Wake up, It's a Crash !
A Survivor's Account of the First 747 Jet Disaster
Moorhouse, Earl
What does it feel like to know that the aircraft you are flying in is crashing-that in seconds your life may be over? What are the thoughts that flash through your mind? How do you react?
On the morning of November 20th, 1974, Lufthansa flight LH540 taxied down the runway of Nairobi airport and took off into a clear blue sky. Minutes later the huge jumbo jet plunged from the sky and crashed back into the African bush killing 59 people. It was the world's first 747 disaster. Miraculously, out of the fiery sea of wreckage and bodies, 98 people survived. Shocked and confused, Earl Moorhouse, his wife and their two young sons walked away unharmed. Now as he describes the events, we experience with him the real horror of an aircrash - the feeling of being strapped in, speeding to your death, knowing what is happening but being unable to do anything about it, helpless, in the grip of forces totally beyond your control.
Moorhouse speaks frankly about his family's and his own struggle to cope with the aftermath of the accident. His two sons - the youngest survivors of the crash - suffered deep trauma, reliving the accident in recurring nightmares, and building toy airplanes to "crash" on the stairs. To this day, the mere mention of flying terrifies them; the children and their mother will not fly. Two years after the crash, Moorhouse began a painstaking search for fellow survivors and witnesses-in the United States, Germany, Britain, Kenya and South Africa. The scars of the tragedy ran deep. All the survivors had suffered: insomnia, claustrophobia, deep depression.
From dozens of interviews, personal accounts - and recollections, Moorhouse reconstructs a remarkable and dramatic story of heroism and cowardice, miraculous escapes, inexplicable coincidences and, above all, survival in the face of one of the most terrifying of modern experiences. Tracing the events of flight LH540 through the eyes of those who lived through it, Moorhouse provides us with a vivid and dramatic account: an account that offers surprising insight into the way traumatic events affect our lives.
Born in London in 1945, Earl Moorhouse moved to South Africa and started his career äs a Journalist in 1963. Widely traveled, he has lived with his wife and two sons in England, Switzerland and Africa and has been actively involved in politics and environmental work.
Hardcover with dust jacket
166 Seiten / pages
photos
very good condition
London - 1980 - David & Charles
Art.Nr. 22508
