Fly by Wire by William Langewiesche

From The Week of October 03, 2010

There was something extraordinary about the Miracle on the Hudson, the name we seem to have collectively granted to the perfect piece of flying executed by captain Chesley Sullenberger, whose training and steely nerve saw him deposit an airliner, full of passengers, safely into the Hudson river after engines fouled by birds gave out and necessitated an emergency landing. Though Mr. Langewiesche concentrates on the technical details of the plane, the flight and the landing, leaving aside questions of public consciousness, even he seems captivated by this singular moment in time. It lacks the gravitas of a political election, or the decisiveness of a battle in a war, and yet captain Sullenberger's feat was a rare moment of joy in a decade of American life dominated by difficult and dark events.

Fly by Wire is an admirably sober assessment of what occurred over the Hudson on January 15th, 2009. Mr. Langewiesche narrates the history of the plane captain Sullenberger flew, its French designer's efforts to make it an infallible fly, and the systems that assisted Sullenberger in making a successful landing. Interspersed through this narrative are moments from Sullenberger's life, his frustrations with the state of the aviation industry, his difficulties with management, and the rivalries with crew from other airlines trying to maintain their jobs in a shrinking industry. This is all set against the broader battle between Airbus and Boeing, the two major manufacturers of international airliners, and their vastly different approaches to the creation of an aircraft and the powers of its pilot. There's a lot here to digest in 180 odd pages, but Mr. Langewiesche pulls it all off with commendable skill and dramatic flair.

Though he stops short of crapping all over the Sullenberger-as-hero narrative, Mr. Langewiesche believes that the airbus plane Sullenberger flew has not received its due and that, without its contributions to the landing, the situation might have been tragic. Those who wish to believe in the hero narrative will find this conclusion bitter, but the author's case is convincing, not only as it pertains to the Miracle on the Hudson, but as it relates to the future of human pilots. Eventually, the systems in these planes will be far better able to fly the plane than the fallible human pilot. A scary thought, but one we'll have to adjust to and one which will, sadly, make ceremonial one of the last few occupations from which we can legitimately draw heroes. (4/5 Stars)

And I Alone Survived by Lauren Elder

From The Week of May 02, 2010

When, in 1976, Lauren Elder found herself whimsically accepting a ride in a friend's Cessna, she expected it to be a fun, three-person day trip to Death Valley that would have her safely home by nightfall. She could not have known that, in boarding the plane, she would be committing herself to her life's most harrowing challenge. For, only hours later, she will have crashed in the Sierra Nevada mountains, isolating her and her dying companions at 12,860 feet and miles from the nearest human soul. By the next morning, her companions will have died and Ms. Elder, though herself wounded, will have to face the reality that, if she is to survive, she will have to manage it without any formal training, any help from the outside, and without the proper supplies or clothes necessary to weather her inhospitable conditions.

How do people survive situations they aren't prepared for? What fine line exists between life and death? What are the true limits of human endurance? And I Alone Survived explores all such questions as Ms. Elder narrates her survival against all odds. Dressed in a blouse, a wrap-around skirt and boots with two inch heels, and debilitated by a broken arm and facial injuries, she has to descend 12,800 feet of treacherous mountainside, negotiating snow-packs, ice-sheets and ravines in an endless and numbing odyssey. Her iron-willed determination to press on despite her injuries and the hopelessness of her plight is awe-inspiring. And the sheer courage it must have taken to set out on her mission instead of waiting at the crash-site for help is matchless by anything I've heard of. People survive the unexpected by believing in themselves, by planning out what they must do and by executing that plan. And while luck plays a role in why they lived while others died, their calmness and rationality in the face of the overwhelming keeps them focused on their goals, not on their pains. They survive because there are no limits to human endurance, not while one is alive. We can do what we must do, so long as we want it enough, need it enough. That is what Ms. Elder teaches us. That is why she alone survived.

This is a gripping book and it's no surprise that, after 35 years, it remains in print. Ms. Elder, who went onto become an artist, captures herself wonderfully here, a young woman caught in that awkward time after college but before she's settled on her life's direction. She has just as keen an eye for her friends as she does for herself, nailing Jim, the pilot, as the cocky and overconfident showoff for his girlfriend. The night Elder spents with Jim, huddled in the crumpled plane, desperate for warmth, is is a beautiful illustration of their differing attitudes towards their predicament. This is first-class non-fiction. (4/5 Stars)

Up In The Air by Walter Kern

From The Week of February 21, 2010

I love quirky novels. Though I do not always enjoy them, they have an oddly potent energy and passion I find fascinating. Up In The Air does not disappoint in its strangeness. Far from it. Any piece of fiction about a lonely man's obsessive quest to earn a million frequent flyer miles has surely earned its weirdness credibility a million times over.

Ryan Bingham, our disturbed protagonist, loves to fly. He seems to love everything about it: the chance to talk to anyone from any line of work, the sensation of freedom that comes from being 30,000 feet up, the ability to be anywhere in only a few hours. He loves rental cars and hotel rooms as well. They allow him never to leave any part of himself behind, no footprint, no signature. This kind of impermanence is a fetish for Mr. Bingham who is madly trying to complete his quest before his boss realizes he has left his job and retaliates by cancelling the credit card Mr. Bingham is using to accrue his points.

The novel takes a decidedly dark turn when Mr. Bingham starts to believe that someone is stealing his frequent flyer miles to take flights to places he's never been. Or has he been to those places, those towns and simply forgot? How would he know if he was? Mr. Kern's has written a story that hinges almost entirely on one character, Ryan Bingham, which is a gamble, but a gamble he successfully pulls off. There's a disquiet the reader experiences while watching Mr. Bingham's deterioration, a kind of anxiety I can only equate to watching the deranged unravel before our very eyes. And yet, rather than come off as ridiculous, Bingham is a clever allegory for our dislocated times in which nothing that we have, nothing that we own, is permanent, is lasting. Everything comes and goes, replaced by something new, just like Mr. Bingham, just like this keyboard I type on.

A thoughtful and powerful read. It reminds me of the not-so-quiet desperation exemplified in films like American Beauty. There's a franticness about the protagonist that is urgent and worrisome. Highly recommended if, like me, you like pieces that are some ways off the beaten path. (4/5 Stars)

Touching History by Lynn Spencer

From The Week of October 04, 2009

What happened in the skies and in the airports of the United States on
September 11, 2001? Lynn Spencer, herself a commercial pilot, recounts, in minute-by-minute detail the orders, the planes, the pilots and the circumstances of that fateful morning. She chronicles the chaos and the calmness under fire, in New York City and across the country, all while bringing to light a host of brave Americans who held their nerve in the face of one of the nation's gravest days. Most grippingly, Ms. Spencer chillingly describes the chain of events which caused the
first fighter pilots in US history to be ordered "Weapons Free" over the nation's capital, an order that grants to the pilot permission to fire at any target at their own discretion.

This is one of the most gripping books I've ever picked up and it certainly enlightens us to events and perspectives that have been otherwise overshadowed by the sight of
those falling towers. (5/5 Stars)

Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales

From The Week of October 04, 2009

Experienced sailors become stranded at sea and, even though they possess all the mental and physical tools to survive their ordeal, some succumb to thirst and madness while their fellows keep hold of their faculties and survive.
seventeen year old girl, with no formal training, is the only survivor of a plane crash in the Peruvian jungle. On her own, she executes a ten day hike out to safety in spite of concussion, lacerations to her arms and a broken collarbone.

Why did they survive? Why, in a disaster, do some people make it through, mind and soul intact, while others in identical positions do not? Luck surely plays a role, but luck does not explain why people who are confronting the same problem, and who are equally wounded, have different fates. What is left but some fundamental element of human nature, some trait which blesses some of us while forsaking the rest.
Laurence Gonzales has devoted much of his life to discovering answers to the questions of survival, getting an early start in his crusade when, as a child, he watched his father return home to him from World War II, having improbably survived a horrific crash while in combat. Why did his father come home while the other fathers of other boys did not?

The answer is not an easy one. Certainly, there are commonalities across most successful survivals: calmness in the face of danger, focus on the task at hand. And in any event, the kind of trait is almost secondary to whether or not that trait can be acquired, or whether or not Cool under fire is something with which we are born. In pursuit of his white whale, Mr. Gonzales investigates plane crashes, boats lost at sea, and hikes gone horribly wrong, all in an effort to find an answer to his lifelong quest for the essence of survival. An excellent and memorable book for its thought-provoking premise and its earnest execution. Mr. Gonzales' passion shines through and the interviews he's done with survivors are unforgettable. (4/5 Stars)

Candy Bombers by Andrei Cherny

From The Week of August 02, 2009

In 1948, in the first post-WWII clash between Soviet Russia and the Allied powers, the USSR cut off rail traffic into the sections of Berlin, Germany, under Allied control. It was an attempt to force the West to acknowledge the inevitability of a Germany governed from Moscow and withdraw its support. Instead, an effort to fly cargo into the Allied-controlled zones was organized by the United States Air Force and backed by British, Australian, and Canadian planes. By the end of 1949, 200,000 missions had been flown, delivering 13,000 tons of food to starving Berliners. The USSR eventually withdrew its blockade and the Berlin Airlift was credited with halting the Soviet advance into Europe.

Candy Bombers by Mr. Cherhny tells the tale of the men who proposed and then made possible the remarkable airlift and the pilots who flew those missions, some of whom would be remembered for generations as the men who dropped candy to the children of Berlin during one of its darkest hours. (4/5 Stars)