Summary

The first sentence of Chapter 30, “Prepare the Cabin,” reveals the identities of the flight crew: Captain Frank Atkinson, Co-Pilot Marion Ewing, and flight attendant Bobbie Atkinson. Officer Chaffin enters next, upset that, at 63 years old, he was not given a choice about whether to fly or not. The passengers take their seats. Bobbie is nervous because she has read recent news.

In Chapter 31, “Perhaps Synchronicity,” the author explains that in the three months prior to the January 28 flight, two Douglas Aircraft Company planes had crashed and every single Douglas DC-6 plane had been recalled. The narrator mentions that just two weeks before the crash, Bobbie had told friends that, “‘If something were to ever happen to Frankie, I’d wanna be with him” (143). At 4:22 a.m., Frankie receives news that neither of the flight attendants are able to make that day’s flight...