May 8, 2009

Less then a year later, voyage of Flight 1549 to become a book

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From the That Didn’t Take Very Long Department: Farrar, Straus & Giroux has announced it will publish a book about the plane that made an emergency landing in the Hudson last January. What’s more, they’ll be publishing it soon, in November. The book — Fly by Wire: The Truth About the Miracle on the Hudson — will be by William Langewiesche, with a section of the book that’s already written appearing in the next issue of Vanity Fair.

Langewiesche says yes, yes, he’ll talk about Sully — pilot Chesley B. Sullenberger — but, according to a New York Times report, he’s also planning to sepnd considerable time on other related aspects, such as “the population explosion of Canada geese, which fouled the airplane’s engines; the plane, a European-made Airbus that is the first to use a fully digital flight control system (the ‘fly by wire’ of the book’s title); and the general state of ‘pathos and sadness’ in the airline industry today.”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.

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