Mayday

In the style of a John J Nance novel, Nelson DeMille and Thomas Block joined forces to write Mayday. Originally published in 1979, an updated version was released in 1998.

Trans-United flight 52 from San Fransisco to Tokyo is in a Concorde-like plane, a Straton 979. Capable of flying at 930 miles per hour, or Mach 1.8, the supersonic jet flies higher in the sky than the average passenger plane. In fact, other than the space shuttle, the only other planes that fly at 62,000 feet are military jets and spy planes.

Today flight 52 left the gate 30 minutes late due to a maintenance issue.

At the same time, aboard the USS Nimitz, the Navy is conducting a secret test of a new missile. The missile will be shot at a drone to test its ability to find a target 500 miles away. This test will be done high in the atmosphere where few other things can fly.

When the missile hits flight 52, the jet loses cabin pressure. Anything not tied down is pulled out the hole in the fuselage by the pressure differential. Oxygen masks drop from the ceiling but are useless because they require pressure to work.

After a highly intense few pages, only a few people on flight 52 are conscious. None of them are part of the team that was flying the plane. But one man is a weekend pilot - of planes that could practically fit into the Straton 979's cargo area.

Do not read this book right before you fly! DeMille and Block packed more adrenaline into this book than some readers can handle. But adventure readers will be sucked into this book like a flying projectile.

DeMille, Nelson and Thomas Block. (1998). Mayday. New York: Warner Brothers.