55 pages • 1 hour read
Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421
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Chapters 1-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
The novel opens as Will Kent and his 11-year-old daughter, Shannon, are flying from Hawaii to San Francisco and witness the plane’s engine explode as it flies over the ocean. In the cockpit are Captain Miller and First Officer Kit Callahan; the latter reports to the air traffic controllers that the plane’s engines and hydraulic lines have died. All systems in the aircraft have essentially failed, so the pilots can’t control the plane or turn back toward land. Will puts a life vest on Shannon and tries to comfort her as the passengers realize that the plane is going to crash. Molly Hernandez, a nearby flight attendant, tries to remain calm. Back in the cockpit, the control panel is completely lit up. The Full Authority Digital Engine Control, a computer that allows pilots to communicate with the engine—has failed.
Kaholo Kapule, another flight attendant, holds the interphone to his ear as the other flight attendants are doing—they are trained to wait until the pilots call so as not to interrupt or distract them. Finally, Kit asks if any of them can see the engine. Kaholo looks and sees that what is left of the engine is on fire. The captain gives the order to “[p]repare to ditch” (8)—make an emergency landing in the water.
Chapter 2 Summary
Colleen Bennett, the lead flight attendant, makes the evacuation announcement to the rest of the cabin, instructing the passengers to put on their life vests. An unaccompanied minor, eight-year-old Maia Taylor, is being monitored by a guardian, Ed Vernon.
Captain Miller, who is piloting the plane, carefully uses the manual trim wheel to adjust the plane’s altitude and pitch. The plane has only been in the air for four minutes, and with no hydraulic power, they cannot turn back to Honolulu or make it to Maui or the Big Island. Air traffic control reports that the runways at Honolulu airport are clear for Flight 1421 to return, but Kit says that they have no other option but to land in the water and tells them to get a rescue team ready. He hits the “ditching” button, which makes the aircraft watertight. Kit has never tested these emergency procedures outside of training simulations, as landings like these are incredibly rare.
Meanwhile, Will and Shannon go over the emergency landing position. Kit wonders what the passengers are doing in what might be their final moments. All air traffic has stopped, and all attention is on Flight 1421. The Coast Guard is standing by, and the flight attendants start preparing everyone for impact, giving commands to stay down.
Everyone braces as the plane slams into the ocean; the impact damages the frame, snapping the right wing, but the plane stays mostly intact.
Chapter 3 Summary
Will is unconscious after the impact, and Shannon tries to wake him. The plane has come to a rest, but the engine is still running and on fire. Molly recites the safety and evacuation procedures but realizes that only two of the plane’s eight exits are unblocked. Colleen opens the emergency exit and deploys the slide raft, and the crowd of evacuating passengers advances toward the exit, frantically shoving out the door. They drag Colleen out of the plane with them. Will wakes up, and he and Shannon start heading toward the exit. Molly directs passengers but stops to help a woman trapped under a row of collapsed seats. Bernadette Kowalski, a nurse, stops to help.
Other passengers prepare to evacuate: Jasmine Harris struggles while trying to put on multiple life vests; Andy Matthews scrambles over seat backs to push his way to the front; Ruth and Ira Belkin, an elderly couple, sit and wait until the rush of people passes; and Ryan Wang is frozen in shock because his bride died on impact. Will and Shannon are at the back of the line to exit, and the line is unmoving. Shannon notices Maia Taylor alone, and Will tells her to come with them.
There is a loud mechanical noise, and the plane starts to vibrate. Kaholo reports that the engine is still on, shaking violently, and he can see jet fuel spilling into the sea. Just then, the remaining engine blows, shooting shrapnel everywhere and spreading jet fuel and fumes. The jet fuel ignites, causing a massive explosion and fire.
Chapter 4 Summary
The fire spreads; some passengers who managed to evacuate swim away, but several are caught in the blaze and die. The slide raft is nearly deflated, and many people are injured. Will surveys the situation and implores the flight attendants to shut the exits, saying that they will all die if they evacuate the plane; the fire and jet fuel, combined with the high winds, will cause people outside to either burn to death or suffocate in the smoke. Will is certain that the plane will float and implores Kit to listen to him. Ed, Maia’s guardian, argues against this, but Kit demands that they comply. Ed evacuates the plane and gets onto the raft, leaving Maia behind.
Molly releases the slide raft, and the evacuated passengers drift away. She shuts the door and surveys the damage. Kaholo releases the other slide raft, and Andy, who initially left the plane, is pulled on board before the remaining door is shut. Left on board are Will and Shannon, Kit, Ruth and Ira, Bernadette, Jasmine, Andy, Maia, Kaholo, and Molly. Will explains that sealing the plane was the best option, as the conditions outside are more dangerous than inside. Ryan appears, silent and in shock, looking toward the front of the plane.
Chapter 5 Summary
The cockpit windshield bursts, and water rushes in. Kaholo and Kit race to shut the cockpit door; Kaholo’s hand is caught in it, and several of his fingertips are severed. The door keeps out much of the water but is not fully watertight. The plane dips forward into the sea and starts to sink, and the water rushes to the front of the plane while the passengers hurry to the back. Molly finds a device—a water-activated emergency locator transmitter—that can allow the rescue team to find them.
The passengers realize that they are sinking to the bottom of the ocean and will likely die. Will tries to remain calm and notes how subdued Shannon is—like her mother, Chris. He reflects that the last time he saw Shannon cry was when he told her that he and Chris were separating.
Kit notices that the water has stopped rising. It is quiet as the plane sinks until it slams into something.
Chapters 1-5 Analysis
T. J. Newman opens the novel in medias res—in the middle of the action, without setup or background before the main conflict begins—and immediately establishes the novel’s suspenseful tone. Her writing adopts the fast-paced style typical of a thriller, creating urgency by using short, choppy sentences and simple, straightforward language. Thrusting the audience into the middle of the central conflict—the plane’s engine failure—has a disorienting effect and conveys the suddenness of the malfunction, in addition to setting the high stakes.
The story unfolds in third person with a rapidly and abruptly shifting point of view; the perspective transitions from Will’s to Kit’s within the first page, and the first chapter goes on to introduce Molly’s and Kaholo’s points of view. By preventing the reader from acclimating to a single point of view, Newman adds to the disorientation and conveys the chaos of the initial explosion and the resulting crash. This opening section also takes place entirely inside the plane and over the span of a few minutes; by including multiple points of view, Newman drags out the moments before, during, and immediately after the crash and shows all sides of the event.
The first part of Drowning also introduces several of the novel’s central characters—the passengers who will be trapped on board Flight 1421 together for the remainder of the story. Newman establishes the first part of the novel’s cast quickly by giving each character distinct features or a defining characteristic: Ira and Ruth are “the old couple,” Andy is the “blue polo asshole,” Jasmine is the “life vest woman,” etc. (41-42). Most notable among these characters is Will Kent, who is the novel’s primary protagonist. In a novel with a large cast of characters, Newman sets Will apart and establishes him as an important character by introducing him first and spending the most time within his point of view. He also sets the remainder of the story in motion by demanding that the passengers seal themselves inside the plane for their own safety, setting the stage for the intense fight for survival that is to come. Will’s fatherly instinct to ensure his daughter’s safety at all costs characterizes him and provides the impetus for all of his actions going forward.
This section of the novel also introduces the central theme of Human Resilience and Survival Against the Odds. The term for an aircraft making an emergency landing on water is “ditching,” which, as the brief introduction before Chapter 1 highlights, calls to mind the idea of a “last-ditch” effort or an attempt made after repeated failures that is not expected to succeed. Newman calls attention to this to make it clear that the odds of survival in a rare situation like this are slim; Kit and the flight attendants must essentially improvise, leaning on protocols they have never used outside of training simulators. Even when the chances of survival seem bleak, the crew does everything in their power to minimize casualties; Captain Miller’s effort to “fly the plane as far into the crash as possible” is one such example (15), and the position of the plane’s landing indeed spares many lives, even as it takes his.
Building on this theme, Newman uses multiple points of view to examine the different ways people react in the face of mortality and danger. Will’s immediate instinct is to protect his daughter, and Kit and the rest of the flight crew are calm and level-headed as they are trained, but many of the passengers give in to their panic and add further chaos to an already tense situation. Still, many others step in to help where needed to ensure others’ survival, intersecting with a second theme: Everyday People in the Role of Heroes. In the wake of Captain Miller’s death, Kit steps up to take responsibility for the aircraft and the people on board, the flight attendants put aside their fear to follow protocol and guide the passengers, people like Bernadette step forward to help where they can, Will uses his engineering expertise to save the passengers from a worse fate on the water, and all the remaining adults on Flight 1421 take responsibility for Maia as an unaccompanied minor. These two themes will continue to intersect over the course of the novel, as the passengers’ survival depends on their cooperation and collaboration.
At the end of this section, when Will and the other passengers are certain that the plane will sink, killing them all, Newman touches on The Complexities of Familial Relationships; Will reflects on parenthood as being about “lasts,” as if there is a sense of grief and loss in watching one’s child grow up. This desire to cling to the past is central to Will’s character and will be explored more deeply in later chapters.
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