An up and coming female NTSB prosecutor must confront her old lover, an airline CEO, as she struggles to reconcile her personal feelings with her professional duty when a devastating air crash implicates the man she is investigating.

SYNOPSIS:

In 1987 the FAA installed a new air traffic control system. The airspace is still recovering from the 11,000 air traffic controllers who were fired by President Reagan six years earlier.

Maryann Safe, the ambitious and newly appointed Chair of the NTSB, is trying to make a name for herself when a passenger plane crashes on landing at the busy San Diego airport. We are introduced to several key characters, Fraser Killingham, a cocky Jack Nicholson type playboy head of the airline, Maryann’s husband Orville Safe, the chief pilot, Finicky and several other investigators.

Maryann and Fraser are immediately on site with police, media, and airport fire crews. They move through the hellish scene on a dark rainy night and then over the course of the next few days begin to reassemble the crash puzzle in a nearby hanger.

It turns out that Maryann and Fraser were once lovers years ago but had drifted apart. And their relationship was charged, interrupted yet Fraser is trying to re-kindle that flame. But Maryann's husband Orville was on the crash flight and she conducts a desperate search to locate him.

All the while she has to rebut Fraser’s innuendo and aggressive overtures toward her in order to maintain professional separation and assist in conducting the investigation between the FAA and the NTSB.

As the facts start to present themselves, it looks more and more like Fraser is interfering with the investigation and compromised the safety of the aircraft. This is a stunning revelation to everyone concerned. Maryann knows she can’t be torn by her personal feelings or past relationship with Fraser and in the end must exact a costly price from the airline and its CEO.

The investigating committee ultimately recommends criminal charges against the airline principals, outraging Fraser who sees this as a complete and personal betrayal. His charm this time did not win out.