The story of this book takes place at a fictious airport in Chicago – Lincoln International Airport, during a huge blizzard which makes problems in landing and taking off of the planes and mainly in flight control. All people are working overtime, only because of the safety of all passengers and planes flying around the airport and waiting for their landing.
The sky is overcrowded with miscellaneous planes, the reason is that all airports nearby are already closed and only Lincoln International is still in service.
There are a few characters. The main character is the General Manger Mel Bakersfeld, who must handle all the problems at the airport and his own problems with his wife(they want to get divorced). The situation is getting worse minute by minute. The airport is not able to take in equally quickly such a number of planes. The cause is on the airfield, runway 3-0. It is blocked by a plane of Aéreo-Mexican, whose wheels got stuck in deep mud. Their two-hour effort had no effect, they decided to call in the TWA. The TWA director agreed. He called his best troubleshooter and airport maintance chief Joe Patroni. Unfortunatelly he was stuck in a traffic jam, caused by snow and a car crash. And that was a serious problem, because he was the only one who could move the plane away. This runway was so important, because it was the main and longest runway. All jets were now flying over the city district Meadowood and landing on runway 2-5. Due to these overflights, Meadowood citizens had formed a protest group and had come to the airport. Mel Bakersfeld had to solve also this problem.
Other problems were on the board of Boeing 707 flying to Rome. The captain Vernon Demerest received an urgent message. The message contained a warning of a possibility that one of the male passengers has a bomb. This passenger was D.O. Guerro, he concluded a lifeinsurance on 300000 USD. All his life he had been trying to earn some money, but he had always failed. So he decided to commit suicide and hereby earn some dollars for his wife Inez. But he was not sucessfull again. The captain and the crew managed to get the bomb, but D.O. did not give up and succeeded in setting off the bomb. After the explosion the plane was still able to fly but only for a few minutes. The only way to land alive was the runway 3-0 at the Lincoln International. There was also a possibillity to land at 2-5 but with many dead passengers. The situation became very serious.
Joe Patroni was already on the airfield and he tried to move the jet away from this runway. He knew that the clocks were ticking and the countdown running. He ordered to dig deep ditches under the wheels and unload all unnecessary things and fuel from the jet. He knew that he has only half an hour or perhaps less.
Mel Bakersfeld prepared a plan B. That means, when Joe Patroni does not succeed, the snow plows will move the stuck plane out of the runway at all costs, also at the cost that the plane would be wrecked. The flight control cleaned the flightroute for the damaged jet too. All emergency teams had code 1. It means highest priority landing with a damaged plane and with injured passengers.
At the end Joe Patroni succeed in the last minute of the countdown and all passengers of the flight to Rome were rescued. It stopped snowing and the sun began to shine.
Main characters:
Mel Bakersfeld – He is the main character of this novel. As the general manager of the airport, he has full responsibility for the lives of the passengers and stuff. He did well all the critical night, and he manages to solve all problems, during the 12 hours. Although his personal life is ruined because, he and his wife are no longer in love.
Joe Patroni – The headchief of maintance and the best troublemaker. Actually he has saved the lives of the passengers, when he moved the stuck plane away. Always strict and hardworking, there are no exceptions for him.
Vernon Demerest – A pilot, Mels brother in law and a playboy. A stewardess is his lovey, and they have a child together.
D.O. Guerro – A flopper, who is not able to find a real job for a longer period. All his bussiness is bankrupted, so he decided to commit suicide. He is actually not a bad boy, but after he got fired, he became mad, and decided to do the horrible thing.
I would recommend this book to readers who are interested in facts and real life situations. I have to say, that I have read many books from Hailey, and all of them were exciting and easy to read. There are no filosofic reflections or hidden thoughts, it is just pure reality of the common life.
