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THE PROBABLE CAUSE by Robert Serling

THE PROBABLE CAUSE

By

Publisher: Doubleday

If a person were born on an airliner and flew every day from that moment on without ever debarking he could not expect to be in a fatal crash until he was 76 years old. That is the way Serling sums up the airlines' safety record in this dramatic, intensely absorbing ""positive book about an almost negative subject"". You are 20 times safer in an airliner than in your own car. Yet planes do crash and it is the half of this book devoted to accidents and the brilliant detective work that finds out why that makes fascinating bone-chilling reading. The Comets that came apart in the air, the Electras that lost their wings, the Stratocruiser that fell out of the Pacific sky, the bombed National Airlines planes -- all are here. The rest of the book is devoted to the reasons why planes seldom crash. A newspaperman specializing in aviation stories, Serling writes in the A Night to Remember kind of dramatic style. His book is disturbing and reassuring at the same time, worthwhile for everyone who flies or thinks about doing so.