Roman Melnyk, a construction worker, is allowed to leave work early to prepare for the arrival of his wife Olena and pregnant daughter Nadiya from New York City, aboard flight AX 112. At the airport to welcome his family, Roman receives the news that AX 112, with his wife and daughter on board, had been in an accident. From this point on, Roman is devastated and blames the air traffic controller for the deaths of his family.Aftermath 2021.
Meanwhile, in another angle of the story, Jacob “Jake” Bonanos, an air traffic controller, is happily married to a woman named Christina with whom he has a young son named Samuel. Jake is on duty the night of the crash, which occurs when his colleague is on coffee break, forcing Jake to do both their jobs, and the telephone lines (needed to communicate with other airports) are briefly non-working while under maintenance. He is devastated, after seeing AX 112 and the other flight, DH 616, disappear from the radar, showing that the two planes collided and were destroyed. Although the investigators cannot hold Jake responsible for the crash and the passengers’ deaths, he blames himself; as time passes, he slowly unravels, straining the relationship with his family, and is unwilling to talk about what happened.
It is reported that all 271 passengers and crew were killed in the mid-air collision. Roman goes to the crash site and, posing as a volunteer with no relationship with the victims, recovers his daughter’s necklace and the bodies of his wife and daughter. At his home, Roman stays hidden inside, when Tessa Gorbett, a journalist, approaches, expressing interest in writing a book on the incident. She ends up leaving behind some prior articles of plane disasters she had written about (to show her fidelity to accuracy and objectivity, as a serious journalist) through the mail slot of the door.