Publisher Description
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. Over the next three minutes, 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? To what extent is the “miracle” on the Hudson the result of extraordinary—but not widely known, and in some cases quite controversial—advances in aviation and computer technology over the past twenty years?
In Fly by Wire, journalist William Langewiesche takes us on a strange and unexpected journey into the fascinating world of advanced aviation. From the testing laboratories where engineers struggle to build a jet engine that can systematically resist bird attacks, through the creation of the A320 in France, to the political and social forces that have sought to minimize the impact of the revolutionary fly-by-wire technology, William Langewiesche assembles the untold stories necessary to truly understand the “miracle” on the Hudson, and makes us question our assumptions about human beings in modern aviation.
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“This very short book is great on two counts. First, the moment-by-moment account from the flight deck is genuinely gripping even though you know exactly what’s going to happen. Second, this book is more interesting for the way in which Langewiesche ties the example of flight 1549 to a bigger story about modern aviation and human performance. He walks such a fine line so well that it’s hard to even describe what the book is about once you’ve read it.”
—
Noah (4 out of 5 stars)
