John Nance takes air rage to new heights in “Turbulence.”

The latest aviation thriller from the pilot and safety analyst offers a post-Sept. 11 scenario of something else that could go wrong at 30,000 feet.

Have you ever seen a workplace where the employees hate their jobs, despise the boss, distrust their co-workers and disrespect the customers? Have you ever been a customer of such a business?

Imagine it’s Meridian Airlines. Welcome aboard Flight 6. Next stop: crisis city.

The crew is so incompetent, the service so appalling on a flight from Chicago to London to Cape Town that the passengers mutiny. It’s justifiable air rage, but in these times, when security officials hear that passengers are revolting, their reaction is more severe than the old quip, “They certainly are.”

For a while in this fast-moving book, there seems to be a race between plot lines: Will Flight 6 self-destruct or will it be mistaken for a suicide hijacking and be destroyed?

When Nance, an aviation analyst from Washington state, appears on television after an air tragedy, he is the voice of rationality. He’ll say what might have gone wrong, but he cautions against jumping to conclusions and soberly puts accidents in the context of overall industry safety.

In “Turbulence,” he lets his other side loose. He indulges in wild speculation and scenarios so unlikely they verge on the comical. One involves the co-pilot who becomes a casualty of a rebel war in Nigeria.