Falling by TJ Newman

 Bill is a long-time airline pilot based in LA. He has a lovely wife, Carrie, a son and a baby daughter. His boss asks him to take a flight to NY on the day his son's Little League team is supposed to play. Since he can't see how he can say no to his boss, he says yes, leaving his wife and son kind of ticked at him. He tries to contact her from the airport to smooth things over but can't reach her--little does he know that his family has been taken hostage. When he gets on his plane, he finds that out--and discovers that that's not the worst news. The hostage-taker is working with an anonymous someone on the plane and Bill's choice is to either save his family or save all the passengers on the plane. So he has to figure out a way to save everyone. It's quite the page-turner. And I stayed up way too late last night to see how it ended.

The author was a flight attendant so you get a good sense of how things work behind the scenes on a long distance flight. And of course, one of the main characters is a feisty flight attendant named Jo, who is certain that Bill will find a way to save the day.