Rabbit Holes (Longform Articles) Part 1

Great, longform non-fiction articles to send you down a rabbit hole and possibly learn something new!

1. "What Really Happened to Malaysia's Missing Airplane" by William Langewiesche for The Atlantic On the Malaysian Flight MH370 crash and is great reporting.

2. "A Sea Story" by William Langewiesche for The Atlantic On the 1994 Estonia sinking in the Baltic Sea and is maybe the best article I've ever read.

3. "What Actually Happened To Amelia Earhart?" by Veritasium

             Well, this is a 37 minute video instead of a longform reporting article, but it's the best I've seen or read on Amelia Earhart's disappearance.

   
   

4. "'The Clock is Ticking' inside the worst U.S. Maritime Disaster in Decades" by William Langewiesche for Vanity Fair

             About the deadly cargo ship El Faro sinking near the Bahamas. I found this article the least satisfying of WL's disaster reporting since it's the build-up of a lot of errors.

   
   

5. "Deliverance From 27,000 Feet" by John Branch for The New York Times

   Great article on bringing down the dead from Mount Everest. It's an interesting companion to Finding Michael documentary and related Guardian article, "Death on Everest" about a British family who tried to retrieve their son's body for quite a large expense. My takeaway is we all grieve in very different ways.

6. "Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek" by John Branch for The New York Times

   About a deadly avalanche in Washington state involving free-skiers.

   
   

7. "Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?" by Gene Weingarten for Washington Post

   This is incredibly traumatic to read, but it probably saves lives. I've never finished reading it. A similar longform is "While they were sleeping" about the Rock-n-play sleeper deaths which I haven't finished reading either.

   
   

8. "The Really Big One" by Kathryn Schulz for The New Yorker

   About the risk of an earthquake in the Pacific Northwest along the Cascadia subduction zone.

   
   

9. "Hell and High Water" by Neena Satija for The Texas Tribune and Reveal; Kiah Collier for The Texas Tribune; and Al Shaw and Jeff Larson for ProPublica

   About the risk of a larger hurricane hitting Houston. I don't like this article or format, but the map is fascinating.

   
   

10. "Santa Barbara County knew mudslides were a risk. It did little to stop them" by Joe Mozingo for Los Angeles Times.

    About the deadly 2018 mudslide. Another article includes AP News coverage.