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list price: $29.00
edition:Paperback
also available: eBook
category: Transportation
published: Jun 2016
ISBN:9781459732520
publisher: Dundurn Press

Brace for Impact

Air Crashes and Aviation Safety

by Peter Pigott

tagged: commercial, survival & emergency preparedness
Description

Why do planes disappear or fall out of the sky? Brace for Impact traces the evolution of accident investigation and explains why flying is the safest form of travel.

The history of air accidents is a harrowing one. Yet today flying is the safest mode of transportation, thanks in no small part to the work of crash detectives. Whenever a plane falls from the sky, the investigators pick through the wreckage for the clues they need to decipher what happened to that flight. Before the invention of the ‘black box’ and the evolution of forensic accident investigation, the causes often remained a mystery.

Since the Wright brothers first took flight, aircraft design, pilot training, aircraft maintenance, and air traffic control have all evolved to current standards of safety. Because of lessons learned from tragedies such as what befell the Comets in the 1950s, the Douglas DC-10s in the 1970s, and ill-fated Air India, TWA, and Swissair flights, flight safety continues to improve. In many ways, the history of aviation is the history of air crash investigation.

About the Author

Peter Pigott

As the son of an airline employee, Peter Pigott grew up at the edge of airports around the world, including Santa Cruz, Bombay, London and Montreal. He attended the University of Montreal Teacher's College (B.Ed.) and Loyola College in Montreal (B.A.). and then went on to receive a M.A. from the University of Vermont in Burlington USA and a diploma in history at Oxford University in England.

Pigott joined the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs in 1978 and has served at embassies in New York, Hong Kong, Vienna and The Hague. He returned to Ottawa in 1993 and began his writing career, specializing in books about aviation.

Also by Peter Pigott: The Official History of Aviation in Hong Kong, Flying Canucks! Famous Canadian Aviators, Hong Kong Rising: The History of a Remarkable Place, Gateways: Airports of Canada, Flying Colours: Commercial Aviation in Canada, Flying Canucks II: Famous Canadian Aviators

Contributor Notes

Peter Pigott is Canada’s foremost aviation author. Among his accomplishments are the histories of Air Canada, Trans-Canada Airlines, and Canadian Airlines. He is the author of From Far and Wide, Sailing Seven Seas, Canada in Sudan, and many more books. He lives in Ottawa.

Editorial Reviews

Well-researched and presents a definitive history of Canadian aviation.

— Winnipeg Free Press

What a cool book.

— Inside Toronto
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