British Airships Book

Riveting, horrifying, heart-breaking … and ultimately amazing … Gary M. Pomerantz's Nine Minutes, Twenty Seconds tells the real-life story of every air traveler's worst nightmare.

In August 1995, Atlantic Southeast Airlines (ASA) Flight 529 was in route from Atlanta, GA to Gulfport, MS with twenty-nine passengers and crew aboard. High in the clouds, one of the commuter plane's propeller blades snapped, destroying the airplane's left engine and severely compromising the left wing. Nine minutes and twenty seconds later, after a heroic but ultimately futile battle to keep the wounded plane aloft, the Embraer EMB-120 plummeted into a west Georgia hayfield, the fuselage tearing in two as the aircraft skidded across the dirt and ignited its spilled fuel.

Pomerantz tells the story of this terrible tragedy with astounding energy and meticulous detail, offering a moving, well researched account into the events that led up to the crash, the incident itself, and the aftermath. From the moment the propeller snaps, his prose is taunt - as gripping as any thriller - as the author counts down the flight's final minutes and seconds with such power and agonizing detail that you can almost feel yourself sitting in that fuselage, the uncomfortable, strained drone of the plane's remaining engine fighting for the sky, the cold, clammy feel of fear within the cabin, the bark of the flight attendant's emergency instructions, like words from a bad dream in your head. It's as close to an actual mid-emergency as I ever want to get, and Pomerantz's unflinching gaze does not blink until well after the final rescue trucks have left the disaster scene.

The tension, the trauma, Pomerantz's uncanny ability to describe an event - the final moments of a doomed aircraft -- that seem almost (maybe mercifully?) unknowable would have easily earned this book five stars, but what is more remarkable is that Pomerantz balances the rawness of the accident with a compassion for the people involved that, just as unflinchingly, bleeds through the pages. From the heroic crew, to the passengers, their families, the crash investigators, down to a simple man who worked in the factory that handled that critical, failed component, Pomerantz reconstructs their lives - their struggles, triumphs, tragedies, and recriminations -- with same level of detail that he uses to describe the events of the accident. It is just as raw, just as unblinking, but with an elegance and sensitivity that makes your heart ache for their suffering.

This is simply one of the best books I've read in a long time.

P.S. The crash of ASA Flight 529 occurred just as I was entering the emergency management profession in a place not far from where I live. Nine Minutes, Twenty Seconds is a book that I would recommend to any of my colleagues in the profession - not just for the power of the story and the skill with which it is told - but also because of the many disaster response and recovery elements it addresses. From the impact of spontaneous, civilian first responders to crisis events to the pain of survivor's guilt and post-traumatic stress, these are issues with which anyone in emergency management must grapple. Likewise, there are plenty of dreadful stories about how the families of the victims of mass transportation accidents were treated prior to the protections offered under the landmark 1996 Aviation Disaster Assistance Act, a law which continues to guide emergency management response to mass transportation accidents to this day.

Additionally, since I happen to work for a faith-based disaster response organization, I would also suggest Nine Minutes, Twenty Seconds as an important case study for professional emotional and spiritual care providers. Not to get too deeply into this (and without generalizing because religion is not a balm for everyone), the spiritual needs (and desire) for faith-based support services was astonishingly significant after this incident, not just among the crash's survivors and the families of its victims, but all those associated with the event. Just as importantly, there is certainly some cautionary evidence to be taken from this book about the potential risks of vicarious trauma to the caregiver and its long-term negative effects.