Airframe

Airframe is a novel by the American writer Michael Crichton, first published in 1996, in hardcover, by Knopf and then in 1997, as a paperback, by Ballantine Books. The plot follows Casey Singleton, a quality assurance vice president at the fictional aerospace manufacturer Norton Aircraft, as she investigates an in-flight accident aboard a Norton-manufactured airliner that leaves three passengers dead and 56 injured.

Airframe remains one of Crichton's few novels not adapted to film. Crichton stated this was due to the great expense needed to make such a film. Another consideration might be that the novel is so dense with technical references that it reads more like an accident investigation report than a suspense-filled page-turner for the general reader. Airframe is unlike many of Crichton's other works in that the story has almost no outright science fiction elements.