Every couple of chapters explores a new incident caused by a seemingly minor thing like a missing pin around a screw that led to tragedy.

As a fan of the show Mayday/Air Disasters/Air Crash Investigations, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author relies on reports and eyewitness testimony to construct the incidents and does not imagine what the victims could have been thinking, which I always appreciate. I was familiar with many of these incidents and accidents from the show but some were new to me and others presented details that hadn’t been covered in the show. The best written section of the book is, without question, Emery Worldwide 17. I found myself trying to hide from the book while reading it (obviously that did not work out well).

However, I felt that the 737 MAX didn’t quite fit with the maintenance theme of the rest of the book and that it seemed to have been added last minute to pull on the headlines. I also would have really appreciated diagrams or other illustrations for some of the more mechanical descriptions. I frequently had to break the flow of reading to look up images of what was being described so I could understand what was going on.

This isn’t a book for everyone. Some people dislike reading about airplane crashes and that’s understandable. I, however, have been known to read books about hijackings while flying. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to read and learn about disasters or airplanes.

I will post my review to Goodreads 30 days before the book's release, as stipulated in the approval preferences.

Hauntingly timely on the heels of several major international air disasters, Flight Failure paints a terrifying picture of an industry coming apart at the seams. Covering a wide range of issues plaguing the airline industry from failures in quality to poor maintenance, Porter structures an argument that touches all levels of governance or lack there of.

Flying enthusiasts may think twice when they board a flight after reading this book. Not to put a damper on your travel enjoyment, but I for one never thought about the mechanics of the aircraft and the people we never see who maintain these planes. After reading this book I will never think about a nut, bolt or screw the same way again.