Airframe is a novel by the American writer Michael Crichton, his eleventh under his own name and twenty-first overall, first published in 1996, in hardcover, by Knopf, just months after the crash of Tarom Flight 371.

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.

Casey Singleton, a vice president in quality assurance at Norton, is assigned by COO John Marder to join the company's Incident Review Team (IRT) to investigate.

Jennifer Malone, a TV news producer, is interested in reporting on the N-22's flaws and pursues the story; Marder asks Casey to conduct an interview.

However, the captain's son, who was not certified to fly the N-22, was at the controls at the time of the accident; he manually overcorrected, overriding the autopilot and sending the plane into a series of oscillations.

Another central theme, which compounds the issue mentioned above, is investigative journalism, and the consequences when sensational media agencies distort the truth to produce a better-selling story.

[3] When the characters discuss how unfavorable media coverage can be the undoing of a perfectly good aircraft, his account of the American Airlines Flight 191 crash and its causes are consistent with the known facts at the time the novel was written.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Crichton said that he drew upon the National Transportation Safety Board's aircraft accident report archives during his writing process, calling them "an unbelievable trove.

In her San Francisco Chronicle review, Patricia Holt called it "classic Crichton," adding that readers will be "surprised, satisfied and even a bit better informed at the end.

"[1] The Boston Globe's Nancy Harris commended Crichton on his ability to simplify the technical intricacies of aviation, calling Airframe a "very readable book.

"[2] Lehmann-Haupt went even further, saying, "When you finish the novel and ask yourself why you end up feeling both entertained and frustrated, you are forced to reflect that a writer clever enough to bring such material to life ought to have been able to tell his story without playing manipulative games with the reader.

Lawson notes that the novel was "loaded into airport bookstores shortly after the TWA 800 flight went down in the Atlantic," adding, "Crichton's profile as a writer depends on ... extreme topicality.