One of the interesting parts of writing a book is all the research to try to be as realistic and true as possible. One of the major areas of research included finding the most realistic plane to use. I looked at carriers that fly from Germany to Prague, what types of planes they fly, how many seats they have and what is the design of the plane. I knew I wanted a turboprop. I found several candidate planes and then started to look at the ATR-42. The ATR has a high wing design so it might be credible to have a crash landing and not involve the wings and fuel. The next bit of research included looking at dozens of plane crash photos. This might seem morbid, but I wanted to see how people could survive a crash in a turboprop ATR-42. Here is one of the photos that shows how the rear section of an ATR can survive, while the forward section is wiped out.
Reading news reports of ATR crashes, I found many that only had a few casualties. I knew I had the right plane.
Once I had the plane that I wanted, I reviewed the types of snacks that are served, the seat layout, the fuel tank locations, and anything else that would be important.
The next step was to look at flight routes. I even tried to find an actual flight that leaves between 7-8 am, but figured that was getting too specific. Reviewing satellite photos of the route between Germany and Prague, I found lakes and countryside that would similar to the scene that would be in the book. The real crazy part of this story came when I thought about the name of the town that I wanted them to find. I entered “sanctuary” in a Czech translator and it gave me the word, “Útočiště.” I entered this word in Google Maps and the amazing thing was there was already a town with that name and it was near the Germany/Czech border.