SAMME CHITTUM is a narrative journalist and Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship recipient who explores the intersection of current events and history. Her work has been published by the New York Times, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, and the Village Voice.
“This is a stunning narrative of an airline disaster narrowly
averted and an aircraft maker’s attempt to cover up a fatal
flaw.”
—Ashley Halsey III, transportation writer, Washington Post
“Samme Chittum has written a captivating account of an air disaster
that, while nearly fifty years old, remains a shocking object
lesson for commercial aviation as it enters its second century. The
Flight 981 Disaster is a compelling story of greed, lies, hubris,
and persistence—an American tragedy that even Euripides could not
have made up.”
—Christine Negroni, author, The Crash Detectives: Investigating the
World’s Most Mysterious Air Disasters
“Journalist Chittum debuts with a new work in the Smithsonian Air
Disasters series, a companion to the titular show on the
Smithsonian Channel. The narrative focuses on two aviation
disasters involving DC-10 airliners: one in June 1972 outside of
Detroit and the other in March 1974, which crashed in a forest in
France and left no survivors.[. . .] Chittum has done her research,
presenting a good amount of information in a relatively brief
work.[. . .] Fans of the series and readers interested in aviation
disasters will enjoy the book.”
—Library Journal
“Not only has Chittum created a page-turner with suspenseful,
harrowing stories of an air disaster, she also educates readers
about the detective work necessary in every air crash
investigation. In a book with clear heroes and villains, she
emphasizes the high stakes of the struggle between the two by
describing the plight of victims and their families. Among the
characters who emerge as heroes are journalists, whose
investigations surely helped avoid another catastrophe.”
—Linda Shiner, editor, Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine
“The debut volume in Smithsonian's Air Disasters series chronicles
an infamous catastrophe in 1974. Wreaking the then-highest
single-plane death toll in aviation history (346), its notoriety
derived from the investigators’ realization that the cause—the
blowout of a cargo door—had happened before on the DC-10. Chittum
combines a dramatic rendition of the accident with a clear-eyed
account of the commercial, technical, and regulatory trains of
events that led to McDonnell Douglas, with the approval of the FAA,
putting into service a passenger plane with an Achilles heel.
Intended as the company’s jumbo-jet answer to rival Boeing’s 747,
the DC-10 was designed quickly and with great pressure on the
engineers to lower its weight. For the cargo door, they selected a
lighter electrical-locking mechanism over a heavier but
tried-and-true hydraulic closing system. Explaining how neither
cockpit crew nor baggage handlers physically closing the door could
be certain it had locked, Chittum describes the explosive
revelation of the defective door in a 1972 flight. In that blowout,
the pilots mastered the crisis and landed safely. Incredibly, the
fix then ordered on all DC-10s was not performed on the one that
crashed two years later. Assembling this tale of human and
regulatory error, Chittum proves to be a perfect captivator of the
aviation audience.” -Booklist
Chittum, a narrative journalist, tells the story of two plane
crashes, both involving the passenger jet DC-10. The cause of both
crashes was the jet's faulty cargo door design: instead of the
typical plug-type doors that self-sealed when the aircraft was
pressurized, the DC-10's door was secured by an electric motor.
Chittum begins with the heroic account of American Airlines Flight
96, which pilot Bryce McCormick managed to land safely after the
cargo door blew out in 1972. Two years later, a similar malfunction
ended in tragedy. Turkish Airlines Flight 981 had just taken off
from Paris when the cargo door failed, resulting in a violent crash
and the deaths of all 346 people on board. The narrative reads like
a novel, complete with dynamic characters and gripping plot lines.
Chittum skillfully weaves aeronautics science and commercial
aviation history into her accounts of the events leading up to the
crashes and subsequent investigations. While the book includes an
annotated list of sources, it would have benefited from the
addition of photographs or drawings to illustrate the various
mechanisms in play. Regardless, this is an engaging, accessible
read. -Choice
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