Airframe
by Michael Crichton
★ Top 10 book of 1996 · #10 on Best Books of 1996
Casey Singleton, a quality assurance vice president at aerospace maker Norton Aircraft, digs into what went wrong on one of the company's airliners. An in-flight accident left three passengers dead and 56 hurt, and she must find the cause.
Best for: Readers who like a corporate investigation built around an aviation disaster
Airframe is #10 on BookWard's Best Books of 1996, out of 38 1996 books that cleared our data bar.
What Airframe is about
When TransPacific Flight 545 suffers severe pitch oscillations over the Pacific, three passengers die and 56 are hurt. The plane is a Norton N-22 widebody, and Norton Aircraft has just one week to explain what went wrong before a major sale to China collapses. Casey Singleton, the company's vice president of quality assurance, is put on the review team and handed the job of finding the truth.
Nobody around her wants the same answer. A television producer is pursuing a story about the plane's flaws, the factory union is concerned the China sale will offset the wing to China and threaten jobs, and an arrogant Norton employee assigned to assist her becomes the subject of her suspicion. Crichton works through how a company weighs pressure against safety, how the news can bend a story, and how hard it is to separate what happened from what people believe happened. The tone is brisk and technical, with enough detail to feel like real investigative work.
Airframe on the Best Books of 1996
Airframe came out in 1996. Of the 38 books first published in 1996 that met BookWard's data bar, it ranks #10 on our Best Books of 1996 list.
Why it made the list: 520 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 3.7 out of 5 (85 ratings); 27 are reading it right now. The list ranks each year’s books on how many readers have picked them up, how highly readers rate them, and how many are reading them right now.
Nearby on the 1996 list
- Angela's Ashes Frank McCourt, #8
- Desperation Stephen King, #9
- Into the Wild Jon Krakauer, #11
- 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself Steve Chandler, #12
See all Best Books of 1996 Best books by year
More years: Best Books of 1995 Best Books of 1997.
The numbers behind it
- Readers: 363 want to read it, 27 are reading it now and 130 have read it, according to Open Library.
- Ratings: 3.7 out of 5 from 85 Open Library ratings.
| Signal | This book (0 to 100) | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Reach | 84 | 55% |
| Reader love | 11 | 25% |
| Being read right now | 87 | 20% |
Questions about Airframe
When was Airframe published?
Airframe by Michael Crichton was first published in 1996.
Was Airframe one of the best books of 1996?
Airframe is #10 on BookWard's Best Books of 1996, out of 38 1996 books that cleared our data bar. 520 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 3.7 out of 5 (85 ratings); 27 are reading it right now.
Why is Airframe on the Best Books of 1996 list?
520 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 3.7 out of 5 (85 ratings); 27 are reading it right now.
More of the best books of 1996
- A Game of Thrones George R. R. Martin, #1
- The Green Mile Stephen King, #2
- Forbidden Knowledge Roger Shattuck, #3
- Push Sapphire, #4
- Fight Club Chuck Palahniuk, #5
- Neverwhere Neil Gaiman, #6
See the full Best Books of 1996, the Top 100, or new books on Rising.
How we know
This page uses public data: Open Library reader counts and ratings, and Wikipedia page views for recent years. The description is paraphrased from real source text. Rankings reflect reading interest, not quality or sales, and can be affected by data gaps. Lists update monthly.
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