Originally Posted by
aa73
Final Destination: Disaster: What Really Happened to Eastern Airlines
by George Jehn
A must read about what really happened to Eastern Air Lines, written by EAL CA and ALPA officer George Jehn and how this crash became the beginning of the end for them.
In a nutshell, this crash remains the only US airline crash in history to not be properly investigated by the NTSB: the book subtly suggests they were ordered not to investigate it (even though they performed a purposely-botched "quasi" investigation to quell the protests of some victims' family members.) The thinking (and logic) behind this was that the crash apparently would implicate some very high-level country leaders that may have had some shady dealings with Eastern. The NTSB came up with some very lame excuses to avoid investigating it (high altitude, snow, ice...despite the fact that they have moved hell and high water to investigate far more inaccessible crash sites in the past.) In the end, they acquiesced to pressure and performed such a poorly led and self-botched investigation that would make an amateur proud.
Once the crash happened, it appears the order went out from way above to liquidate the airline. Hence, Frank Borman's fire sale to Frank Lorenzo, whose mission it became to liquidate the airline through whatever means possible. Lorenzo chose the most obvious way: bleed the airline and make it look like the unions' fault, provoking them all the way to a strike, which tightened the death spiral even more.
The rest is history.
Fascinating read and well worth it.
I pretty sure there was no NTSB accident report for the Western Airlines DC10 in Mexico City. I have read the ALPA report which is a fairly good record of what happened.