INVITING DISASTER

Technological mishaps and human ineptitude take center stage in this impressive, sometimes horrifying compendium.

Chiles, a frequent contributor to Smithsonian magazine on matters mechanical, has been salting away examples of machines gone bad and humans gone confused for a long while. Here, he rolls out scores of anecdotes whose underlying interest is in why accidents happen and whether we can think our way around them. Mishaps occur, Chiles writes, for many reasons. When the origins are mechanical, it is quite often the case that some simple, inexpensive part has given out, as when, in July 2000, an Air France Concorde jet crashed after a small strip of titanium fell from the engine of a DC-10 that had taken off moments before. More often, mishaps happen because a machine’s makers or marketers are in a hurry to get the thing operational, as when NASA rushed to put the space shuttle Challenger into flight despite gas leaks caused, it was later determined, by a faulty O-ring. (“There is only one driving reason that a potentially dangerous system would be allowed to fly,” an astronaut later observed, namely “launch schedule pressure.”) Chiles touches on trains, oil rigs, cars, telescopes, and all manner of appliances, but his most gruesome tales center on aviation, where, it seems, the possibilities for error are endless and commonplace—for which reason, he notes, redundant systems and elaborate flight checks have evolved. Even so, he counsels that air passengers pay attention to flight attendants’ safety instructions, and then some. (Count the number of seat rows between you and the nearest exit, he urges, in case the cabin fills with smoke and you have to feel your way out.)

Full of scary news, but unsensational and thoroughly documented. Just don’t read it in flight.