Book review: Hong Kong High, by Cliff Dunnaway
The history of aviation in Hong Kong is jam-packed with drama, controversy and acts of derring-do: there was the shooting down of a Cathay Pacific DC-4 by Chinese fighter jets in July 1954, for instance, when 10 of the 19 passengers and crew on board were killed and the remainder heroically rescued by the flight crew under fire in waters off Hainan Island.
by Cliff Dunnaway
Odyssey Publications
2 stars
The history of aviation in Hong Kong is jam-packed with drama, controversy and acts of derring-do: there was the shooting down of a Cathay Pacific DC-4 by Chinese fighter jets in July 1954, for instance, when 10 of the 19 passengers and crew on board were killed and the remainder heroically rescued by the flight crew under fire in waters off Hainan Island.
Then there was the extraordinary sight of a China Airlines plane nose down in Victoria Harbour after it went off the end of the runway at the old Kai Tak airport in November 1993. More recently, an Air China MD-11 flipped over as it landed in a storm at Chek Lap Kok in August 1999, killing three people.
The remarkable thing about , billed as a definitive illustrated history of Hong Kong aviation from 1911 to 2014, is that it manages to avoid mentioning any of the above events, even in passing.
Instead, what it serves up is a sanitised, selective history that is free of crashes, free of controversy and, as a consequence, free of many of the elements that make the business of flying so captivating.
The early years of aviation are covered well and comprehensively with ample use of good archive material. The first quarter of the bilingual (English and Chinese) book is devoted largely to dashing Belgian adventurer Charles Van den Born, who in 1911 became Hong Kong's first flier.
After some decent, well-researched sections on the war years, flying boats, seaplanes and early commercial flights, however, the book descends disappointingly into lengthy eulogies about institutions such as the Hong Kong International Airport ("one of the most efficient and user-friendly airports in the world"), the Civil Aviation Department (providing "a safe, efficient and sustainable air transport system for Hong Kong") and most glaringly Cathay Pacific ("one of the world's most highly regarded and best-run international airlines").
Sister airline Dragonair gets similar treatment over six pages, while Cathay Pacific cargo subsidiary Air Hongkong with its "superior service" gets two pages of praise.
No other airline or cargo carrier is given this treatment. The book limps to a close with an anodyne afterword from Swire chairman John Slosar, who not surprisingly exclaims: "We are also pleased that much of the story of our airlines have been so well captured in this book." (sic)
There are incongruous full-page adverts for Cathay Pacific partner DHL and for Boeing's new 747-8 Intercontinental, which pops up immediately after a two-page prologue from Boeing president Ray Conner, which he uses in part to bang on about the new 787-8. Rival Airbus gets no such space to extol the virtues of its latest aircraft.
What readers who pay for this book aren't - but should be - told is that Cathay Pacific and Boeing agreed to buy a couple of thousand copies of the book between them which will be donated to air cadets in Hong Kong.
It's a worthy enough cause. But the education of those cadets, if they aspire to follow in the footsteps of magnificent men in flying machines such as Charles Van den Born, would be better served by a more inclusive, warts-and-all history of Hong Kong aviation with all its thrilling ups and downs.
