The Flight 981 Disaster
Tragedy, Treachery, and the Pursuit of Truth
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The Flight 981 Disaster
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Narrated by:
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Keith Sellon-Wright
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By:
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Samme Chittum
About this listen
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, and none of the 346 people onboard survived.
What caused the mysterious explosions? Were they linked? Could they have been prevented? This book addresses those questions and more, offering a fascinating look at the two dramatic aviation disasters.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 81
On July 25, 2000, a Concorde, the world's fastest passenger plane, was taking off from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris when it suddenly burst into flames. An airliner capable of flying at more than twice the speed of sound, the Concorde had completed 25 years of successful flights, whisking wealthy passengers - from diplomats to rock stars to corporate titans - between continents on brief and glamorous flights. Yet on this fateful day, the chartered Concorde jet, en route to America, crashed and killed all 109 passengers and crew onboard and four people on the ground.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Solid Introduction
- By Reggie on 03-03-19
By: Samme Chittum
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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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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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Scapegoat
- A Flight Crew's Journey from Heroes to Villains to Redemption
- By: Emilio Corsetti III
- Narrated by: Fred Filbrich
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 66
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 59
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 59
On April 4, 1979, a Boeing 727 with 82 passengers and a crew of seven rolled over and plummeted from an altitude of 39,000 feet to within seconds of crashing, were it not for the crew's actions to save the plane. The cause of the unexplained dive was the subject of one of the longest NTSB investigations at that time. While the crew's efforts to save TWA 841 were initially hailed as heroic, that all changed when safety inspectors found 21 minutes of the 30-minute cockpit voice recorder tape blank.
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4 out of 5 stars
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pits large faceless entitles against a small group
- By Midwestbonsai on 08-15-16
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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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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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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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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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The Hunt for MH370
- By: Ean Higgins
- Narrated by: David Tredinnick
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 64
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 58
Somewhere deep beneath the wild seas of the southern Indian Ocean, perhaps in the eerie underwater canyons of Broken Ridge along the Seventh Arc satellite band, lies the answer to the world's greatest aviation mystery. Why, on the night of 8 March 2014, did Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 suddenly U-turn, zig-zag up the Straits of Malacca, then vanish with 239 souls on board? Was it an elaborate murder-suicide by a rogue pilot? A terrible accident such as onboard fire, rapid decompression or systems failure? A terrorist hijacking gone wrong? Or something else entirely?
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2 out of 5 stars
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Very boring. Way too long.
- By SLN on 05-29-21
By: Ean Higgins
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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 489
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 432
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 429
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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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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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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A Brotherhood of Spies
- The U-2 and the CIA's Secret War
- By: Monte Reel
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 71
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 65
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Story5 out of 5 stars 65
On May 1, 1960, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union just weeks before a peace summit between the two nations. The CIA concocted a cover story for President Eisenhower to deliver, assuring him that no one could have survived a fall from that altitude. But against all odds, pilot Francis Gary Powers emerged from the wreckage and was seized by the KGB. Award-winning journalist Monte Reel reveals how the U-2 spy program, principally devised by four men working in secret, upended the Cold War and carved a new mission for the CIA.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Lessons Learned
- By Jim on 12-13-18
By: Monte Reel
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Birdmen
- The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies
- By: Lawrence Goldstone
- Narrated by: Jonathan Fried
- Length: 14 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 106
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 91
Wilbur and Orville Wright are two of the greatest innovators in history, and together they solved the centuries-old riddle of powered, heavier-than-air flight. Glenn Hammond Curtiss was the most talented machinist of his day; he first became the fastest man alive when he perfected the motorcycle, then turned his eyes toward the skies to become the fastest man aloft. But between the Wrights and Curtiss bloomed a poisonous rivalry and a patent war so powerful that it shaped aviation in its early years and drove one of the three men to his grave.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Exceptional
- By Ken on 05-16-15
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Skygods
- The Fall of Pan Am
- By: Robert Gandt
- Narrated by: Thomas Block
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 416
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 375
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 370
Originally published by Wm. Morrow, in 1995, Skygods is the saga of America's most glamorous airline - from its meteoric ascent to its plunge to extinction. Pan Am blazed the way across the world's oceans with its magnificent Clipper ships, launched the first international jet service, was the first to fly the behemoth 747, was the lead customer for America's SST and the Concorde, and was even taking reservations for the first commercial flights to the moon.
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4 out of 5 stars
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An Absorbing Slice of Social History
- By S. Perry on 06-01-14
By: Robert Gandt
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Moon Shot
- The Inside Story of Man's Greatest Adventure
- By: Dan Parry
- Narrated by: John Chancer
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 209
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 183
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 182
‘It didn’t matter that they were now three miles beyond their target site, that communications were dropping out and that they were running low on fuel. All that mattered to Neil as he searched for a safe spot to land was that boulders littered the surface below. “Thirty seconds,” called mission control. In truth, the flight controllers were now no more than spectators, just like everybody else. No more needed to be said. It was down to Armstrong
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wow.
- By Shellbin on 02-04-12
By: Dan Parry
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Wilbur and Orville
- A Biography of the Wright Brothers
- By: Fred Howard
- Narrated by: Larry McKeever
- Length: 21 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 105
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
The Wrights' longest flight in 1903 covered 852 feet and lasted 59 seconds. In 1905, Wilbur flew 24 miles in 38 minutes and the issue was no longer how to fly but how to cash in. Their effort to exploit their invention is a suspense story of the best kind; their voyage into flight and into American history is a gripping tale from takeoff to landing.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Interesting but not hard to put down...
- By James on 03-17-12
By: Fred Howard
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Kelly
- More Than My Share of It All
- By: Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson, Maggie Smith, Brig. Gen. Leo P. Geary USAF - ret. - foreword
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 773
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 679
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Story5 out of 5 stars 676
Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson led the design of such crucial aircraft as the P-38 and Constellation, but he will be more remembered for the U-2 and SR-71 spy planes. His extraordinary leadership of the Lockheed "Skunk Works" cemented his reputation as a legendary figure in American aerospace management.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Memoir of a Legend
- By Jean on 08-26-19
By: Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson, and others
What listeners say about The Flight 981 Disaster
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
- Bruce Baker
- 01-06-23
Story of the DC-10 Crashes
The concise, detailed story of flight 981 and the entire DC-10 program. Three crashes that killed hundreds all follow back to poor design decisions.
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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
- Will
- 10-11-19
A Great Listen for Many Reasons
This book checked all of the boxes on my 'must have' list about aviation disasters. It is a perfect balance between technical detail, emotional impact on the world and the families, and the history of the McDonald Douglas company. The narration is well done, and the production and sound quality is superb.
Aviation buffs are the not the only ones who will enjoy this.
This is now on my list of perennial favorites.
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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
- 02-15-22
Fill fill fill...
I bought this after listening to the authors other book on Audible, Southern Storm, which was pretty good. In that story they had survivors and you got a first hand retelling of what happened during the flight, what happened on the ground, and a follow-up. This book however is just a bunch of filler. Since there were no survivors, and not a ton on the black box, the story isn't about the crash, and instead goes off into political rants where the author tries to tie the story to Watergate and jumps to conclusions like the aircraft maker gave to the Republican party which is proof of a cover-up, failing to mention they had a long history of donations to BOTH parties. It's just nonsense like that, that kills the book.
So if you're looking for a good story about an air disaster, read the author's other book, or the much superior book Flight 232, which I highly recommend. But if you're a left-wing nutjob who needs politics inserted into everything, then buy this book!
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2 people found this helpful