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Praise for Flight 232


“Exhaustingly researched, this is an impressive work on disasters.”
—Charles Perrow, author of Normal Accidents

 
“an astonishingly in-depth reconstruction...heartbreaking...fascinating...”
—The Chicago Tribune, Printers Row Journal
 
“gripping, suspenseful... astonishingly good...”
—Rachel Rose, therumpus.net
 
“A ferociously close-up account... it tells you something positive about the human spirit in the face of calamity.”
The Times of London
 
“Intense, gripping, alive with knowledge and compassion, Flight 232 is a new masterpiece of calamity and courage.”
—Richard Rhodes, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Making of the Atomic Bomb.
 
“Gripping narrative... painstaking detail... riveting.”
Booklist
 
“searing...engrossing, cinematic... absorbing... gripping...”
Publisher’s Weekly
 
“heart-stopping...”
New York Post
 
“I read FLIGHT 232 right through, from the first page to the last without a pause, and it is a kind of miracle, combining meticulous research, intense and even agonizing drama, and a soaring intensity of emotion that leaves one feeling exalted, not depressed at the end of a book about a grisly air crash that spares no details. The instances of heroism and self-sacrifice in the face of unimaginable horror are countless, and rendered with a kind of spare dignity that rises above the macabre. As writing about aviation goes, I would put this book beside that great classic, Ernest K. Gann’s Fate Is The Hunter—Gann would have loved this book, and I think it is every bit as good as his.”
—Michael Korda, former RAF pilot, and author of Clouds of Glory: The Life of Robert E. Lee
 
“A remarkably vivid, cinematic account.”
The Sioux City Journal
 
“A masterful book!”
—Budd Davisson, Editor-in-Chief Flight Journal magazine
 
“I couldn't put it down. What an incredible work Laurence Gonzales has created. I have never seen such a thorough and fascinating treatise about an aircraft accident. Too bad he wasn't around to do the same with the Hindenburg.”
—Barry Schiff, Author of the column The Proficient Pilot for AOPA Pilot Magazine
 
Flight 232 is so masterfully written, especially in the way Gonzales is able to weave the technical aspects of the crash in with the emotional scenes of wreckage and survivors. An emotional roller coaster!”
—Patty Wagstaff, US National Aerobatic Champion, Airshow Pilot, National Aviation Hall of Fame
 
“Chronicling the greatest 'successful failure' of the Jet Age, Gonzales takes us on an amazing journey that begins with a slight impurity—no larger than a grain of rice—in a massive fan disk and ends in a remarkable tale of chance, impromptu invention, astounding heroics, and the pure will to survive. The fact that anyone, let alone 184 people, survived this crash is miraculous; though it is only in the careful exposition of such miracles that one gains an understanding of our complex technological world and of ourselves.”
—Prof. John H. Miller External Faculty, Santa Fe Institute, Head of the Department of Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University
 
“I think it's a masterpiece. I think of books like Hiroshima, Fate Is The Hunter, or A Night To Remember, or even Alive. It's a classic, plain and simple.”
—Tony Bill, winner of the Academy Award for "The Sting."