Chapter 1: The weather is tough in Kansas City. The whirling storm cells have Captain Pete Kaminsky of North America flight 170 worried enough to park the Boeing 737 away from the gate in an area before the taxi runway they call the hammerhead and let the cells pass. An incoming North America Airbus 320, flight 255, is on final approach captained by the airline's senior management pilot. And off to the far end of the airport is a C-5A loading a massive parcel for the Air Force.
Chapter 2: The Airbus makes an attempt at landing only to encounter a wind shear and the pilot aborts the landing. Hanging out at the outer beacon is the co-pilot's suggestion but the captain rejects it and gets clearance to make a loop around the airport for a second attempt. Flight 255 circles back around, makes the turn, but fails to make the last turn when the nose dips and is now headed directly at the 737 waiting at the hammerhead. When the landing lights of 255 show the plane bearing down fast, Captain Kaminsky powers up to move his plane out of the way. Problem is a plane doesn't accelerate like a muscle car. Flight 255 hits 170 broadside scattering debris and bodies across the waterlogged Kansas City tarmac; hundreds are dead.
Pretty hefty start, wouldn't you say?
Chapter 3 to the end of the book: Joe Wallingford is an airline accident investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, the NTSB. Investigative teams essentially wait out the next disaster. When your team is in the bullpen as the next Go Team and an accident happens, you go. Wallingford's team draws this collision and heads out immediately.
When they arrive, their first order of business is to find the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from each plane. As they pick through the pieces, the impending shitstorm becomes apparent:
1. Why didn't 255 finish the turn, then nose down, and why didn't the co-pilot intervene.
2. What was in that massive container being loaded to that C-5A that no one seems to want to acknowledge even exists much less was actually there.
3. On board 255 was a Congressman from Louisiana whose political leanings made David Duke look like Bernie Sanders. His 'people' are screaming murder and sabotage.
4. North America airline is hemorrhaging red ink and forcing pilots to scale back needed maintenance to save time, money, and maintain their flight statistics.
5. The head of the NTSB, a political hack vying for an ambassadorship and maybe a cabinet post, is making noises to Wallingford about the Airbus having technical issues and wants the investigation directed there and not at North America airline or any possible human factor error.
6. The 2nd in charge at the FAA is known to favor US-produced aircraft and is looking for any excuse to ground the French-made Airbus.
7. Then there is the matter of an unauthorized car on the tarmac that snuck in behind a crew shuttle bus. A certain Kansas Senator was meeting his chief of staff (and main squeeze) who was booked on 255. When he sees the crash, he is sure she is dead, panics, and flees the airport. Security cameras pick up the car dashing out, leading some to think the occupant had something to do with the crash.
How would you like to be the Investigator-In-Charge of this nightmare? But being an NTSB investigator is all Wallingford ever wanted to be. He loves that his job is to determine the cause and to figure out how to make sure it doesn't happen again. Blame is not in the mandate of the NTSB. The courts will determine that when the passenger's families start piling on the lawsuits.
This is a new genre for me. The airline thriller. A single incident whose aftermath spirals out of control as new evidence is found and old theories are discounted. Nance is a former fighter pilot, airline pilot, a lawyer, and airline consultant for various news outlets; the insider's knowledge lends a high degree of authenticity to the story. About half of Nance's fiction titles are airline thrillers. As odd as this might sound, the nature of the strain between business, the NTSB, FAA and the potential interference of politics really contribute to making this an edge-of-your-seat thriller.
I came across this on Net Galley. The story is set in the early 1990s when Reagan's Star Wars defense initiative was still in full swing. What I didn't notice until about two-thirds of the way into the book is that this book's original copyright date was 1992 (Nance's first novel); most of the titles I get from Net Galley are new releases. Turns out Final Approach was re-released by another publisher in late January 2016.
While some might think this has the earmarks of a made-for-TV movie, I really thought it was far better than that. We here at MRB will occasionally call a book an 'airplane' book, meaning it would be a worthy diversion for a long flight, however, I think you probably should reserve this for when you are grounded for a while. Not sure an airplane disaster book is proper reading on a long flight, but that's just me.
East Coast Don
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