num_pages: 175
description: 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? These are the questions author and journalist Earl Moorhouse put to fellow survivors when he began researching this compelling and deeply moving account of the world's first Boeing 747 jumbo jet disaster at Nairobi, East Africa in November 1974. His wife Lynn and two young children were among the survivors. The buildup of tension is relentless - Lufthansa's Boeing 747 Hessen lifting into the night sky over Germany, crossing the Mediterranean and the African deserts in the dark; some passengers watching a Clint Eastwood movie, others sipping cocktails in the upstairs lounge. As morning breaks, the 747 lands smoothly in Nairobi for a brief refuelling stop and a change of crew on the way to Johannesburg. And then, with 157 aboard, a take-off run. The wheels lift, the aircraft rises 100 feet and plunges back to earth, breaking in two against an embanked road. It ploughs on, bursting into flames. It comes to a halt in the muddy bush, and the survivors begin a desperate fight to escape the inferno. Some seemingly "ordinary" people become heroes. And ninety-eight make it out.  This is their story.
language: English
title: Wake Up It's A Crash
publisher: Squire's Yard