Nine Minutes,Twenty Seconds: The Tragedy and Triumph of ASA Flight 529

Pomerantz, Gary M.

ISBN 10: 0743509005 ISBN 13: 9780743509008

Publisher: Audioworks, 2001

Synopsis

Drawing on the testimonies of survivors, this detailed account of the 1995 crash of a commuter airline chronicles the events of the disaster, the heroic efforts ot the flight crew to bring the plane down safely, the inferno that followed, claiming the lives of the captain and nine passengers, and the aftermath of the tragedy for survivors. Read by Boyd Gaines.

About this title

Review:

An American could fly on a turboprop run by a regional carrier once per day and not expect to die in a crash for 8,000 years, according to one estimate. That's small consolation to the 29 people who found themselves on ASA Flight 529 in 1995, when a faulty propeller cracked and destroyed one of their plane's engines. As Gary M. Pomerantz notes in Nine Minutes, Twenty Seconds--the title refers to the length of time between the engine blowing and impact--"Of all the emergency checklists, there was none on how to fly with one wing." Pomerantz says his book is "not about a plane falling, but the human spirit rising." That's only part right. Nine Minutes, Twenty Seconds has plenty of human-interest angles, but it mainly holds a morbid fascination akin to rubbernecking at the scene of a highway accident. Ever wonder what people do when they know they're about to crash and believe they might die? Herein lie the answers. (Unexpectedly, they don't scream.) Pomerantz conducted hundreds of interviews for this book, from the flight's 19 survivors to family members of the deceased to the mechanic who refurbished the bad propeller before it went back on the plane. It is by turns interesting, poignant, and harrowing. Readers drawn to stories of adversity will find it riveting. --John Miller

From the Inside Flap:

ply moving account of the extraordinary strengths that ordinary people can display when tragedy confronts them. As emotionally powerful a book as you are likely ever to read.”
–David J. Garrow, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Bearing the Cross

In August 1995, twenty-six passengers and a crew of three board a commuter plane in Atlanta headed for Gulfport, Mississippi. Shortly after takeoff they hear an explosion and, looking out the windows on the left side, see a mangled engine lodged against the wing. From that moment, nine minutes and twenty seconds elapse until the crippled plane crashes in a west Georgia hayfield–nine minutes and twenty seconds in which Gary Pomerantz takes readers deep into the hearts and minds of the people aboard, each of whom prepares in his or her own way for what may come.

Ultimately, nineteen people survive both the crash and its devastating aftermath, all of them profoundly affected by what they have seen and

About this edition

• Publisher: Audioworks
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0743509005
• ISBN 13: 9780743509008
• Binding: Audio CD