"Fate is the Hunter" (1964)

[Blue_Tires]

You ever stumble across one of those movies on youtube you never heard of before, but can't stop once you start watching??

[trof]

1. From the book by Ernest K. Gann

Famous aviation writer in his day.
Look him up.

[Blue_Tires]

5. He was pretty far ahead of his time

since the crash and conclusion were almost a textbook "Swiss Cheese" model

[Major Nikon]

10. I've never seen the film, but I've read the book a few times

It's one of those that many pilots keep in their personal library.

[trof]

2. 'You are the prey...fate is the hunter'

In aviation, you must be prepared for ANYTHING.

[Brother Buzz]

6. Including a spilt cup of coffee

[trof]

8. We learned about the "chain of events" in flight safety classes.

As an airline pilot I attended 'recurrent training' classes every year.
Classes, written tests, simulator training and check rides, where all manner of inflight and ground emergencies were thrown at us. It was very realistic.

We learned that so many times one small glitch or malfunction could snowball into a major emergency that could have been nipped in the bud.
It was a real eye opener.
Basically "Deal with the small problems and the big ones don't happen."

[Brother Buzz]

9. But, but installing a watertight rubber gasket in the cockpit, who would have thunk....

That was my walk-away when I saw that movie fifty years ago on TV.

Interesting how fast that one went to television. Flight of the Phoenix was the other airplane movie that made it to television real fast. Glenn Ford and Jimmy Stewart, them were the days!

[Major Nikon]

11. A retired American captain once told me...

When you have an inflight emergency, the first thing you should do is smoke a cigarette.

I have about 200 hours flying right and left seat with him in various small airplanes. I'm not entirely sure if that advice he gave me was a joke, but I have learned an awful lot about flying with him.

[trof]

3. Here ya go:

He is one of my heroes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_K._Gann

[Sherman A1]

4. Great!!!!

Movie. I remember it from long ago and enjoyed watching it on YouTube recently.

[lovemydog]

7. Interesting back story regarding the book author.

Fate Is the Hunter is a 1964 film about the crash of an airliner and the subsequent investigation: it was directed by Ralph Nelson and released by 20th Century Fox. It was nominally based on the bestselling 1961 memoir Fate Is the Hunter by Ernest K. Gann, but the author was so disappointed with the result that he asked to have his name removed from the credits. In his autobiography, A Hostage to Fortune, Gann wrote, "They obliged and, as a result, I deprived myself of the TV residuals, a medium in which the film played interminably."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fate_Is_the_Hunter_(film)

[El Supremo]

12. That movie had almost nothing to do with the book.

Read the book. I did when it first came out. It was about lots of accidents not just one. Ernie Gann should never have let them steal his title.