Newcastle, Wash. (April 2001):

“The air traffic control world is off-limits to most of you and, consequently, often misunderstood. This book accomplishes what many media accounts, newspaper articles, magazine treatments, and movies have tried and failed to do: get into the minds of the men and women who are responsible for more lives in an hour than most surgeons are in a lifetime. TRACON is a fictionalized account so accurate and chilling in its realism that it strikes people in the aviation business as a narrative summary of actual events.”

— John S. Carr, president of
the National Air Traffic Controllers Association

“Gripping. A must read for anyone who flies.”

— Clive Cussler

     Thousands of lives hover in the skies above Chicago. An average day in the TRACON for air traffic controller Ryan Kelly. Cool and confident, he juggles airliners like a casino dealer shuffles cards from the dark vantage of the radar room at O'Hare Airport.

     There’s just one problem. A billion-dollar one. Kelly fears the airlines’ coveted collision avoidance system will cause the very midair it’s supposed to prevent. When peculiar readouts flash across his scope, two jets tangle over Lake Michigan and several hundred people die, propelling Kelly into the political and public crosshairs. Evidence vanishes. Hidden forces sabotage his reputation. His tightly coiled world spins out of control. There's only one way to clear his name and expose the renegade computer ... but at great peril to the one he loves.

TRACON RELEASE

In TRACON (pronounced tray-kon, an acronym for Terminal Radar Approach Control), novelist Paul McElroy paints a chillingly authentic portrait of an airline disaster waiting to happen. This fictitious yet plausible tragedy is the worst nightmare of protagonist Ryan Kelly — and real-life air traffic controllers. After the midair, Kelly grapples with personal grief over his involvement in the deaths of crew and passengers while fighting FAA management and a powerful U.S. senator to clear his name and zero in on the systemic issues that caused the disaster.

Against this backdrop, TRACON highlights genuine ATC issues, including understaffing, outdated equipment and poor FAA management that were at the core of the Aug. 3, 1981, strike by the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization. The debacle that occurred after the strike stripped controllers of their influence, diminished their credibility, and stifled public discussion of the concerns voiced from radar rooms and control towers. August 2001 marks the 20th anniversary of this turbulent event in aviation history. Yet, many of these stormy issues still exist two decades after President Reagan fired 11,560 controllers for refusing to return to work. Today, our nation’s aging air traffic control system is at the limit of its capacity to handle burgeoning air travel.

ABOUT THE COMMEMORATIVE EDITION

Coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the air traffic controllers’ strike, the commemorative hardcover edition of TRACON contains nonfiction content about aviation's unsung heroes, their past struggles and emerging concerns. In the foreword, John S. Carr, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association — the successor to PATCO — discusses the aftereffects of the strike, paints a colorful description of the personality profiles of controllers, and outlines pitfalls and suggested solutions to gridlock in the skies. The afterword, comprised of a compendium of essays, begins with Paul McElroy’s discussion of current and emerging problems facing our nation's air traffic control system and a candid look at solutions. Rebecca Pels Lust, a labor management scholar, offers a critical assessment of the causes behind the PATCO strike.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paul McElroy is a former award-winning journalist whose beat as a reporter included aviation. In 1979, he covered the crash of American Airlines flight 191 outside Chicago and conducted a heart-rending interview with the co-pilot’s wife. His debut novel, TRACON, so authentically portrays the profession of air traffic control that the National Air Traffic Controllers Association has commissioned him to write a nonfiction book about the union’s history.

McElroy’s 21-year career in journalism included positions at the Chicago Sun-Times, suburban Chicago Daily Herald, Woodstock (Ill.) Daily Sentinel and a weekly newspaper. He wrote TRACON while working full-time as an editor at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. McElroy is now a full-time author and teaching associate at the University of Washington School of Communications.


Japphire is planning a series of special events around the anniversary of the PATCO strike August 3rd, including print and broadcast promotion. Paul McElroy will also appear at AirVenture, the world’s largest recreational air show in Oshkosh, Wis., July 24 - 30, at Bumbershoot in Seattle over Labor Day weekend, and at Northwest Bookfest in Seattle on Oct. 20 - 21.

For title information, click here.

For details on scheduled author events, click here. We have created a Web page link where you may download photos of the book and author in JPEG format. To request printed photos, review copies of TRACON, schedule an author interview, or for additional information, please e-mail Amy Falen or call 425-430-0007.

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