World of Disaster--Mapped Out

People will always be fascinated by the morbid, and Jeremy Coysten is no exception.

A 25-year-old graphic design student at London’s Royal College of Art, Coysten recently completed a map that footnotes the last 48 years of airplane crashes around the world. He says his work is the result of a false alarm he experienced while flying two years ago. Midway over the Indian Ocean, the warning lights lit up and a voice announced an emergency.

“I couldn’t believe how calm people were,” Coysten recalls. “What scared me even more was how calm I was. There’s nothing you can do.”

Ten minutes later, the warning lights went out and a stewardess said dinner would be served.

“It was absurd,” Coysten says.

But it got him thinking about air travel and crashes.

“It’s so abstract to go to the airport, take off on a flight and travel at 700 mph with 500 strangers.” His map--available as a poster titled “Civil Airline Disasters 1950-1998”--has been selling at the rate of 500 a week.

Coysten’s e-mail address is jeremy@headspin.demon.co.uk. The map posters are sold at ICA Bookshop in London; phone: 011-44-171-925-2434.