The Black Box: Rating: 3 stars

A nice, light summer read for the black-hearted death-lovers among us.

The Black Box (Malcolm MacPherson)
Written by Malcolm MacPherson
Nonfiction · Disaster/Survival
Reviewed May 24, 2006

This book has everything — famous crashes, small-plane accidents, even the transcript from the Challenger’s fatal flight. Each CVR transcript is bracketed by back-story — enough to give you the vital details (and the gory smackerels besides), but not so much technical info that it becomes an engineer’s handbook instead. Not all of the crashes are disastrous ones, but all the transcripts are gripping; some are positively nervewracking, even for a sicko like me. And then, of course, there are the crashes that are tragic in outcome, but positively funny in circumstance… Read it with a notepad, and count how many times “Oh shit!” or “Uh-oh…” become people’s last words.