William Langewiesche is a pilot himself, and has written many other articles over the last 2 decades detailing accident investigations (among other things). As much as the technical details, he often explains the organizational and political circumstances that are just as interesting. Some that stick with me: the late-90s ValuJet and EgyptAir crashes, and the Space Shuttle Columbia.
He is my favorite author on the subject of aviation. Lots of great reads here. Two standouts for my money are "The Devil at 37,000 Feet" and "The Human Factor."
“On the afternoon of last January 15, a flock of Canada geese flew about 3,000 feet above the Bronx in a loose echelon formation, tending to their own business as usual, with nothing special in mind. Much about those particular geese will never be known—for instance, where they came from, and where they were headed, and why—but it is likely that they were large, well fed, and self-satisfied. Evidently they were also fairly dumb. Their stupidity cannot be held against them, since they were just birds, after all, but geese are said to be adaptive creatures, and it is hard not to think that they should have had better sense than to go wandering through New York City’s skies”
[…] ”There was also an official collision with a fish, though the fish was in the grasp of an osprey at the time.”
This article reminded me of a long-form article I read on here (below) about a maritime disaster that was similarly well written. Not surprised that it turns out to have been written by Langewiesche as well.
https://www.theatlantic.com/author/william-langewiesche
https://www.vanityfair.com/contributor/william-langewiesche