After a passenger jet suddenly pitches violently over the Pacific, a quality-assurance executive has days to find out why before the press and politics decide for her
One week to explain a disaster
A widebody jet built by Norton Aircraft is cruising toward Denver when, without warning, it plunges and climbs violently, leaving passengers dead and dozens injured. Casey Singleton, a vice president in Norton's quality-assurance department, is put in charge of the company's investigation team. The aircraft has an excellent safety record, the cockpit crew insists nothing went wrong, and the flight recorder data is incomplete.
Who will enjoy it
Readers who enjoy technical thrillers, aviation details and investigations driven by evidence rather than gunfights.
What you will get
A gripping technical thriller about the investigation of a frightening in-flight incident, and about how hard it is to tell the truth on television.
Airframe Facts: Pages, Genre and Setting
Genre
Mystery & Thriller · Aviation · Investigation · Media pressure
Length
448 pages · ≈ 13 h
More about this book
Casey soon finds herself under pressure from every direction. The company is about to close a huge sale to China, and the factory's unions fear that the deal will send their jobs overseas. Her boss seems to have his own agenda, and a hungry television newsmagazine has decided that the plane is a death trap and wants Casey on camera. With a deadline measured in days, she and her team pore over parts, maintenance records and a passenger's home video, trying to read the story the airframe is telling them.
Crichton is at his best here as an explainer. You come away understanding how airliners are built, inspected and certified, and how an accident investigation actually works. The book's second target is the news media, and its portrait of a producer more interested in a dramatic segment than in facts feels even more relevant today.
The characters are functional rather than memorable, and the critique of journalism can be heavy-handed. But as a puzzle with real technical depth, it holds up well. It is also a fine choice for anyone who has ever wondered what happens after the headlines about a troubled flight. About 448 pages in the Ballantine mass-market paperback.
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