The Flight of the Phoenix is a
1964 novelThe year 1964 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Jean-Paul Sartre becomes head of the Organization to Defend Iranian Political Prisoners....
by
Elleston TrevorElleston Trevor was the pseudonym, and eventually legal name, of the British novelist Trevor Dudley-Smith , who also wrote as Adam Hall, Simon Rattray, Howard North, Roger Fitzalan, Mansell Black, Trevor Burgess, Warwick Scott, Caesar Smith and Lesley Stone...
. The plot involves the crash of a transport aircraft in the middle of a
desertA desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...
and the survivors' desperate attempt to save themselves. It was the basis for the 1965 film
The Flight of the PhoenixThe Flight of the Phoenix is a 1965 American film produced and directed by Robert Aldrich and based on the 1964 novel The Flight of the Phoenix by Elleston Trevor...
and the 2004 remake entitled
Flight of the PhoenixFlight of the Phoenix is a 2004 remake of a 1965 film, both based on the 1964 novel The Flight of the Phoenix, by Elleston Trevor, about a group of people who survive a plane crash in the Gobi Desert and must build a new plane out of the old one to escape. The film stars Dennis Quaid, Tyrese...
.
Background
Elleston Trevor (born Trevor-Dudley Smith) (1920–1995) published more than 100 books during his prolific career of more than 50 years. His resume included thrillers, mysteries, plays, short stories and juvenile novels.
The Flight of the Phoenix came at the mid-point of his career and led to a bidding war over its film rights.
Plot summary
Pilot Frank Towns and navigator Lew Moran are ferrying a mixed bag of passengers out of the Jebel oil town of the Libyan desert, among them oil workers, a couple of
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
soldiers, and a German who was visiting his brother. An unexpected sandstorm forces the aircraft down, damaging the plane, killing two of the men, and severely injuring the German. In the book, the action takes place in the
LibyaLibya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
n part of the
SaharaThe Sahara is the world's second largest desert, after Antarctica. At over , it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as Europe or the United States. The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean...
.
The survivors wait for rescue but begin to worry, as the storm has blown them far off course, away from where searchers would look for them. After several days, Captain Harris marches toward a distant oasis together with another passenger. His aide Sergeant Watson feigns a sprained ankle and does not join Harris. A third man follows after them. Days later, Harris barely manages to return to the crash site. The others are lost.
As the water begins to run out Stringer, a precise, arrogant English aeronautical engineer, proposes a radical solution. He claims they can rebuild a new aircraft from the wreckage of the old twin-boom aircraft, using the undamaged boom and adding skids to take off. They set to work.
At one point they spot a party of
nomadNomadic people , commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but...
ic tribesmen. Captain Harris decides to ask them for help, but Sergeant Watson refuses to accompany him. Instead another survivor, a Texan named Loomis, goes with him. The next day, Towns finds their looted bodies, throats cut, and the nomads gone.
Later, Towns finds out that Stringer's job is designing
model aircraftModel aircraft are flying or non-flying models of existing or imaginary aircraft using a variety of materials including plastic, diecast metal, polystyrene, balsa wood, foam and fibreglass...
, not real, full-scale ones. Afraid of the effect on morale, he and Moran keep their discovery secret, though they now believe Stringer's plan is doomed. However, they turn out to be wrong. The aircraft is reborn, like the mythical
PhoenixThe phoenix or phenix is a mythical sacred firebird that can be found in the mythologies of the Arabian, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, Indian and Phoenicians....
. It flies the passengers, strapped to the outside of the fuselage, to an
oasisIn geography, an oasis or cienega is an isolated area of vegetation in a desert, typically surrounding a spring or similar water source...
and civilization.
Film adaptations
The book was the basis of a well-received 1965 film starring
James StewartJames Maitland Stewart was an American film and stage actor, known for his distinctive voice and his everyman persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition and receiving one Lifetime...
,
Richard AttenboroughRichard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough , CBE is a British actor, director, producer and entrepreneur. As director and producer he won two Academy Awards for the 1982 film Gandhi...
, and
Hardy KrugerHardy Krüger is a German actor. He is thought of as one of the greatest German actors of the 1960s. He was born in Wedding, Berlin, German Reich...
. The 2004 remake featuring
Dennis QuaidDennis William Quaid is an American actor known for his comedic and dramatic roles. First gaining widespread attention in the 1980s, his career rebounded in the 1990s after he overcame an addiction to drugs and an eating disorder...
was less successful.