AIRFRAME

Catastrophic Flights: Airframe by Michael Crichton

[Name of the Institute]

Catastrophic Flights: Airframe by Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton, who leads the very prosperous life of a bad writer, keeps searching for scientific terminology on which to build formulaic bestsellers. Most recently, casting his eyes heavenward, he did not, as Wolfe always did, muse on paradises lost. He thought of airplane problems, and came up with Airframe.

There's nothing funny about what happens aboard TransPacific 545 from Hong Kong to Denver in ''Airframe,'' Crichton's latest automatic best-seller. But by 1996 standards, Crichton's fictional accident is underwhelming -- and the body count, at three dead and 56 injured, small potatoes. The mysterious crash of Flight 800 off Long Island remains more compelling than what happens aboard Crichton's TPA 545.

The Chinese pilot claims he encountered ''severe turbulence'' during the flight. With the plane on the ground and the injured in the hospital, ''Airframe'' shifts to fictional Norton Aircraft in Burbank, makers of the N-22 widebody jet involved in the ''incident.'' Now Crichton plunges into the stuff that really gets his blood pumping -- corporate intrigue and technical mumbo-jumbo. Norton launches an internal investigation into what happened on TPA 545. Heading the investigation is Casey Singleton, 36-year-old divorced mother of one and vice president at Norton (Crichton, 2008).

Casey (we picture Sandra Bullock in the movie version) is a competent PR type who's got very little time and a bunch of stumbling blocks -- a flight crew that's high-tailed it back to China, a flight data recorder that isn't providing any information, an annoying Norton family nephew who's following her around, and a union that's hopped up about rumors that jobs may be going overseas. What caused the N-22 to plummet, then climb, then plummet again? Did the slats deploy? Were bad, counterfeit parts installed outside the country? Poor maintenance? ...