Air Disaster: The Propeller Era

From the earliest days of manned flight, one issue above all others has preoccupied pilots and passengers – how do we avoid crashing?

It was a time of impossible glamour – for the first time, ordinary people could fly across the oceans and continents to see the rest of the world.

But the story of the infancy of the big airliners is as much a story of tragedy and disaster as it is of triumph and romance.
Design flaws, pilot error, a lack of understanding of fatigue… these and many other factors contributed to a litany of catastrophe.

Welsh rugby fans, flying back from a win against Ireland… a fuel-starved aeroplane plunging into Manchester’s streets… a chartered aircraft carrying excited troops home for Christmas… a young mother decapitated as she holds her toddler son on her lap

In AIR DISASTER: THE PROPELLER ERA, the award-winning Macarthur Job – one of the world’s foremost aviation writers, and himself a pilot – goes back to the early days of international air travel, and looks at the root causes of some of the worst disasters of that period.

Other Books in the series:
Air Disaster 2: The Jet Age
Air Disaster 3: Terror In The Sky