So I just released this book about Malaysia Airlines flight 370

27 Apr 14 2 Comments

It was easy to get obsessed with Malaysia Airlines flight 370. I found myself reading news sites from all over the world trying to put together the pieces. As a part of that, I found myself explaining a lot of issues that weren’t clear in the popular press. And I also found myself investigating a lot of theories that I never expected to take seriously.

Pretty soon, I realised that I had a lot of information in my head that I was trying to share on a one-by-one basis. A random guy at the shop idly asked me what I thought about MH370. 30 minutes later I finally paused for breath and he escaped.

That’s when I started thinking I should write all this stuff down. It was the 1st of April.

In this age of constant surveillance, it shouldn’t be possible to lose a Boeing 777 carrying 239 passengers. It’s inconceivable that the aircraft flew for seven hours without anyone noticing that it was up there, completely off track. Yet, that’s exactly what happened. Sylvia Wrigley, pilot and aviation expert, explores the possibilities in the pages of The Mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

I took some time off work and did nothing but write for two weeks. Everything I knew. Everything I wondered about. Everything that could possibly be.

I got wonderful support. Three people were offering feedback on the first section while I was still writing the second. I worked with a brilliant editor who bounced back text four or five times a day while we tried to structure and revise it while I was still writing. My boyfriend made sure that I was fed and watered and generally got out of my way, other than to keep reading as fast as he could.

Though most of us will board an aircraft at some point in our lives, we know little about how they work and the procedures surrounding their operation. It is that mystery that makes the loss of MH370 so terrifying. Follow along step-by-step as Wrigley recreates the flight and its disappearance. Review the many varied theories as to how it could have happened — up to and including alien abduction. The Mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 also introduces a variety of related crashes and incidents, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions.

I’m incredibly excited about the book, which is called The Mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. It covers the facts of the flight and the initial disappearance, of course. But that’s just the introduction. The bulk of the book is about the theories: alien abduction, pilot suicide, mechanical failure, military shoot-down, lithium-ion battery fire: you name it. If it’s been in the popular press, it’s in the book. I went through every theory and discussed the details. I found examples of the various scenarios so we could compare real-life incidents to what we know about the disappearance. Then I got into detail about the search and the aftermath and what happens now.

I’ll tell you honestly, there were a number of times when I thought, I just can’t cover everything. But damnit, I tried my best and I honestly feel that I did the subject justice.

It’s hard to talk generally about the speculation regarding Malaysia Airlines flight 370, as the scope is much broader than is usually the case for an accident investigation. As all of the simple theories regarding its fate became unlikely, the speculation as to what could have happened to Malaysia Airlines flight 370 became wilder and wilder.

Now that I’ve survived writing the thing, my biggest problem is obscurity. I need to get the word out and you can help. If you think it sounds interesting, I would be thrilled if you would pick up a copy and give it a read. It’s in all the popular formats: Kindle, ePub, PDF.


The Mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

Buy Now!

If you do read The Mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the most amazing thing you can do for me is to leave a quick review. Just one or two lines about the book on your online bookstore or on Goodreads can make a huge difference to how often they display my book to others.

If you know someone who might like it, please send them the link: http://mh370.fearoflanding.com/

I’ve posted on Facebook:

and on Twitter:

So if you use them and wouldn’t mind sharing or retweeting, that’s a huge help to getting seen.

The other thing I want to say is: I’m really so glad that you all have given me the chance to write about the subject I love. When I started writing Friday articles for you all, I had no idea how big a part of my life it would become …let alone now much fun it would be!

Now I’m going to go sleep for a week.

Category: Writing,

2 Comments

  • Helios flight 522 and Payne Stewart’s Learjet- I think those two crashes are relevant here. Helios 522 received immediate response due to its location and the fact that the autopilot flew a holding pattern for over an hour, while the Learjet was in the air for nearly 4 hours, giving ample opportunity for military jets to scramble and assess the situation. What makes flight 370 different is that there was no real time tracking over remote ocean corridors, and not a single piece of physical evidence, which of course greatly complicates an investigation and overshadows what may be a relatively simple chain of events. I’m not dead set on the hypoxia theory, it just seems like a distinct possibility. Lest we forget that the CVR and data recorders in Air France flight 447 were found almost 2 years after the crash. I believe that the biggest lesson to learn from this incident is that there are still many holes of information left in flight operations, even in the year 2014. Throughout history, there have always been technological advances that solve yesterday’s mysteries.

  • I cover Helios flight 522 and Air France flight 477 in the book. However, slow decompression doesn’t explain the original turn without a descent. So I do think that’s a real possibility but almost certainly combined with some other issue which caused the original diversion.

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