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Readers!

 

My July fund-raising campaign to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black is now over. I want to thank all those who so generously donated or subscribed, especially those who have become regular supporters. I can't do this without your help. I also find it increasingly hard to express how much your support means to me. God bless you all!

 

The donations during this year's campaign were sadly less than previous years, but for this I blame myself. I am tired of begging for money, and so I put up the campaign announcement at the start of the month but had no desire to update it weekly to encourage more donations, as I have done in past years. This lack of begging likely contributed to the drop in donations.

 

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The crashes that changed aviation and plane designs forever.

The crashes that changed aviation and plane designs forever.

Like the 1964 Alaska earthquake, sometimes bad things have to happen to force humans to face a problem and fix it.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

4 comments

  • While the author of this piece highlighted engineering and mechanical failures, he also included the accident over the Grand Canyon, this accident was just fate waiting to happen, I think he should also have included the Tenerife accident where two 747’s collided on the runway due to a very impatient Air France pilot who was not paying attention to his radios and lost situational awareness on a 0 0 take off in the fog on a runway that normally did not accomadate such large aircraft. This sparked a large change in aircraft ground control.

  • Correction, it was KLM royal Dutch airlines, not Air France.

  • Edward

    KLM flight 4805 also changed how flight crews work with each other in the cockpit. Copilots and others on the flight deck are now better able to question and correct the captain so that situational awareness is not so easily lost.

    http://lessonslearned.faa.gov/ll_main.cfm?TabID=3&CategoryID=14&LLID=52

    http://lessonslearned.faa.gov/ll_main.cfm?TabID=3&LLID=52&LLTypeID=12

    Of course, Asiana flight 214 showed us that the entire flight crew can lose situational awareness.

  • Yes, there was a fear by subordinates to approach the captain, the captain could never be wrong, if this culture had been addressed, this accident never would have happened. With regards to Asiana flight, that flight crew should never be near an aircraft again! Good post!

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