The gripping true tale of a devastating plane crash, the investigation
into its causes, and the race to prevent similar disasters in the
future.
On the afternoon of April 4, 1977, Georgia housewife Sadie Burkhalter
Hurst looked out her front door to see a frantic stranger running toward
her, his clothes ablaze, and behind him the mangled fuselage of a
passenger plane that had just crashed in her yard. The plane, a Southern
Airways DC-9-31, had been carrying eighty-one passengers and four crew
members en route to Atlanta when it entered a massive thunderstorm cell
that turned into a dangerous cocktail of rain, hail, and lightning.
Forced down onto a highway, the plane cut a swath of devastation through
the small town of New Hope, breaking apart and killing bystanders on the
ground before coming to rest in Hurst's front yard. Ultimately, only
twenty-two people would survive the crash of Flight 242, and urgent
questions immediately arose. What caused the pilots to fly into the
storm instead of away from it? Could the crash have been prevented?
Southern Storm addresses these issues and many more, offering a
fascinating insider's look at this dramatic disaster and the systemic
overhauls that followed it.