Airframe
About
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Jurassic Park, Timeline, and Sphere comes this extraordinary thriller about airline safety, business intrigue, and a deadly cover-up.
“The pacing is fast, the suspense nonstop.”—People
Three passengers are dead. Fifty-six are injured. The interior cabin is virtually destroyed. But the pilot manages to land the plane.
At a moment when the issue of safety and death in the skies is paramount in the public mind, a lethal midair disaster aboard a commercial twin-jet airliner flying from Hong Kong to Denver triggers a pressured and frantic investigation.
Airframe is nonstop reading, full of the extraordinary mixture of super suspense and authentic information on a subject of compelling interest that are the hallmarks of Michael Crichton.
“A one-sitting read that will cause a lifetime of white-knuckled nightmares.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer
“The ultimate thriller … [Crichton’s] stories are always page-turners of the highest order… . [Airframe] moves like a firehouse dog chasing a red truck.”—The Denver Post
“Dramatically vivid.”—The New York Times
Unchaptered
p. 27
“A Pontiac has five thousand parts, and you can build one in two shifts. Sixteen hours. That’s nothing. Bu these things”—she gestured to the aircraft looming high above them—“are a completely different animal. The widebody has one million parts and a span time of seventy-five days. No other manufactured product in the world has the complexity of a commercial aircraft. Nothing even comes close. And nothing is built to be as durable. You take a Pontiac and run it all day every day and see what happens. It’ll fall apart in a few months. But we design our jets to fly for twenty years of trouble-free service, and we build them to twice the service life.”
p. 265
Airplanes were big and powerful. The audience wouldn’t believe that they were made by crummy little people in drab offices.
“A stock scam?”
“If your tires blow, do you blame the car maker?” …
Highlights
“If your tires blow, do you blame the car maker?” …
“We build the plane, and then install the brand of engine the customer selects. Just the way you can put any one of several brands of tires on your car. But if Michelin makes a batch of bad tires, and they blow out, that’s not Ford’s fault. If you let your tires go bald and get in an accident, that’s not Ford’s fault. And it’s exactly the same with us.”
“A stock scam?”
“Sure,” Casey said. “You buy some aircraft so old and poorly maintained no reputable carrier will use them for spares. Then you subcontract maintenance to limit your liability. Then you offer cheap fares, and use the cash to buy new routes. It’s a pyramid scheme but on paper it looks great. Volume’s up, revenue’s up, and Wall Street loves you. You’re saving so much on maintenance that your earnings skyrocket. Your stock price doubles and doubles again. By the time the bodies start piling up, as you know they will, you’ve made your fortune off the stock, and can afford the best counsel. That’s the genius of deregulation, Jack. When the bill comes, nobody pays.”