About The Books: In The Still Of The Night

A spectacular eruption of an Alaskan volcano just as the aircraft shifted its polar route to follow the Kenai Peninsula gave the passengers an extraordinary incendiary show. Then, moments later, severe buffeting of the aircraft brought the entire crew to their feet, checking on the passengers and their seat belts. Just as my protagonist approached the First Class section, there was a sudden, loud bump, followed by a violent shuddering of the giant 747, driving him to his knees in the aisle. An instant later, a thunderous explosion jarred the aircraft sideways, and a gaping hole on the right side appeared where moments before there had been four rows of seats. Five people disappeared. In their place was a howling, frigid wind, flapping parts of the sidewall and ceiling luggage racks, and the screaming of two hundred terrorized passengers and crew.

What had begun as commonplace transformed into hysterical panic as the ever-reliable Boeing 747 jumbo jet experienced a massive explosion and complete depressurization at 37,000 feet. A warning light told the flight crew that the forward cargo door was open. The pilot and co-pilot battled valiantly for the lives of everyone onboard as they struggled to maintain control of the behemoth that suddenly was not flightworthy. Not since the Boeing-built B-17s of World War II had an aircraft been as structurally damaged and survived.

Would InterContinental #499 be the first?

Just when things seemed to be under control, the remaining two engines shut down as the aircraft flew through the dust cloud of the vaporized volcano. The crew was forced to make a dead-stick landing at Elmendorf Air Force Base outside Anchorage. 747s make poor gliders. The crew handled the emergency and made a successful controlled crash. But there was even more tragedy to come. As panicked evacuation took place, an elderly, demented man lit a cigarette before exiting the aircraft. An inferno erupted, consuming everything and everybody in its path.