The largest corporations in the world were experiencing an eleven-year economic high at the beginning of March 2020, when the Dow Jones was just shy of 30,000. Millions of people would be out of work by the end of the month, well-known companies would be pleading for bailouts, and numerous small businesses would be in dire straits. Business leaders were scrambling in the dark, tossing out long-term strategy, and making snap decisions that, they believed, could just save them. Sleek consulting teams and country club connections were suddenly of little value. Award-winning business journalist Liz Hoffman demonstrates in Crash Landing how the epidemic ignited the economy, but if you look closely, the tinder was already present. Based on astonishing access inside some of the world's biggest and most iconic companies, this is a gripping account of the most remarkable period in modern economic history, revealing how they battled against an economic catastrophe for which there was no playbook: among them, AirBnB's Brian Chesky, blindsided by a virus in the middle of a high-stakes effort to go public; American Airlines's Doug Parker, shuttling between K Street and the White House, determined to secure a multi-billion-dollar bailout; and Ford's Jim Hackett, as his assembly lines went from churning out cars to ventilators. Crash Landing reveals the fear, grit, and gambles of the pandemic economy, while probing its implications for the future of work, corporate leadership, and capitalism itself, asking: Will this remarkable time give rise to newfound resilience, or become just another costly mistake to be forgotten?