Airframe (12 page)

On the systems monitor in the training console, the slats warning flashed, first amber, then white. Casey looked at the adjacent video screen and saw the pilot leaning forward. He had noticed the warning in the cockpit.

"Now," Felix said. "Once again we see the aircraft nose-up, but this time Mr. Ingram must control it himself ... So he brings the stick back ... very slightly, very delicately ... Good... and now he is stable."

He turned to Casey. "You see?" He shrugged. "It is very puzzling. Whatever happened to that Transpacific flight, it cannot be the slats. And not thrusters either. In either case, the autopilot will compensate and maintain control. I tell you, Casey, what happened to that aircraft is a mystery."

Back in the sunlight, Felix walked over to his Jeep, with a surfboard on top. "I have a new Henley board," he said. "Like to see it?"

"Felix," she said. "Marder is starting to scream."

"So? Let him. He enjoys it."

"What do you think happened to 545?"

"Well. Let us be frank. Flight characteristics of an N-22 are such that if slats deploy at cruise speed, and the captain goes out of the autopilot the aircraft is rather sensitive. You remember, 64

Casey. You did the study on it, three years ago. Right after we made the final fix on the slats."

"That's right" she said, thinking back. "We put together a special team to review flight stability issues on the N-22. But we concluded there wasn't a control-sensitivity problem, Felix."

"And you were correct" Felix said. "There is no problem. All modern aircraft maintain flight stability with computers. A jet fighter cannot be flown at all without computers. Fighters are inherently unstable. Commercial transports are less sensitive, but even so, computers shift fuel, adjust attitude, adjust CG, adjust thrust on the engines. Moment to moment the computers continuously make small changes, to stabilize the aircraft."

"Yes," Casey said, "but the planes can be flown out of autopilot as well."

"Absolutely," Felix said. "And we train our captains to do that. Because the aircraft is sensitive, when the nose goes up, the captain must very gently bring it back again. If he corrects too strongly, the plane noses over. In that case he must pull up, but again, very gently, or he is likely to overcorrect, so the plane would climb sharply then nose down once more. And this is precisely the pattern that occurred on the Transpacific flight."

"You're saying it was pilot error."

"Ordinarily I would think so, except the pilot was John Chang."

"He's a good pilot?'

"No," Felix said. "John Chang is a superb pilot. I see a lot of pilots here, and some are truly gifted. It's more than quick reflexes and knowledge and experience. It's more than skill. It's a kind of instinct. John Chang is one of the five or six best captains I have ever trained on this aircraft, Casey. So whatever happened to Flight 545, it cannot be pilot error. Not with John Chang in the chair. I am sorry, but in this case, it has to be a problem with the aircraft, Casey. It has to be that aircraft."

TO HANGAR 5

9:15A.M.

As they walked back across the vast parking lot, Casey was lost in thought.

"So," Richman said, after a while. "Where are we?"

"Nowhere."

No matter how she put the evidence together, that was the conclusion she came to. They had nothing solid so far. The pilot had said it was turbulence, but it wasn't turbulence. A passenger gave a story consistent with slats deployment, but slats deployment couldn't explain the terrible damage to the passengers. The stewardess said the captain fought the autopilot, which Trung said only an incompetent captain would do. Felix said the captain was superb.

Nowhere.

They were nowhere.

Beside her, Richman trudged along, not saying anything. He had been quiet all morning. It 65

was as if the puzzle of Flight 545, so intriguing to him yesterday, had now proven too complex.

But Casey was not discouraged. She had come to this point many times before. It was no surprise the early evidence appeared to conflict. Because aircraft accidents were rarely caused by a single event or error. The IR teams expected to find event cascades: one thing leading to another, and then another. In the end, the final story would be complex: a system failed; a pilot responded; the aircraft reacted unexpectedly, and the plane got in trouble.

Always a cascade.

A long chain of small errors and minor mishaps.

She heard the whine of a jet. Looking up, she saw a Norton widebody silhouetted against the sun. As it passed over her, she saw the yellow Transpacific insignia on the tail. It was the ferry flight from LAX. The big jet landed gently, puffed smoke at the wheels, and headed toward Maintenance Hangar 5.

Her beeper went off. She unclipped it from her belt.

••• N-22 ROTR BURST MIAMI TV NOW BTOYA

"Oh hell," she said. "Let's find a TV." "Why? What's the matter?" Richman said. "We have trouble."

BLDG 64/IRT

9:20 A.M.

'This was the scene just moments ago at Miami International Airport when a Sunstar Airlines jet burst into flames, after its left starboard engine exploded without warning, showering the crowded runway with a hail of deadly shrapnel."

"Aw, blow me!" Kenny Burne shouted. A half-dozen engineers were crowded around the TV

set, blocking Casey's view as she came into the room.

"Miraculously, none of the two hundred and seventy passengers on board were injured. The N-22 Norton widebody was revving for takeoff when passengers noticed clouds of black smoke coming from the engine. Seconds later, the plane was rocked by an explosion as the left starboard engine literally blew to pieces, and was quickly engulfed in flames."

The screen didn't show that, it just showed an N-22 aircraft, seen from a distance, with dense black smoke gushing from beneath the wing.

"Left starboard engine," Burne snarled. "As opposed to the right starboard engine, you silly twit?"

The TV now showed close-ups of passengers milling around the terminal. There were quick cuts. A young boy of seven or eight said, "All the people got excited, because of the smoke."

Then they cut to a teenage girl who shook her head, tossing her hair over her shoulder, and 66

said, "It was rully, rully scary. I just saw the smoke and, like, I was rully scared." The interviewer said, "What were your thoughts when you heard the explosion?" "I was rully scared,"

the girl said. "Did you think it was a bomb?" she was asked. "Absolutely," she said. "A terrorist bomb."

Kenny Burne spun on his heel, throwing his hands in the air. "Do you believe this shit? They're asking kids what they thought. This is the news. 'What did you think?' 'Golly, I swallowed my popsicle.'" He snorted. "Airplanes that kill— and the travelers who love them!"

On the screen, the TV program now showed an elderly woman who said, "Yes, I thought I was going to die. Of course, you have to think that." Then a middle-aged man: "My wife and I prayed. Our whole family knelt down on the runway and thanked the Lord." "Were you frightened?" the interviewer asked. "We thought we were going to die," the man said. "The cabin was filled with smoke—it's a miracle we escaped with our lives."

Bume was yelling again: "You asshole! In a car you would have died. In a nightclub you would have died. But not in a Norton widebody! We designed it so you'd escape with your miserable fucking life!"

"Calm down," Casey said. "I want to hear this." She was listening intently, waiting to see how far they'd take the story.

A strikingly beautiful Hispanic woman in a beige Armani suit stood facing the camera, holding up a microphone: "While passengers now appear to be recovering from their ordeal, their fate was far from certain earlier this afternoon, when a Norton widebody blew up on the runway, orange flames shooting high into the sky ..."

The TV again showed the earlier telephoto shot of the plane on the runway, with smoke billowing from under the wing. It looked about as dangerous as a doused campfire.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute!" Kenny said. "A Norton widebody exploded? A Sunstar piece-of-shit engine exploded." He pointed to the screen image. "That's a goddamn rotor burst, and the blade fragments broke through the cowling which is just what I told them would happenl"

Casey said, "You told them?"

"Hell yes," Kenny said. "I know all about this. Sunstar bought six engines from AeroCivicas last year. I was the Norton consultant on the deal. I borescoped the engines and found a shitload of damage—blade notch breakouts and vane cracks. So I told Sunstar to reject them."

Kenny was waving his hands. "But why pass up a bargain?" he said. "Sunstar rebuilt them instead. During teardown, we found a lot of corrosion, so the paper on the overseas overhauls was probably faked. I told them again: Junk 'em. But Sunstar put them on the planes. So now the rotor blows—big fucking surprise— and the fragments cut into the wing, so that nonflammable hydraulic fluid is smoking. It ain't on fire because the fluid won't burn. And it's our fault?'

He spun, pointing back to the screen.

67

"... seriously frightening all two hundred and seventy passengers on board. Fortunately, there were no injuries ..."

"That's right," Burne said. "No penetration of the fuse, lady. No injury to anybody. The wing absorbed it—our wing!"

"... and we are waiting to speak to officials from the airline about this frightening tragedy. More later. Back to you, Ed."

The camera cut back to the newsroom, where a sleek anchorman said, "Thank you, Alicia, for that up-to-the-minute report on the shocking explosion at Miami Airport. We'll have more details as they emerge. Now back to our regularly scheduled program."

Casey sighed, relieved.

"I can't believe this horseshitl" Kenny Burne shouted. He turned and stomped out of the room, banging the door behind him.

"What's his problem?" Richman said.

"For once, I'd say he's justified," Casey said. "The fact is, if there's an engine problem, it's not Norton's fault."

"What do you mean? He said he was the consultant—"

"Look," Casey said. "You have to understand: We build airframes. We don't build engines and we don't repair them. We have nothing to do with engines."

"Nothing? I hardly think—"

"Our engines are supplied by other companies—GE, Pratt and Whitney, Rolls-Royce. But reporters never understand that distinction."

Richman looked skeptical. "It seems like a fine point..."

"It's nothing of the sort. If your electricity goes out, do you call the gas company? If your tires blow, do you blame the car maker?"

"Of course not," Richman said, "but it's still your airplane—engines and all."

"No, it's not," Casey said. "We build the plane, and then install the brand of engine the customer selects. Just the way you can put any one of several brands of tires on your car. But if Michelin makes a batch of bad tires, and they blow out, that's not Ford's fault. If you let your tires go bald and get in an accident, that's not Ford's fault And it's exactly the same with us."

Richman was still looking unconvinced.

"All we can do," Casey said, "is certify that our planes fly safely with the engines we install. But we can't force carriers to maintain those engines properly over the life of the aircraft. That's not our job—and understanding that is fundamental to knowing what actually occurred. The fact is, the reporter got the story backward."

"Backward? Why?'

"That aircraft had a rotor burst" Casey said. "Fan blades broke off the rotor disk and the cowling around the engine didn't contain the fragments. The engine blew because it wasn't 68

correctly maintained. It should never have happened. But our wing absorbed the flying fragments, protecting passengers in the cabin. So the real meaning of this event is that Norton aircraft are so well built that they protected two hundred and seventy passengers from a bad engine. We're actually heroes—but Norton stock will fall tomorrow. And some of the public may be afraid to fly on a Norton aircraft. Is that an appropriate response to what actually happened?

No. But it's an appropriate response to what's being reported. That's frustrating for people here."

"Well," Richman said, "at least they didn't mention Trans-Pacific."

Casey nodded. That had been her first concern, the reason she had rushed across the parking lot to the TV set. She wanted to know if the news reports would link the Miami rotor burst to the TPA in-flight incident the day before. That hadn't happened—at least not yet. But sooner or later, it would.

"We'll start getting calls now," she said. "The cat is out of the bag."

HANGAR 5

9:40 A.M.

There were a dozen security guards standing outside Hangar 5, where the Transpacific jet was being inspected. But this was standard procedure whenever a RAMS team from Recovery and Maintenance Services entered the plant. RAMS teams circled the globe, troubleshooting stranded aircraft; they were FAA-licensed to repair them in the field. But since members were chosen for expertise rather than seniority, they were non-union; and there was often friction when they came into the factory.

Within the hangar, the Transpacific widebody stood in the glare of halogen lights, nearly hidden behind a gridwork of roll-up scaffolding. Technicians swarmed over every part of the plane. Casey saw Kenny Burne working the engines, cursing his powerplant crew. They had deployed the two thrust reverser sleeves that flared out from the nacelle, and were doing fluorescent and conductivity tests on the curved metal cowls.