Flight 342

by Ken Morselander

Todd Benton faces his greatest challenge as an NTSB investigator when he probes the mysterious crash of AirStar Airlines Flt. 342. On final approach, in perfect weather, the Tritan T-5000 aircraft plunged nose first to the ground. With no evidence of structural, power or other flight system problems, the preliminary cause points to pilot error…or worse A finding of pilot error suits John Lawton, Jr., vice-president of Tritan Aviation, just fine. Tritan Aviation is one of three companies bidding on an eight-billion-dollar defense contract. John desperately needs that contract to keep the company solvent and retire his massive gambling debts. Pilot error suits the media and politicians as well. “Can’t have airplanes just falling out of the sky.” Todd knows this speculation cannot be true. The captain of Flt. 342, Todd’s friend of 20 years and his daughter’s godfather, has a perfect flight record. Captain Bruce Gooding would never intentionally harm himself or anyone else. Adam Cates also knows the preliminary findings are bogus. He knows because he was the architect of the disaster. Now he’s going to have to do it again…

Genres: Aviation

367 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 28, 2019

Reviews

[Adele Suddes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn’t put this book down and found myself turning the pages at a maniac rate, right up to the heart pumping end. I love great mysteries and would put this novel on par with authors like Harlan Coben, Robert Crais, John Grisham, and Nelson DeMille, to name a few. His characters are real, his dialogue witty and credible, and the story fast moving, unpredictable and utterly compelling. I will eagerly await his next book.

[Russ · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a decent read, but suffered from two main problems - no real "mystery" to the crash and it badly needed an proofreader.

I did overall enjoy it, but like I said, there was no real mystery. It's a story of an aviation accident and the NTSB investigating it - but the reader already knows exactly what caused the accident, because we are told it in the first chapter. The rest of the book is the investigators trying to figure out what we already know.

There were some subplots that didn't really make any difference to the plot or outcome, and a lot of characters! Some of these were important early on but then disappeared, never to return, and new characters that were introduced right near the end of the book.

The author obviously did a lot of research into aircraft, air traffic control, and accident investigation, as most of those aspects were decently accurate. That was much appreciated, as that is my background.

But now for the proofreading - there were a LOT of very basic errors. I have not read any other books by this author, but I hope that he hired a proofreader for the others. Virtually every page (as far as you can tell on a Kindle) had some kind of grammar error - basic word choice like their/they're/there, other homonym choices (like council vs counsel), excess apostrophe's (like that one) for simply plural words, misplaced quotation marks, sentence fragments where it was clearly not intended for style, periods in the middle of sentences instead of commas, commas where they didn't belong - all the basic stuff that any halfway competent proofreader would catch.

But overall a decent, entertaining read, and I will check out what other books the author has written.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty good "thriller" if you're interested in the investigation of airline disasters. Standard thriller format, short chapters focusing on multiple characters. Easily identified villain. Some grammer errors that a good editor would have fixed, an odd switch from third person narrative to first person and back again. This novel could have been at least 25 percent shorter with a good editor as well. All that said, I did enjoy it.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly recommend this great story. The reader can identify with all the characters. We can feel their emotions. It makes for a very enjoyable read. Great plotting too. Unexpected twists and turns. Real fast we get to know all the characters and they become our friends - or not. Great read. Again, highly recommended.

[Lualice · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a compelling story

The story is basically solid with a good plot. However unfortunately the resolution of the issue was obvious from the start. This wouldn’t have dropped my interest if the enhancement of the process had been more intriguing. Reading to the end was easily done but I read only in hourly sessions Book easy to put down and did not call to me to read on.

[Ruth Carnovale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay but needs an editor

This book had a great story and kept me reading to the end, but I was distracted by all of the grammatical errors. Also, a few times the author mixed up the names of his characters. Nothing a good editor couldn’t fix.

[Ronald F. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read

Flight 342 was an excellent book. I thoroughly enjoyed the investigative process of the NTAB and the the cast of characters. It was an interesting and enjoyable book,

[D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good novel

A well written novel with interesting characters and plot. Highly recommend for those readers interested in aviation and crash investigation.