Flight through Fire

"Shit happens, and it doesn't mean it's somebody's fault. And in the test flight of an airplane, shit often happens."- Bombardier Experimental Test Pilot Eric Fiore

On October 10, 2000, a Challenger 604 experimental test aircraft crashed on takeoff at Wichita's Mid-Continent Airport, dragging a wing, before turning into a fireball. Barely alive and suffering horrific burns, test pilot Eric Fiore was the only survivor hauled from the wreckage.

He has asked his wife to promise him something.

Based on actual events, Flight through Fire is an unforgettable love story centered on a deep devotion to aviation. Carol Fiore vividly describes the aftermath of the accident, the response of a billion dollar company and an entire Kansas town, the intense pressure placed on a hospital, the tragic realities of severe facial burns, the evolution of an eating disorder in her teenage daughter, and the raw emotional pain of her nonreligious family.

Deftly interweaving the past and present, the author takes the reader on a wondrous adventure around the world with a complicated and passionate man who was born to be a pilot. Struggling with the horrors of his injuries, she confronts grief without religion, searching for strength in order to keep her promise to him.

Insightful, brutally honest, and unexpectedly humorous, this is the story of what it takes to be a test pilot, and what it costs to love one.