Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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Audiobook6 hours
Southern Storm: The Tragedy of Flight 242
Written by Samme Chittum
Narrated by Keith Sellon-Wright
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this audiobook
On the afternoon of April 4, 1977, Georgia housewife Sadie Burkhalter Hurst looked out her front door to see a frantic stranger running toward her, his clothes ablaze, and, behind him, the mangled fuselage of a passenger plane that had just crashed in her yard.
The plane, a Southern Airways DC-9-31, had been carrying eighty-one passengers and four crew members en route to Atlanta when it entered a massive thunderstorm cell that turned into a dangerous cocktail of rain, hail, and lightning. Forced down onto a highway, the plane cut a swath of devastation through the small town of New Hope, breaking apart and killing bystanders on the ground before coming to rest in Hurst's front yard.
Ultimately, only twenty-two people survived, and urgent questions immediately arose: What caused the pilots to fly into the storm instead of away from it? Could the crash have been prevented? Southern Storm addresses these issues and more, offering an insider's look at this disaster and the systemic overhauls that followed it.
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Author
Samme Chittum
Samme Chittum is a narrative journalist and a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship recipient who explores the intersection of current events and history. Her work has been published by The New York Times, New York Daily News, New York Post, and The Village Voice. She is the author of the first two books in the Smithsonian Air Disasters series.
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5 min read
Reviews for Southern Storm
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
4 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A well-paced and researched narrative. Samme Chittum told the story with compassion. Writing style was clear and engaging.
1 person found this helpful