Probable Cause

Coastal Airlines flight 193 has crashed on takeoff, killing 47 passengers in a fiery holocaust. Horribly mutilated but alive, the pilot, Captain Anne Ryan, has been blamed for the disaster. But Anne Ryan's troubles have only just begun. National Transportation Safety Board investigator Mitchell Hardison's probe of the tragedy discloses that in addition to pilot error she had drugs in her bloodstream. Indicted by a federal grand jury for felony manslaughter, she must prove her innocence of all charges or face prison for 20 years.

But Captain Anne Ryan believes she's been set up, that someone had caused her to unknowingly take illegal drugs, and that flight 193 had been tampered with in a manner that leaves no trace. Someone wanted her murdered. But who? Why? What about a similar crash of only a month ago involving another Coastal airliner? Was there a suspicious pattern?

Are the crashes somehow linked to the president of a competing airline that had long sought to bring the financially ailing Coastal Airlines to its knees so that he could gain control of its routes and equipment?