Deadly Departure: Why The Experts Failed To Prevent The TWA Flight 800 Disaster And How It Could Happen Again

Though it can be classified as airplane reading, you may not want to bring Deadly Departure with you on your next flight. In this gripping story of the investigation of the crash of TWA Flight 800, aviation correspondent Christine Negroni guides the reader through the intricacies of the U.S. government's most expensive crash investigation to date. Personal stories of passengers, their families, crash investigators, rescue workers, conspiracy theorists, and employees of Boeing and TWA underpin Negroni's account of the investigation as a catalog of conflict, incompetence, and deceit. She concludes that, contrary to the claims of aircraft manufacturers, fuel tank explosions are a real danger, but one that lies within the range of acceptable risk for both the industry and the Federal Aviation Authority.

If there was a conspiracy to hide the truth about what really happened to Flight 800, it began long before the crash, and it wasn't an effort to cover up action, it was a conspiracy of inaction. Although the newspapers were filled with experts insisting planes don't just fall out of the sky and fuel tank explosions can't bring down an airplane, insiders knew different.

If you have followed the strange and sad saga of TWA 800's mysterious end and its aftermath, Negroni's book is for you. --Julia Riches