Lost in Shangri-La previously unpublished information. The airplane started from Hollandia in Netherlands New Guinea (at the time part of Netherlands Indies, nowadays Indonesia) as a pleasure flight over a remote valley in New Guinea with 24 passengers, but only three people survived the crash: WAC corporal Margaret Hastings, sergeant Kenneth Decker and lieutenant John McCollom. They were later rescued by paratroopers who carried them out in gliders. The name "Shangri-La" was given by the press, lifted from the 1933 novel "Lost Horizon". The "Gremlin" in the plane's name was borrowed from the myth of Gremlins, which are often associated to mishaps and
What Was Lost Was Lost" was the winner in the first novel category of the Costa Book Awards. O'Flynn received a £5,000 prize. It was short-listed for the overall Costa Book of the Year Award. The Costa Book Awards' judging panel, chaired by Joanna Trollope, praised the novel for "blending humour and pathos in a cleverly constructed and absorbing mystery." They described the novel as inventive, compelling, and poignant. "What Was Lost" was long-listed for the 2007 Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction. It was short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award. It won the Jelf Group First Novel Award