Fatal Descent
Andreas Lubitz and the Crash of Germanwings Flight 9525
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Fatal Descent
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Narrated by:
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Jeff Wise
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By:
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Jeff Wise
About this listen
The definitive investigation into the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 and the mind of the copilot who committed the most shocking crime in aviation history.
On March 24, 2015, Germanwings Flight 9525 crashed into the French Alps. All 144 passengers and six crew members were killed. In the ensuing days, a picture of the flight's harrowing final moments began to emerge. Shortly after reaching cruise altitude, a 27-year-old first officer named Andreas Lubitz locked the captain out of the cockpit, took control of the plane, and deliberately caused its descent.
In Fatal Descent, journalist and aviation expert Jeff Wise travels to Lubitz's hometown in Germany and pieces together a definitive and haunting portrait of the killer and the system he betrayed, revealing in heart-pounding detail how a lifelong superachiever like Lubitz could have committed such an unthinkable act, what actually happened inside the cockpit, and whether current airline regulations leave us vulnerable to similar attacks in the future.
Jeff Wise is a science journalist specializing in aviation and psychology. He is the author of the best-selling Kindle Single The Plane That Wasn't There, about the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. A licensed pilot of gliders and light airplanes, he also has stick time in powered paragliders, trikes, World War II fighter planes, Soviet jet fighters, gyroplanes, and zeppelins as well as submarines, tanks, hovercraft, dog sleds, and swamp buggies. A contributing editor at Travel + Leisure magazine, he has written for New York, The New York Times, Time, Businessweek, Esquire, Details, and many others. His Popular Mechanics story on the fate of Air France 447 was named one of the Top 10 Longreads of 2011. His last book was Extreme Fear: The Science of Your Mind in Danger.
©2015 Jeff Wise (P)2015 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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-
Story4 out of 5 stars 253
In The Crash Detectives, veteran aviation journalist and air safety investigator Christine Negroni takes us inside crash investigations from the early days of the jet age to the present, including the search for answers about what happened to the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. As Negroni dissects what happened and why, she explores their common themes and, most important, what has been learned from them to make planes safer.
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2 out of 5 stars
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MISSLEADING TITLE.
- By Daniel Schneider on 11-02-16
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Fly by Wire
- The Geese, the Glide, the Miracle on the Hudson
- By: William Langewiesche
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 127
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 71
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 72
On January 15, 2009, a US Airways Airbus A320 had just taken off from LaGuardia Airport in New York when a flock of Canada Geese collided with it, destroying both of its engines. The plane's pilot, Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, managed to glide it to a safe landing in the Hudson River. It was an instant media sensation---the "Miracle on the Hudson"---and Captain Sully was the hero. But how much of the success of this dramatic landing can actually be credited to the genius of the pilot?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great Abridgement
- By Roy on 04-27-10
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The Flight 981 Disaster
- Tragedy, Treachery, and the Pursuit of Truth
- By: Samme Chittum
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 45
On June 12, 1972, a powerful explosion rocked American Airlines Flight 96 a mere five minutes after its takeoff from Detroit. The explosion ripped a gaping hole in the bottom of the aircraft and jammed the hydraulic controls. Miraculously, despite the damage and ensuing chaos, the pilots were able to land the plane safely. Less than two years later, on March 3, 1974, a sudden, forceful blowout tore through Turk Hava Yollari (THY) Flight 981 from Paris to London. THY Flight 981 was not as lucky as Flight 96: it crashed in a forest in France.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Fill fill fill...
- By Rodney on 02-15-22
By: Samme Chittum
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Bird Dream
- Adventures at the Extremes of Human Flight
- By: Matt Higgins
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
Human flight is one of the last great challenges on Earth. Not like how the Wright brothers flew, but how we fly in our dreams. This is the goal of the Wingsuit Landing Project: to soar through the sky at speeds up to one hundred miles per hour and to land without the aid of a parachute. This project is the creation of 37-year-old Jeb Corliss, Jr., a Southern Californian who seeks to emulate a mode of flight more like a flying squirrel than bird or plane.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Good read
- By Jowly on 04-22-15
By: Matt Higgins
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Southern Storm
- The Tragedy of Flight 242
- By: Samme Chittum
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 49
On the afternoon of April 4, 1977, Georgia housewife Sadie Burkhalter Hurst looked out her front door to see a frantic stranger running toward her, his clothes ablaze, and, behind him, the mangled fuselage of a passenger plane that had just crashed in her yard. The plane, a Southern Airways DC-9-31, had been carrying 81 passengers and four crew members en route to Atlanta when it entered a massive thunderstorm cell that turned into a dangerous cocktail of rain, hail, and lightning. Forced down onto a highway, the plane cut a swath of devastation through the small town of New Hope.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Compelling read.
- By teri on 06-19-18
By: Samme Chittum
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Sully
- My Search for What Really Matters
- By: Chesley B. Sullenberger, Jeffrey Zaslow
- Narrated by: Michael McConnohie, Chesley B. Sullenberger
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 779
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 710
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 707
On January 15, 2009, the world witnessed a remarkable emergency landing when Captain "Sully" Sullenberger skillfully glided US Airways flight 1549 onto the Hudson River, saving the lives of all 155 passengers and crew. His cool actions not only averted tragedy but made him a hero and an inspiration worldwide. His story is now a major motion picture from director/producer Clint Eastwood and starring Tom Hanks, Laura Linney, and Aaron Eckhart.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Really Dull.
- By Nick on 09-14-16
By: Chesley B. Sullenberger, and others
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The Crash Detectives
- Investigating the World's Most Mysterious Air Disasters
- By: Christine Negroni
- Narrated by: Christine Negroni
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 283
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 255
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Story4 out of 5 stars 253
In The Crash Detectives, veteran aviation journalist and air safety investigator Christine Negroni takes us inside crash investigations from the early days of the jet age to the present, including the search for answers about what happened to the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. As Negroni dissects what happened and why, she explores their common themes and, most important, what has been learned from them to make planes safer.
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2 out of 5 stars
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MISSLEADING TITLE.
- By Daniel Schneider on 11-02-16
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Why Planes Crash
- An Accident Investigator's Fight for Safe Skies
- By: David Soucie, Ozzie Cheek
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 294
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 266
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 263
Boarding an airplane strikes at least a small sense of fear into most people. Even though we all have heard that the odds of being struck by lightning are greater than the odds of perishing in a plane crash, it still doesn't feel that way. Airplane crashes might be rare, but they do happen, and they’re usually fatal. David Soucie insists that most of these deaths could be prevented. He’s worked as a pilot, a mechanic, an FAA inspector, and an aviation executive. He’s seen death up close and personal - deaths of colleagues and friends that might have been prevented if he had approved certain safety measures in the aircrafts they were handling.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Me, Me, Me
- By WakeNCAgent on 09-13-19
By: David Soucie, and others
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First Man
- The Life of Neil A. Armstrong
- By: James R. Hansen
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 829
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 752
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Story5 out of 5 stars 750
When Apollo 11 touched down on the Moon’s surface in 1969, the first man on the Moon became a legend. In First Man, author James R. Hansen explores the life of Neil Armstrong. Based on over 50 hours of interviews with the intensely private Armstrong, who also gave Hansen exclusive access to private documents and family sources, this "magnificent panorama of the second half of the American twentieth century" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) is an unparalleled biography of an American icon.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Not really 'unabridged'
- By A Reader on 06-06-18
By: James R. Hansen
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Rocket Men
- The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon
- By: Robert Kurson
- Narrated by: Ray Porter, Robert Kurson
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 2,580
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 2,329
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Story5 out of 5 stars 2,324
By August 1968, the American space program was in danger of failing in its two most important objectives: to land a man on the moon by President Kennedy's end-of-decade deadline and to triumph over the Soviets in space. With its back against the wall, NASA made an almost unimaginable leap: It would scrap its usual methodical approach and risk everything on a sudden launch, sending the first men in history to the moon - in just four months.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Men Who Saved 1968
- By Gillian on 04-04-18
By: Robert Kurson
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The Flight of the Century: Charles Lindbergh and the Rise of American Aviation
- Oxford University Press: Pivotal Moments in US History
- By: Thomas Kessner
- Narrated by: Bob McGraw
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 70
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 58
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Story4 out of 5 stars 58
In late May 1927 an inexperienced and unassuming 25-year-old Air Mail pilot from rural Minnesota stunned the world by making the first non-stop transatlantic flight. A spectacular feat of individual daring and collective technological accomplishment, Charles Lindbergh's flight from New York to Paris ushered in America's age of commercial aviation.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Flawed but Worthwhile
- By Ray Daniels on 11-11-22
By: Thomas Kessner
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35 Miles from Shore
- The Ditching and Rescue of ALM Flight 980
- By: Emilio Corsetti III
- Narrated by: Fred Filbrich
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 107
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 93
On May 2, 1970, a DC-9 jet with 57 passengers and a crew of six departed from New York's JFK International Airport en route to the tropical island of St. Maarten, but four hours and 34 minutes later, the flight ended in the shark-infested waters of the Caribbean. It was, and remains, the only open-water ditching of a commercial jet. The subsequent rescue of survivors took nearly three hours and involved the coast guard, navy, and marines.
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5 out of 5 stars
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a new perspective on air travel
- By Midwestbonsai on 03-30-17
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Rescue Pilot
- Cheating the Sea
- By: Jerry Grayson
- Narrated by: David Thorpe
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
Jerry Grayson is an ordinary man who chose an extraordinary career. At age 17 he became the youngest helicopter pilot ever to serve in the Royal Navy. By age 25 he was the most decorated peacetime naval pilot in history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great tales of adventure with fascinating facts about helicopters
- By david y muramatsu on 07-17-23
By: Jerry Grayson
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The Dream Machine
- The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey
- By: Richard Whittle
- Narrated by: Kevin Foley
- Length: 18 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 147
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 103
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 107
When the Marines decided to buy a helicopter-airplane hybrid "tiltrotor" called the V-22 Osprey, they saw it as their dream machine. The tiltrotor was the aviation equivalent of finding the Northwest Passage: an aircraft able to take off, land, and hover with the agility of a helicopter yet fly as fast and as far as an airplane. Many predicted it would reshape civilian aviation. The Marines saw it as key to their very survival. Opponents called it one of the worst boondoggles in Pentagon history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Innovation runs into government
- By Cx30 on 09-25-10
By: Richard Whittle
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The Right Stuff
- By: Tom Wolfe
- Narrated by: Dennis Quaid
- Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5,645
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,123
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,098
Millions of words have poured forth about man's trip to the moon, but until now few people have had a sense of the most engrossing side of the adventure: namely, what went on in the minds of the astronauts themselves - in space, on the moon, and even during certain odysseys on earth. It is this, the inner life of the astronauts, that Tom Wolfe describes with his almost uncanny empathetic powers that made The Right Stuff a classic.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Righteous Book, Righteous Narrator, Righteous MEN!
- By Gillian on 02-08-18
By: Tom Wolfe
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Flight 232
- A Story of Disaster and Survival
- By: Laurence Gonzales
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 488
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 431
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 428
As hundreds of rescue workers waited on the ground, United Airlines Flight 232 wallowed drunkenly over the bluffs northwest of Sioux City. The plane slammed onto the runway and burst into a vast fireball. The rescuers didn't move at first: nobody could possibly survive that crash. And then people began emerging from the summer corn that lined the runways. Miraculously, 184 of 296 passengers lived. No one has ever attempted the complete reconstruction of a crash of this magnitude.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Therapeutic
- By Quiltedwings on 05-07-15
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Fly Girls
- How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History
- By: Keith O'Brien
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,312
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,158
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,155
Between the world wars, no sport was more popular, or more dangerous, than airplane racing. Thousands of fans flocked to multi-day events, and cities vied with one another to host them. The pilots themselves were hailed as dashing heroes who cheerfully stared death in the face. Fly Girls recounts how a cadre of women banded together to break the original glass ceiling: the entrenched prejudice that conspired to keep them out of the sky.
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5 out of 5 stars
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For women, and dads
- By Cecilia Avanelle on 08-08-18
By: Keith O'Brien
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Bridge of Spies
- A True Story of the Cold War
- By: Giles Whittell
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 833
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 748
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 742
Who were the three men the American and Soviet superpowers exchanged at Berlin’s Glienicke Bridge and Checkpoint Charlie in the first prisoner exchange of the nuclear age? Bridge of Spies vividly traces their paths to that electrifying moment on February 10, 1962, when their fates helped to define the conflicts and lethal undercurrents of the most dangerous years of the cold war.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Bridge of Spies
- By BookReader on 09-28-15
By: Giles Whittell
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Riding Rockets
- The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut
- By: Mike Mullane
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 18 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 216
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 193
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Story5 out of 5 stars 193
In 1978, the first group of space shuttle astronauts was introduced to the world - 29 men and six women who would carry NASA through the most tumultuous years of the space shuttle program. Among them was USAF Colonel Mike Mullane, who, in his memoir Riding Rockets, strips the heroic veneer from the astronaut corps and paints them as they are - human.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not for the young...
- By Collecting Warehouse on 11-14-18
By: Mike Mullane
What listeners say about Fatal Descent
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Love2ReadAmazonBooks
- 05-20-16
Excellent
It doesn't need to be long to be great. Jeff Wise is an excellent writer who could have a career in narration.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Lori
- 02-02-24
Germanwings 9525
The story was good, I enjoy learning factual accounts of the crash. I did feel the author romanticized the killer, going as far to say he was likely sane. IMHO, sane people don’t kill 150 innocent individuals. If anything, the fact that Lubitz could appear sane made him more diabolical. I do recommend the story.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 02-05-24
great free audiobook
I've paid for several jet crash books but this one, which is free, engaged me more than the others.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Scott S
- 05-19-20
Bravo
Loved it. Very insightful. Excellent narration as always with Jeff Wise. He researches these stories tirelessly
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anna Vishnevsky
- 04-27-24
Perfect 👍 👍👍
Love the acsent nice story and details very good recommend for all aviation lovers
I just really like it
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Jaime G. Vargas
- 10-16-22
Ripping Forensic Dissection of Mass Murder Suicide
A very well researched close to forensic step-by-step reconstruction of the event and a young pilot's purposeful mind taken to the breaking point by Lufthansa's perhaps excessive qualification requisites in its pilot selection process.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- MiriamM
- 01-10-24
Boring
I struggled to finish it. I even skipped a few of the chapters. I also didn't find that there was enough said about what actually happened. I felt there was just a lot of rambling. I would not recommend.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Admiralu
- 12-07-19
Account of the Tragedy & Life of Andreas Lubitz
This was a fascinating account of how one man, in a trusted position of pilot, suffering from depression and mental illness, committed suicide and killed 150 people by crashing a plane. His depression was known to the airline, yet they allowed him to fly anyway. This book aptly covers his background and explains how the testing and procedures failed, yet new ones have been drafted, to hopefully keep this from happening again. The author narrates his book and he does an excellent job. I hope he narrates more books. An excellent book.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Steven
- 02-18-24
Great book! Super interesting and well narrated
I really liked the way the author examined mental health without a lot of bias, finger pointing, or worst of all, stigma. Even as someone in the field of psychology, I still learned some things about depression, anxiety, and SI.
I like both this authors books on Amazon. I just wish he’d write and narrate more!
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Rodney
- 02-20-22
Very little about the plane crash
I don’t know who this guy is that wrote this, I just wanted something about a plane crash, instead it’s some whinny, probably millennial, talking about how rich people are bad, everyone is a victim, and asking if we can really blame a mass murderer for his actions. Just nonsense garbage written by some dumb hippie. Returned.
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