On January 31, 2000, Alaska Airlines, Flight 261, a McDonnell Douglas MD-83, was on its way from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to Seattle, Washington, when suddenly the horizontal stabilizer of the plane jammed. While passengers were praying for their life, Captain Thompson and First officer Tansky tried to make an emergency landing in Los Angeles. They did not make it, the plane suddenly crashed into the Pacific Ocean, killing all 93 people aboard. The NTSB concluded that the failure of the horizontal stabilizer was caused by insufficient maintenance. In other words the crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 could have been avoided.
Though we routinely take to the air, for many of us flying remains a mystery. Few of us understand the how and why of jetting from New York to London in six hours. How does a plane stay in the air? Can turbulence bring it down? What is windshear? How good are the security checks? Patrick Smith, an airline pilot and author of Salon.com's popular column, "Ask the Pilot," unravels the secrets and tells you all there is to know about the strange and fascinating world of commercial flight. He offers: A nuts and bolts explanation of how planes fly Insights into safety and security Straight talk about turbulence, air traffic control, windshear, and crashes The history, color, and controversy of the world's airlines The awe and oddity of being a pilot The poetry and drama of airplanes, airports, and traveling abroad In a series of frank, often funny explanations and essays, Smith speaks eloquently to our fears and curiosities, incorporating anecdotes, memoir, and a life's passion for flight. He tackles our toughest concerns, debunks conspiracy theories and myths, and in a rarely heard voice dares to return a dash of romance and glamour to air travel.
This book provides a comprehensive overview of aeronautics. It discusses both small and large aircraft and their control strategies, path planning, formation, guidance, and navigation. It also examines applications of drones and other modern aircraft for inspection, exploration, and optimal pathfinding in uncharted territory. The book includes six sections on agriculture surveillance and obstacle avoidance systems using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), motion planning of UAV swarms, assemblage and control of drones, aircraft flight control for military purposes, the modeling and simulation of aircraft, and the environmental application of UAVs and the prevention of accidents.
Boeing Max 737’s twin crashes, Volkswagen’s Dieselgate scandal, worms in Cadbury’s chocolates, cyanide in Tylenol, the #MeToo movement... In the past 24–48 hours, chances are you have read about a brand believed to have transgressed in some part of the world. These and other transgressions – real or perceived – plague company brands and, as in the case of the #MeToo movement, human brands, routinely and globally. And they often come with serious consequences: consumer injury, billions of dollars in recovery and restitution, legal nightmares, bankruptcy, and damage to the brand. Despite their universal prevalence, negative outcomes, and the justified media frenzy around their occurrence, in-depth, thorough, and critical reflections on brand transgressions are scarce. Consequently, barring the lens of some quick-fix solution, managers lack a precise understanding of how to handle such potentially explosive situations. Managing Brand Transgressions: 8 Principles to Transform Your Brand presents over 25 case studies of brands like Boeing, Cadbury, Dolce & Gabbana, Fox News, Maggi, Starbucks, Stoli Vodka, and Tylenol in countries such as USA, China, India, UK, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Latvia. Through these real-life stories, the book captures a snapshot of approximately 50 years of company responses to crises – some successful, some not – caused by brand transgressions. Most importantly, it provides managers with a roadmap of eight principles that companies must use to turn transgressions into opportunities and transform their brands from inside out. Thoroughly researched, gripping, and provocative, this book can guide a brand not only through its crisis but prevent it from becoming a dinosaur.
A Next Big Idea Book Club Must-Read for March 2024 In the vein of The Shock Doctrine and Evil Geniuses, this timely manifesto from an acclaimed journalist illustrates how corporate and political power brokers have used planned capitalism to advance their own interests at the expense of the rest of us—and how we can take back our economy for all. It’s easy to look at the state of the world around us and feel hopeless. We live in an era marked by war, climate crisis, political polarization, and acute inequality—and yet many of us feel powerless to do anything about these profound issues. We’ve been assured that unfettered capitalism is necessary to ensure our freedom and prosperity, even as we see its corrosive effects proliferating daily. Why, in our age of unchecked corporate power, are most of us living paycheck to paycheck? When the economy falters, why do governments bail out corporations and shareholders but leave everyday people in the dust? Now, economic and political journalist and progressive star on the rise Grace Blakeley exposes the corrupt system that is failing all around us, pulling back the curtain on the free market mythology we have been sold, and showing how, as corporate interests have taken hold, governments have historically been shifting away from competition and democracy and towards monopoly and oligarchy. Tracing over a century of neoliberal planning and backdoor bailouts, Blakeley takes us on a deeply reported tour of the corporate crimes, political maneuvering, and economic manipulation that elites have used to enshrine a global system of “vulture capitalism”—planned capitalist economies that benefit corporations and the uber-wealthy at the expense of the rest of us—at every level, from states to empires. Blakeley exposes the cracks already emerging within capitalism, lighting a path forward for how we can democratize our economy, not just our politics, to ensure true freedom for all.
Published annually since 1972, the Historic Documents series has made primary source research easy by presenting excerpts from documents on the important events of each year for the United States and the World. Each volume pairs 60 to 70 original background narratives with over 100 documents to chronicle the major events. Various records may include: • official reports • surveys • speeches from leaders and opinion makers • court cases • legislation • testimony • and much more Historic Documents is renowned for the well-written and informative background, history, and context it provides for each document. Organized chronologically, each volume covers the same wide range of topics: • business • the economy and labor • energy, environment, science, technology, and transportation • government and politics • health and social services • international affairs • national security and terrorism • rights and justice Each volume begins with an insightful essay that sets the year’s events in context, and each document or group of documents include: • a comprehensive introduction • background information on the event • full-source citations • easy access to material • detailed and thematic table of contents • references to related coverage • documents from the last ten editions of the series
NEW YORK TIMES BUSINESS BEST SELLER • A suspenseful behind-the-scenes look at the dysfunction that contributed to one of the worst tragedies in modern aviation: the 2018 and 2019 crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX. An "authoritative, gripping and finely detailed narrative that charts the decline of one of the great American companies" (New York Times Book Review), from the award-winning reporter for Bloomberg. Boeing is a century-old titan of industry. It played a major role in the early days of commercial flight, World War II bombing missions, and moon landings. The planemaker remains a cornerstone of the U.S. economy, as well as a linchpin in the awesome routine of modern air travel. But in 2018 and 2019, two crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 killed 346 people. The crashes exposed a shocking pattern of malfeasance, leading to the biggest crisis in the company’s history—and one of the costliest corporate scandals ever. How did things go so horribly wrong at Boeing? Flying Blind is the definitive exposé of the disasters that transfixed the world. Drawing from exclusive interviews with current and former employees of Boeing and the FAA; industry executives and analysts; and family members of the victims, it reveals how a broken corporate culture paved the way for catastrophe. It shows how in the race to beat the competition and reward top executives, Boeing skimped on testing, pressured employees to meet unrealistic deadlines, and convinced regulators to put planes into service without properly equipping them or their pilots for flight. It examines how the company, once a treasured American innovator, became obsessed with the bottom line, putting shareholders over customers, employees, and communities. By Bloomberg investigative journalist Peter Robison, who covered Boeing as a beat reporter during the company’s fateful merger with McDonnell Douglas in the late ‘90s, this is the story of a business gone wildly off course. At once riveting and disturbing, it shows how an iconic company fell prey to a win-at-all-costs mentality, threatening an industry and endangering countless lives.
This fifth edition of “Product Lifecycle Management” updates and adds to the successful fourth edition, the most frequently cited PLM publication. It gives the reader a thorough explanation of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and provides them with a full understanding and the skills to implement PLM within their own business environment. This new and expanded edition is fully updated to reflect the many technological and management advances made in PLM since the release of the fourth edition. “Product Lifecycle Management” will broaden the reader’s understanding of PLM, nurturing the skills needed to implement PLM successfully and to achieve world-class product performance across the lifecycle. Among the components of PLM described are product-related business processes, product data, product data management (PDM) systems, other PLM applications, best practices, company objectives and organisation. This book also describes the relationships of PLM with the Internet of Things, Industry 4.0, Digital Twins and Digital Threads. “Product Lifecycle Management” (5th edition) explains what PLM is, and why it is needed. It describes the environment in which products are ideated, developed, manufactured, supported and retired, before addressing the main components of PLM and PLM Initiatives. Key activities in PLM Initiatives described include organisational change management (OCM) and project management. The final part of the book addresses the PLM Initiative, showing the typical steps and activities of a PLM project or initiative.
A fascinating exploration of how humans and machines fail - leading to air disasters from Amelia Earhart to MH370 - and how the lessons learned from these accidents have made flying safer. In The Crash Detectives, veteran aviation journalist and air safety investigator Christine Negroni takes the reader inside crash investigations from the early days of the jet age to the present, including the search for answers about what happened to the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. As Negroni dissects each accident, she explores the common themes and, most importantly, what has been learned from them to make planes safer. Indeed, as Negroni shows, virtually every aspect of modern pilot training, airline operation and aircraft design has been shaped by lessons learned from disaster. Along the way, she also details some miraculous saves, when quick-thinking pilots averted catastrophe and kept hundreds of people alive. Tying in aviation science, performance psychology and extensive interviews with pilots, engineers, human factors specialists, crash survivors and others involved in accidents all over the world, The Crash Detectives is an alternately terrifying and inspiring book that might just cure your fear of flying, and will definitely make you a more informed passenger.
