A revealing and compelling book, highlighting critical events immediately before aircraft accidents, and their aftermath.

The book covers the years from 1991 to 2006. Although including the Air France Concorde and a few others, the disasters listed in this book relate mainly to selected civil aircraft accidents occurring in the USA.

Air Disasters provides a rare insight into the critical stages of an aircraft emergency. The book relates concisely, and second-by-second, the dilemma and reactions of the flight crew in the final stressful moments leading up to the crash. In many cases during the final few minutes, the pilots and first officers realise all too plainly that they are facing a life and death situation, and that this situation is moving very rapidly out of their control.

Malcolm MacPherson's book reveals also something of the courage and endurance of any survivors in the immediate aftermath of an air disaster, and the selfless attempts of some to help save others from the carnage.

The author has collated information from various sources, including Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) transcripts. It is these edited transcripts that appear in this book, rather than a commentary on them or a paraphrase of them.

For this reason, an understanding of flight deck / Air Traffic Control terminology and procedures, and a basic technical knowledge of avionics, would prove helpful when reading these transcripts. However, at the beginning of the book's Index, links can be found to websites that explain the meaning of these technical expressions.

As a rule, the author has been careful to add non-technical witness statements or other factual information to each of the reported accidents, thereby making it easier to follow the course of events. In many cases, he has also included an extract from the NTSB summaries.

Some of the aircraft accidents recorded on these pages have been dramatised already in TV documentaries. However, this book provides fuller and more accurate details that—of necessity—must be omitted from TV programmes. Furthermore, reading the transcripts and witness testimony provides a sense of immediacy and intimacy rarely conveyed in television documentaries.

In a few instances, such as the Air France Concorde disaster and Southwest Airlines flight 1248, the author could have expanded a little more on the cause of the accidents, or perhaps provided some additional information from the findings of the official reports.