An excellent pilot does not necessarily a good husband make. Don Webber prepares to pilot his Boeing 747-200 from San Francisco to JFK Airport in New York. Once he arrives in New York, he has plans-in-place for an overnight rendezvous' with his most recent conquest, a Pan Am Flight Attendant. In his exuberance to get to New York, he commits the unthinkable for an airline Captain - he allows his judgment about flight safety to become compromised and eventually, seriously impaired. While Captain Webber dreams about his erotic evening in New York, a delusional passenger boards his flight. The hijacker is terrified by his own plan to travel to a very different destination: Havana, Cuba. Throughout the duration of the flight, the cabin and cockpit crew are beset and eventually overcome by this lone hijacker. Though unsophisticated and unprepared, the hijacker ultimately commandeers control of the aircraft. Essentially, he puts the passengers and crew in the same horrendous circumstance. All are bound together in an aluminum tube hurled through the atmosphere at 600 miles an hour to an unclear and risk-filled destination. Only the Captain can ultimately regain command and control of the situation before the 747 exhausts its fuel supply.
About the Author: For more than 25 years, C J Stott was a pilot with Trans World Airlines in Los Angeles and New York. He flew over 15,000 hours in Boeing 727, 707, 747 and Lockheed L-1011 aircraft to Europe, Africa, Asia and South America as First and Second Officer. During that same time, he also served on the Board of Directors with the Airline Pilots Association (ALPA) for over 20 years where he represented the needs of 4,500 TWA pilots and others who were represented by ALPA. After a medical retirement from TWA, he enrolled at Pepperdine University School of Law in Los Angeles. Shortly after graduation from Pepperdine, he was recruited by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service where he served as a sworn Commissioner (federal mediator) in Los Angeles and Washington, DC. He provided labor/management mediation services to a wide range of national clients including major hotels in Los Angeles, Kaiser Permanente, Los Angeles Dodgers, Coca Cola, Disneyland Resorts, Staples Center, Southwest Airlines, Toyota Motor Sales and the Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles Fire Department. In 2000, he was invited to return to Pepperdine University School of Law as an adjunct professor and an assistant director at the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution. Though now retired, he continues to consult with international investment banking firms regarding labor management issues in airlines, transportation, health care and the entertainment industry. He also consults directly with labor/management clients on negotiation coaching strategies and conflict management system design. He is a docent at the Harold E LeMay Family Collection, where he provides tours to the largest privately held collection of classic automobiles in the country. He has had an abiding interest in classic airplanes and automobiles and visits car shows and concours events. He also has been a collector of classic cars for many years. Recently, he was honored to have been accepted by the Museum of Flight in Seattle, where he provides commentary and background information on Air Force One (Boeing 707-137), British Airways Concorde and other aircraft in the Museum of Flight collection. For many years, he has written articles and background pieces for automobile magazines, car clubs and aviation interest publications. Though he has had a terrific series of varied and exciting professional careers; his first and continuing love is aviation and airlines. He and his wife live near Seattle, Washington.