On a Wing and a Prayer: Interviews with Airline Disaster Survivors

"I told myself, 'Don't panic! You can get out!' . . . I believed that my positive thinking helped me to survive. I did not panic. I did not want to die, and I intended to do everything necessary to prevent it. I decided that if I was going to die, then it was God's will."

Female, age forty–four, seat 19D

Charlotte, North Carolina, July 2, 1994, USAir flight 1016

From the editor of the cult classic The Black Box, here are fifteen riveting accounts of air disasters in which passengers tell in their own words how they faced the ultimate test of survival. Drawn from the National Transportation Safety Board's (NTSB) own postincident interviews with disaster survivors, these case studies of what happened during total emergencies will leave readers with an indelible image of personal courage and of the indomitable will to survive. Flight crews, mothers, business travelers, and others reveal in these detailed interviews what they thought, felt, and did –– from their first awareness of danger to preparing for impact, to their struggle to escape and help others to survive. Their incredible recollections of those harrowing moments are interspersed in synchronized time with excerpts from cockpit voice recorders that chronicle the cockpit crews' valiant efforts to bring the aircraft home safely.

What did these survivors do, consciously or not, to increase their survival odds through a nightmare of darkness, fire, smoke, and twisted debris? How did they handle their fear? Gripping as only real–life stories can be, On a Wing and a Prayer lets readers experience the crisis and eventual triumph through the eyes, ears, and emotions of the people who lived to tell the tale.