Airframe (novel)

Airframe is a novel by the American writer

An unrelated N-22 engine failure, and the release of passenger camera footage from Flight 545, draws heavy media attention. Jennifer Malone, a TV news producer, is interested in reporting on the N-22's flaws and pursues the story; Marder asks Casey to conduct an interview. Later, Casey realizes the accident aircraft was equipped with a quick access recorder (QAR); the team did not know the plane was equipped with one because QARs are optional. Casey locates the QAR and pieces together the events that caused the accident. First, a counterfeit part caused a sensor in the plane's wing to malfunction, which produced an error message in the cockpit. This error message could be cleared by deploying and retracting the plane's slats. Although deploying the slats would change the shape of the wing, the autopilot could adjust without incident. However, the captain's son, who was not certified to fly the N-22, was at the controls at the time of the accident; he manually overcorrected, overriding the autopilot and sending the plane into a series of oscillations.

Casey realizes she cannot publicize this information. Publicly pinning the blame on a TransPacific employee would sour relations with the airline, ruining future sales just as surely as any N-22 safety issues would. During her interview, she also discovers Richman has set her up to fail as part of a larger

Casey thwarts the plan by allowing Malone onto a test flight for the N-22 from the accident, where it is shown a slat deployment alone would not cause the accident. Once Malone is shown the evidence, she cannot air her segment as planned without opening herself up to a defamation lawsuit. She is also unable to report the true story, since her boss thinks it is not exciting enough to hold people's attention. With the N-22's reputation cleared, the China deal proceeds. Afterwards, Edgarton promotes Casey to head the company's Media Relations Division. Richman is arrested in Singapore for narcotics possession, while Marder leaves the company, supposedly on good terms.

• Casey Singleton – The protagonist and a vice-president; Serves as a Quality Assurance representative on the company's Incident Review Team (IRT).
• John Marder – Chief Operating Officer at the Norton Plant in Burbank, California; Also oversaw the production project for the N-22 widebody that was involved in the incident.
• Jennifer Malone – Producer for Newsline that investigates the incident in order to create a televised segment against the N-22.

• Doug Doherty – An engineer who is the structure and mechanical expert on the IRT.
• Nguyen Van Trung – Avionics expert on the Incident Review Team, overseeing the operation of the autopilot.
• Ken Burne – Power plant expert on the IRT.
• Ron Smith – Electrical expert on the IRT.
• Mike Lee – Carrier representative for TransPacific Airlines to Norton Aircraft.
• Barbara Ross – IRT secretary
• Norma – Casey Singleton's secretary who has been with the company for many years and knows its history.
• Bob Richman – Casey Singleton's recently appointed assistant; a relative in the Norton family tree working his way through the corporate divisions.
• Harold Edgarton – President of Norton Aircraft.
• Ted Rawley – A test pilot for Norton Aircraft who has an occasional romantic relationship with Singleton.
• Dick Shenk – Segment organizer for the fictional TV program Newsline, based in New York City.
• Marty Reardon – "On-talent" interviewer for Newsline
• Frederick Barker – A former FAA employee and severe critic of the N-22 aircraft.

Another central theme, which compounds the issue mentioned above, is investigative journalism, and the consequences when sensational media agencies distort the truth to produce a better-selling story. The TV journalism subplot was singled out for praise in some reviews; Entertainment Weekly lauded it as "brutal and fresh and very funny" satire.^[1] The San Francisco Chronicle calls his portrayal of TV journalists believable, noting that Crichton "doesn't mind making enemies."^[2]

Airframe also continues the theme of human failure in human-machine interaction that is present across Crichton's other works. Despite malfunctions due to improper maintenance, the plane itself was functional; the incident was a result of human error by an insufficiently trained pilot.

In Airframe, as in most of his novels, Crichton uses the

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Crichton said that he drew upon the National Transportation Safety Board's aircraft accident report archives during his writing process, calling them "an unbelievable trove."^[3] As a result, the N-22 accident described in the novel resembles two real-life cases:

• The violent oscillations, the issue with the flap/slat handle becoming dislodged, and the importance of pilot training in order to respond properly to the characteristics of a specific aircraft type are closely modeled on the 1993 accident aboard China Eastern Airlines Flight 583.^[4]
• A pilot allowing his son to sit at the controls was also the cause of the 1994 Aeroflot Flight 593 crash.^[5] As in the novel, the son inadvertently disabled their aircraft's autopilot, and the accident could have been averted by re-engaging it. However, while the son in Airframe is a pilot, the 15 years old son on Flight 593 was not. Also unlike the novel, the Aeroflot crew did not manage to recover from their overcorrection and crashed, killing all 75 passengers and crew.

Airframe received generally positive reviews. In her San Francisco Chronicle review, Patricia Holt called it "classic Crichton," adding that readers will be "surprised, satisfied and even a bit better informed at the end."^[2] The New York Times' Christopher Lehmann-Haupt said of the novel, "By playing hide and seek with his plot, Mr. Crichton writes as if he were an engineer and his readers were all outsiders. Yet at the same time, he has taken on a complex subject in Airframe and made its subtleties dramatically vivid."^[6] Tom De Haven of Entertainment Weekly praised Crichton's research, saying, "I bet Michael Crichton was a kid who did his homework every night — and not only did it, but triple-checked it, made sure there were no smudges on the paper, then presented it to the teacher between card-stock covers secured with shiny brass fasteners."^[1] The Boston Globe's Nancy Harris commended Crichton on his ability to simplify the technical intricacies of aviation, calling Airframe a "very readable book."^[7]

Reviews tempered their praise with criticism of Crichton's writing style. De Haven took issue with the novel's use of genre clichés and "the clunkiest of plot gimmicks."^[1] Holt called it "formulaic but hard to put down" and described its characters as "cardboard."^[2] Lehmann-Haupt went even further, saying, "When you finish the novel and ask yourself why you end up feeling both entertained and frustrated, you are forced to reflect that a writer clever enough to bring such material to life ought to have been able to tell his story without playing manipulative games with the reader."^[6]

Though the central accident in Airframe primarily resembles China Eastern Airlines Flight 583 and Aeroflot Flight 593, Mark Lawson of The Guardian accused Crichton and his publishers of trying to capitalize on a different airplane disaster. Lawson notes that the novel was "loaded into airport bookstores shortly after the TWA 800 flight went down in the Atlantic," adding, "Crichton's profile as a writer depends on ... extreme topicality."^[8]

An adaptation of Airframe, alongside an adaptation of Eaters of the Dead, was in development in the 1990s with Crichton and John McTiernan producing both,^[9] and writer William Wisher Jr. penning the screenplay adaptation.^[10]

• Accident analysis
• List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft
• Flight test
• Failure analysis
• Air route authority between the United States and China
• Product liability

• Airframe webpage Archived 2015-06-17 at the Wayback Machine