Airframe (41 page)

Airborne.

*  *  *

Click
. “Oh-kay, ladies, we are going to proceed to flight level three seven zero, that’s thirty-seven thousand feet, and we are going to circle there between Yuma station and Carstairs, Nevada, for the duration of this excursion. Everybody comfy? If you look to your left, you will see our chase plane coming alongside.”

Jennifer looked out and saw a silver jet fighter, glinting in the morning light. It was very close to their aircraft, close enough to see the pilot wave. Then suddenly it slid backward.

Click
. “Uh, you probably won’t see much more of him, he’ll be staying high and behind us, out of our wake, the safest place to be. Right now we are coming up on twelve thousand feet, you may want to swallow, Ms. Malone, we’re not creeping up like the airlines.”

Jennifer swallowed, heard her ears pop loudly. She said, “Why are we going up so fast?”

“He wants to get to altitude quickly, to cold soak the plane.”

“Cold soak?”

“At thirty-seven thousand feet, the air temperature is minus fifty degrees. The airplane is warmer than that right now, and different parts will cool off at different rates, but eventually on a long flight—such as a long Pacific crossing—all the parts of the plane will reach that temperature. One of the questions for the IRT is whether the cable rigging behaves differently at cold temperature. Cold soaking means putting the plane up at altitude long enough to cool it down. Then we begin the test.”

“How long are we talking?” Jennifer said.

“Standard cold soak is two hours.”

“We have to sit here for two hours?”

Singleton looked at her. “You wanted to come.”

“You mean we spend two hours doing nothing?”

Click
. “Oh, we’ll try to amuse you, Ms. Malone,” the pilot said. “We’re now at twenty-two thousand feet and climbing. It’ll be another few minutes to cruise altitude. We are at two eighty-seven KIAS and we will stabilize at three forty KIAS which is point eight Mach, eighty percent of the speed of
sound. That’s the usual cruise speed for commercial aircraft. Everybody comfy?”

Jennifer said, “Can you hear us?”

“I can hear you and see you. And if you look to your right, you can see me.”

A monitor in the cabin in front of them came on. Jennifer saw the pilot’s shoulder, his head, the controls arrayed in front of him. Bright light out the window.

Now they were high enough that full sunlight streamed in through the windows. But the interior of the plane was still cold. Because she was sitting in the center of the cabin, Jennifer could not see the ground out the windows.

She looked at Singleton.

Singleton smiled.

Click
. “Ah, okay, we are now at flight level three seven zero, Doppler clear, no turbulence, a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Would you ladies please unbuckle your harnesses, and come to the cockpit.”

What? Jennifer thought. But Singleton was already taking hers off, standing up in the cabin.

“I thought we couldn’t walk around.”

“It’s okay right now,” Singleton said.

Jennifer climbed out of her harness, and walked with Singleton up through first class, to the cockpit. She felt the faint vibration of the airplane beneath her feet. But it was quite stable. The door to the cockpit was open. She saw Rawley in there, with a second man he didn’t introduce, and a third who was working with some instrumentation. Jennifer stood with Singleton just outside the cockpit, looking in.

“Now Ms. Malone,” Rawley said. “You interviewed Mr. Barker, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say was the cause of the accident?”

“He said the slats deployed.”

“Uh-huh. Okay, please watch carefully. This is the flaps/
slats handle here. We are at cruise speed, cruise altitude. I am now going to deploy the slats.” He reached his hand forward to the thing between the seats.

“Wait a minute! Let me get strapped in!”

“You’re perfectly safe, Ms. Malone.”

“I want to sit down, at least.”

“Then sit down.”

Jennifer started back, then realized that Singleton was remaining standing by the cockpit door. Staring at her. Feeling foolish, Jennifer went back and stood by Singleton.

“Deploying slats now.”

Rawley pushed the lever down. She heard a faint rumble that lasted a few seconds. Nothing else. The nose tilted, steadied.

“Slats are extended.” Rawley pointed to the instrument panel. “You see the speed? You see the altitude? And you see that indicator that says SLATS? We have just duplicated the exact conditions that Mr. Barker insists caused the death of three people, on this very same aircraft. And as you see, nothing happened. The attitude is rock solid. Want to try again?”

“Yes,” she said. She didn’t know what else to say.

“Okay. Slats retracting. This time, maybe you’d like to do it yourself, Ms. Malone. Or maybe you’d like to walk over and look at the wings, see what actually happens when the slats extend. It’s kind of neat.”

Rawley pressed a button. “Ah, Norton station, this is zero one, can I have a monitor check?” He listened a moment. “Okay, fine. Ms. Malone, move a little forward, so your friends can see you on that camera up there.” He pointed up to the ceiling of the cockpit. “Give ’em a wave.”

Jennifer waved, feeling foolish.

“Ms. Malone, how many more times would you like us to extend and retract the slats to satisfy your cameras?”

“Well, I don’t know …” She was feeling more foolish by the minute. The flight test was starting to seem like a trap. The
footage would make Barker look like a fool. It would make the whole segment look ridiculous. It would make—

“We can do this all day, if you like,” Rawley was saying. “That’s the point. No problem deploying the slats at cruise speed on the N-22. Plane can handle it fine.”

“Try it once more,” she said, tightly.

“That’s the handle there. Just flip that little metal cover up, and pull it down about an inch.”

She knew what he was doing. Putting her in the shot.

“I think you’d better do it.”

“Yes, ma’am. Whatever you say.”

Rawley pulled the lever down. The rumbling occurred again. The nose went up slightly. Exactly as before.

“Now,” Rawley said, “we’ve got the chase plane getting views for you showing the slats extending, so you’ll have exterior angles showing all the action. Okay? Slats retracting.”

She watched impatiently. “Well,” she said. “If the slats didn’t cause this accident, what did?”

Singleton spoke for the first time. “How long has it been now, Teddy?”

“We’ve been up twenty-three minutes.”

“Is that long enough?”

“Maybe. Could happen any minute now.”

“What could happen?” Jennifer said.

“The first part of the sequence,” Singleton said, “that caused the accident.”

“The first part of the sequence?”

“Yes,” Singleton said. “Nearly all aircraft accidents are the result of a sequence of events. We call it a cascade. It’s never one thing. There’s a chain of events, one after another. On this aircraft, we believe the initiating event was an erroneous fault reading, caused by a bad part.”

With a sense of dread, Jennifer said, “A
bad part
?”

She was immediately recutting the tape in her mind. Getting around this awkward point. Singleton had said it was the initiating
event. That didn’t have to be emphasized, especially if it was just a link in the chain of events. The next link in the chain was equally important—probably more important. After all, what had happened on 545 was terrifying and spectacular, it involved the whole airplane, and it was surely unreasonable to blame it on a
bad part
.

“You said there was a chain of events …”

“That’s right,” Singleton said. “Several events in a sequence that we believe led to the final outcome.”

Jennifer felt her shoulders drop.

They waited.

Nothing happened.

Five minutes went by. Jennifer was cold. She kept glancing at her watch. “What exactly are we waiting for?”

“Patience,” Singleton said.

Then there was an electronic ping, and she saw amber words flash on the instrument panel. It said
SLATS DISAGREE
.

“There it is,” Rawley said.

“There
what
is?”

“An indication that the FDAU believes the slats are not where they’re supposed to be. As you see, the slats lever is up, so the slats should be stowed. And we know they are. But the airplane is picking up a reading that they are not stowed. In this case, we know the warning is coming from a bad proximity sensor in the right wing. The proximity sensor should read the presence of the retracted slat. But this sensor’s been damaged. And when the sensor gets cold, it behaves erratically. Tells the pilot the slats are extended, when they’re not.”

Jennifer was shaking her head. “Proximity sensor … I’m not following you. What does this have to do with Flight 545?”

Singleton said, “The cockpit on 545 got a warning that something was wrong with the slats. Warnings like that happen fairly frequently. The pilot doesn’t know whether something is really wrong, or whether the sensor is just acting
up. So the pilot tries to clear the warning; he runs out the slats and retracts them.”

“So the pilot on 545 deployed the slats, to clear the warning?”

“Yes.”

“But deploying the slats didn’t cause the accident …”

“No. We’ve just demonstrated that.”

“What did?”

Rawley said, “Ladies, if you will please take your seats, we will now attempt to reproduce the event.”

In the center passenger cabin, Casey pulled the harness straps over her shoulders and cinched them tight. She looked over at Malone, who was sweating, her face pale.

“Tighter,” Casey said.

“I already did—”

Casey reached over, grabbed her waist strap, and pulled as hard as she could.

Malone grunted. “Hey, for Christ’s—”

“I don’t much like you,” Casey said, “but I don’t want your little ass getting hurt on my watch.”

Malone wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. Although the cabin was cold, sweat was running down her face.

Casey took out a white paper bag, and shoved it under Malone’s thigh. “And I don’t want you throwing up on me,” she said.

“Do you think we’ll need that?”

“I guarantee it,” Casey said.

Malone’s eyes were flicking back and forth. “Listen,” she said, “maybe we should call this off.”

“Change the channel?”

“Listen,” Malone said, “maybe I was wrong.”

“About what?”

“We shouldn’t have come on the plane. We should have just watched.”

“Too late now,” Casey said.

She knew she was being tough with Malone because she was frightened herself. She didn’t think Teddy was right about the airframe cracking; she didn’t think he was foolish enough to go up in a plane that hadn’t been thoroughly checked. He had hung around every minute of the tests, during the structural work, the CET, because he knew in a few days he was going to have to fly it. Teddy wasn’t stupid.

But he was a test pilot, she thought.

And all test pilots were crazy.

Click
. “All right, ladies, we are initiating the sequence. Everybody strapped in tight?”

“Yes,” Casey said.

Malone said nothing. Her mouth was moving, but she wasn’t saying anything.

Click
. “Ah, chase alpha, this is zero one, initiating pitch oscillations now.”

Click
. “Roger zero one. We have you. Initiate on your mark.”

Click
. “Norton ground, this is zero one. Monitor check.”

Click
. “Check confirm. One to thirty.”

Click
. “Here we go, fellas. Mark.”

Casey watched on the side monitor, which showed Teddy in the cockpit. His movements were calm, assured. His voice relaxed.

Click
. “Ladies, I have received my slats disagree warning, and I am now extending the slats to clear the warning. Slats are now extended. I am out of the autopilot now. Nose is up, speed decreases … and I now have a stall …”

Casey heard the harsh electronic alarm, sounding again and again. Then the audio warning, the recorded voice flat and insistent: “Stall … Stall … Stall …”

Click
. “I am bringing the nose down to avoid the stall condition …”

The plane nosed over, and began to dive.

*  *  *

It was as if they were going straight down.

Outside the scream of the engines became a shriek. Casey’s body was pressing hard against the harness straps. Sitting beside her, Jennifer Malone began to scream, her mouth open, a single unvarying scream that merged with the scream of the engines.

Casey felt dizzy. She tried to count how long it was lasting. Five … six … seven … eight seconds … How long had the initial descent been?

Bit by bit, the plane began to level, to come out of the dive. The scream of the engines faded, changed to a lower register. Casey felt her body grow heavy, then heavier still, then amazingly heavy, her cheeks sagging, her arms pressed down to the armrests. The G-forces. They were at more than two Gs. Casey now weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. She sank lower in the seat, pressed down by a giant hand.

Beside her, Jennifer had stopped screaming, and now was making a continuous low groan.

The sensation of weight decreased as the plane started to climb again. At first the climb was reasonable, then uncomfortable—then it seemed to be straight up. The engines were screaming. Jennifer was screaming. Casey tried to count the seconds but couldn’t. She didn’t have the energy to focus.

And suddenly she felt the pit of her stomach begin to rise, followed by nausea, and she saw the monitor lift off the floor for a moment, held in place by the straps. They were weightless at the peak of the climb. Jennifer threw her hand over her mouth. Then the plane was going over … and down again.

Click
. “Second pitch oscillation …”

Another steep dive.

Jennifer took her hand away from her mouth and screamed, much louder than before. Casey tried to hold on to the armrests, tried to occupy her mind. She had forgotten to count, she had forgotten to—