Chapter One


Come Fly with Me

new york awoke that thursday morning in january to a storybook scene— Manhattan in a snowstorm; the flakes whipping almost sideways through the skyscraper canyons and a bright coat of white blotting out all of mankind's gray. Storybook, that is, if you were hunkered down and had no intention of flying.

Arctic air had also brought in the winter's coldest day, with early- morning temperatures in the low teens and single-digit wind chills. Ice formed around the edges of the Hudson and floes halted ferry traffic in the northern suburbs upstream.

Along the Avenue of the Americas, Tripp Harris bent into the wind as he bucked his way to get his morning coffee at Starbucks. The one- block walk seemed like a mile. A technological adviser to banks, he had flown up the night before from Charlotte, North Carolina—"Wall Street South," as his hometown, a burgeoning banking center, had become known. For the past four months, the banking calamity had helped keep US Airways, which had a financial calamity of its own, flying almost at full capacity on its premier north-south runs.

Harris, one of the modern "road warriors" who racked up miles with back-to-back business flights, had scheduled a single morning meeting at Citibank. He would make the turnaround in twenty-four hours, less if he was lucky. Knowing the kind of mess the snow would make of LaGuardia, New York's ancient but conveniently located airport, Harris had booked the five o'clock on US Air. With a little luck and the hole card of his frequent-flier status, he'd push for an earlier one—Flight 1549, a two-hour, home-for-dinner flight to Douglas International.

Not far away, a few bloc...