Final Approach

by John J. Nance

  “Sir, I know that.” He had been in touch with his command structure, MAC’s 22nd Air Force command post at Travis Air Force Base in California, all night. Wasn’t the man aware of that?

  “Major, of course I don’t want you to endanger your airplane, but we have to get that load out of there in the next few hours.”

  “Sir, I’ll coordinate with my leaders again at Travis, and they can talk to headquarters at Scott, but—”

  “Major, we’re the DOD customer, and the customer is telling you to get your ass in gear and find a way out of there. There are reasons for forcing this issue that I simply cannot go into over a nonsecure line. Do it safely, but do it. Is that clear?”

  “Would the Colonel please tell me how?”

  “Dammit, you’re in command there. Use your head, use creativity, diplomacy, affrontery; beg, demand, or cajole, whatever it takes. Just get airborne.” The colonel chuckled sarcastically. “Hell, throw your weight around. You’ve got 750,000 pounds of it.”

  “Yes sir, Colonel, sir. And how high would you like me to jump?” The reply was a bone-weary attempt at sarcasm in answer to the colonel’s weak attempt at humor.

  “All the way to Kwajalein.”

  The colonel ended the call, and Major Archer stood there shaking his head in disbelief. How the hell was one lowly Air Force pilot going to force the NTSB and the manager of a major commercial airport to do his bidding? And why the hell was it so urgent? If there was a war going on, he wasn’t aware of it. Whatever was in the hold of his airplane—whatever the huge, self-propelled vehicle with the oversized rectangular body contained—the contractor’s people and the government officials responsible for it obviously wanted it out of Kansas City in a hurry, and with no fanfare. He could see their tactics clearly. If any feathers got ruffled in the process of forcing their will on Kansas City International, it would be the aircraft commander’s fault. His fault.

  Yet, he had his orders.

  Joe watched the media people coalesce into an audience the moment Dr. Kelly mounted the platform at one end of the ballroom, a forest of cameras and microphones arrayed before her. They had talked urgently for ten minutes about what could and could not be said at this point. Joe knew she was nervous and trying not to show it, but she could handle it, he felt sure. That was the most valuable service a Board member could perform in the field: keeping the media focus off the staff.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m Dr. Susan Kelly, one of the five Board members of the National Transportation Safety Board, and this is a very brief, preliminary news conference to acquaint you with our procedures and ground rules, and what we will be doing in probing the facts of this tragedy.”

  The media ranks had grown by 2 P.M. to nearly eighty, and it was a bit frightening. Susan worked on controlling the speed of her delivery, the tendency to rush being her lifelong reaction to public speaking.

  “First, we are not here to make any quick determination of cause. We will examine wreckage, send some things for analysis, eventually authorize the removal and cleanup of parts now closing the north-south runway, and interview witnesses, but under no circumstances will any of us speculate about what might have happened. As you probably know, it could take upward of a year before we release any formal findings. The National Transportation Safety Board has a congressional mandate to find the probable cause in each air accident, and that is for one purpose: to prevent whatever happened from happening again. We are not here to assess blame.”

  “So what do you have so far? Could this have been sabotage?” The voice came from a balding print reporter in the forward row.

  “Well, all we have are the same basics that you have. We just got here a few hours ago. We will be investigating engines, structures, systems, operations, air traffic control, weather, human factors, maintenance and records, and any other aspect deemed important. These are the principal group divisions.”

  A hand shot up in the middle of the throng, and Susan pointed to the man.

  “Dr. Kelly, you mentioned air traffic control—is it possible this was a controller error?”

  Susan looked at the crowded room, working to suppress butterflies. One false step—one false statement—and she would make herself look idiotic in the eyes of the professional staff. She was aware of Joe Wallingford hovering off to one side. He was Mr. NTSB among the staff, but she was the new kid in the executive suite, and winging it, despite all the preparation.

  “At this stage of an investigation, you rule nothing in and you rule nothing out. Anything is within the realm of possibility. In every investigation, one of the groups is labeled the air-traffic-control group. That’s a standard practice, regardless of the facts of the crash. They will be looking into these areas as a matter of routine.”

  “But,” the man continued, “is controller error a possibility?”

  Susan tried to effect a smile, but it wasn’t coming out quite right. “We just don’t know, and we can’t characterize any potential causal factor as either possible or not possible in the first few days. What we have here are two airliners in pieces on the ground, and a lot of people dead and injured. We’re here to find out why. Right now, we don’t know why. That answer your question?”

  Another hand went up and a female journalist got to her feet, asking whether the electronic flight controls could have been at fault, the very question neither Airbus nor Susan really wanted to hear just yet. Susan deflected the question—awkwardly, she thought—but more followed, asking for the very speculation and conclusions she had told them she could not provide.

  Questions about the possibility of sabotage, an assassination plot against Larry Wilkins, continued. The FBI would have to help them with that, she told them. Next question.

  Susan finally reached the point she had promised herself she would not reach, letting her voice catch on too many “uhs,” flashing the signal of uncertainty at the throng of reporters, an act roughly equivalent to bleeding in shark-infested waters.

  Joe Wallingford had felt her rising distress. He knew she was foundering; they had both underestimated the media’s interest in the assassination reports about Congressman Wilkins. He should stay on the sidelines. She was the Board member; he was only staff. Staff should be seen and not heard. Yet he found himself striding quickly to the microphone without considering the action, moving in front of a startled Susan Kelly and addressing the group.

  “I’m Joseph Wallingford, the investigator-in-charge of the NTSB field investigation into this crash, and I’d like to point out something to you. We’ve only been here a few hours. At this very preliminary stage, I can tell you categorically that there is no evidence whatsoever of any sabotage, and it’s ridiculous to keep pursuing the question at this time.” He paused again, raising his right index finger to indicate more was coming, his deep voice ringing through the room. “And, as you’ve heard Dr. Kelly say, at this stage you rule nothing in and nothing out. It is fruitless and perhaps embarrassingly incorrect for anyone to go off chasing the idea of sabotage until we have hard facts.”

  Joe turned to Susan and leaned close to her ear. “Might be a good time to end this.” He blinded himself to the flint-hard look she was directing back at him and turned to resume his position at the side of the room.

  Susan Kelly raised her hand for silence, and slowly the audience responded, cameras and tape recorders still rolling. “We’re going to end the conference at this point, because, frankly, we don’t have enough factual information to say anything more. Please utilize the services of our public-information people, and I’ll make myself available to talk with you later today and tomorrow when duties permit.”

  There was instant movement as the news people rose from their chairs and advanced on Susan Kelly, each of them eager to ask more unanswerable questions. Joe took the opportunity to slip out, confident she could handle things at that point, and was startled when the sound of a ballroom door being slammed open was followed by a sharp command from a female throat not twenty yards behind
him.

  “Joe!”

  He turned, facing an angry scowl of destabilizing intensity as she advanced on him, head down, jaw set, her stride measurable in meters as she pointed to the small conference room they had been briefed in several hours ago. “Inside. Now!”

  Joe sheepishly followed her finger through the door as she held it open and turned back to her with the clear and present intent to apologize—a chance she was not going to give him.

  “What the hell did you think you were doing in there, Mister Wallingford?”

  “I …”

  “Common sense alone would tell you, I would think, that under no circumstances short of nuclear war do you have the right to shove a Board member aside and take over a … a … meeting, hearing, press conference, or anything else! You made me look like an idiot in there, and I do not appreciate it!”

  “Susan, I …”

  “Shut up. Listen to me. I’m as entitled to sweat up there without assistance as any other Board member, male or female.”

  Joe found his head swimming in complete shock, his mind racing over various options for reply, his instincts for counterattack and defense swallowed by his recognition of her authority so surprisingly expressed, as well as what he had to admit was his attraction to her, and admiration for her. Good Lord, was she a fighter. And without having time to form the ideas as actual words in his mind, he knew she was right. It had been the damsel-in-distress syndrome. He had ridden to her rescue when she didn’t want rescue.

  “Su … ah … Doctor, I am most sincerely sorry. I acted on instinct. I didn’t mean to undermine you.”

  “But you sure as hell did.”

  “I … ah …”

  She had turned away from Joe for a few seconds, walking toward the conference table, leaving him standing by the door, making apologetic, explanatory gestures to her back. She whirled back on him suddenly. “Look, I respect your position, Joe. I expect you to respect mine. I have not succeeded in life by permitting people to rescue me before I’ve called for help. If I want help, you’ll hear the distress call loud and clear, and it won’t be in a whining tone of voice.”

  “Honestly, I’m very sorry.”

  “Well, you may have created more problems than just that. You told me earlier how politically charged things were, and you just as good as told the media we weren’t going to take sabotage seriously. I do know the political world, Joe, even if I am new to the Board. That could cause severe trouble.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  At ten minutes before one, Linda Ellis felt herself begin to move vertically as the sling carefully placed around her was winched up a few inches, her body tightly lashed to the apparatus, her skewered right leg on a splint with the cut ends of the metal rod protruding from the bloodstained wrappings the doctor had fashioned to get her through the ordeal and to the hospital.

  Slowly, painfully—every lurch of the cable sending sharp stabbing pains through her—the crane pulled her up.

  The air felt good despite the cold, the sky a welcome sight despite the heavy clouds and drizzle. The sound of men shouting orders at each other in a blend of voices formed a background to the sounds of shifting metal debris as rods were bent out of her way, and sheet metal was sent clanging to one side or another, clearing the way to extricate her.

  There was applause and cheering again, just as when Jill had been pulled free minutes before.

  Suddenly she was on the ground, being transferred to a stretcher, a voice in her ear. “Your parents are on the way, Linda. They’ve flown in from Texas. We’re taking them to the hospital to meet you there.”

  She had insisted they take Jill first, and they had done so, the doctor joined by a second surgeon, both of them engulfing the little girl in a cocoon of dressings, strapping her to a body board before bringing her out. Linda had wanted the little boy to be taken out then, but they convinced her to go next. They needed her out to get him out, or so they said. She didn’t much believe it, but she was too weak to protest any further. Now she saw an ambulance tearing away with lights and siren going, carrying Jill. God go with her, she thought. Even if she lives …

  Jill’s seven-year-old brother Jimmy was pulled out last, emerging into the same glorious daylight Linda had already experienced. He was placed in another ambulance. From where she lay, Linda could still see the wreckage which had held her prisoner for so long, and it started the searing pain all over again. God! How could she have lived through that? How could anyone have lived through that?

  She reached up weakly and grabbed the paramedic’s sleeve as the ambulance doors were closed. “How is Jill?”

  “Don’t know, Linda. You just lie back and relax.”

  “How is she? Will she make it?”

  The man smiled at her, but through her own hazy vision she could see a tear in his eye as he looked at what she couldn’t see—the splotchy, red, burned skin that had been her face before the kerosene from the disintegrating 737 wing tanks had splashed like a wave over the opened cabin so many hours ago.

  “I’m sure she’ll make it, Linda. She’s safe now, just like you.”

  Linda Ellis could recognize another well-intentioned lie when she heard one, but she held on to it for all it was worth as sleep overtook her once more.

  As the ambulance raced from the taxiway, the rescue team began a final assault on the broken fuselage in an effort to extricate the last survivor. The father of the two mauled children Linda had tried to protect was approaching the end of his endurance.

  “My kids. Please tell me. How are they?”

  The voice was mere inches from him now. “They’re alive, Mr. Manning. They’re on their way to the hospital now.”

  “They wouldn’t answer me a while ago.”

  “We had them heavily medicated. Now, be still, sir. We’ve got to get this last piece pulled back.”

  “My wife … my wife is gone. She …”

  “I know, sir. I’m sorry. But let’s get you out first.”

  “You won’t leave her?”

  “Of course not. But you first. She’d want it that way.”

  “You don’t know what she’d want.”

  “Maybe not, but you can’t help your kids if you don’t make it.”

  For the past thirty minutes Jeff Burnsall had battled the last few pieces of structure holding Jason Manning in his seat. As a paramedic it wasn’t his job, but he had insisted on doing the work. The weary fire rescue team had let him continue, since he had some experience in accident rescue procedures, and he was medically attending the victim while he worked to free him. But the last piece of greenish aircraft debris didn’t want to budge. He thought he could move it with his hands, but it wouldn’t move, and he was getting angry.

  Burnsall was lying on his stomach on a thick tarp, which in turn was barely supported by the mass of sharp metal latticework. He had just enough leverage to get an IV into Manning’s arm while he worked, administering the painkillers the man had needed for fifteen hours.

  “Goddammit!”

  “What?” Manning’s voice was instantly alarmed, and Burnsall was ashamed of himself for crying out. “Nothing. Just a little frustrated here. Hang in there Mr. Manning.”

  The smell of jet fuel was still heavy in his nostrils. Obviously, the foam had not washed it all away, and just as obviously, Manning’s clothes and hair were still soaked. Burnsall knew he would have to be very careful, as he had been warned. The nozzle of the foam truck still hovered mere feet away, but the firemen at the controls had long since decided the threat of fire was significantly diminished. Burnsall finally snuggled his body into a brace position, feeling his support to make sure it would hold, wrapping both gloved hands around the brittle aluminum-alloy rib. If he could pull it back about 12 inches, he could hook it over another protruding member, then get in there and attach the sling to Manning, pulling him directly upward. They could position the hydraulic jaws to do the task, but it would take another hour to get i
t in position safely. This would be much faster, and his patient needed out of there.

  “Now, be absolutely still, sir. Do not move a muscle.”

  Slowly he applied pressure, feeling the rib give a few millimeters. Bit by bit he increased the pressure, the metal bending farther at his command, coming toward him, the feel of the toes of his boots locking into the shards of metal behind him, absorbing some of the pressure he was using on the rib. The arrangement felt secure, so he kept increasing the pull. Three inches of displacement, 4, then 6, and it seemed to be coming almost smoothly. He still had strength in reserve, plenty of it, but he would need every ounce. The rib would have to come back 6 more inches before he could hook the end of it.

  “That’s better.” Manning was feeling less pressure in his chest with the rib back, but he mustn’t move. Burnsall saw the look on the agonized man’s face and knew he was beginning to drift with the Demerol in his system. If he kicked …

  Burnsall reluctantly relaxed his pull, letting the rib slowly return to its previous position, pressing against the metal panel which imprisoned Manning. He let go and closed his eyes, breathing hard, gathering strength for a second. “Mr. Manning, can you hear me?”

  “Yeah. Hurry up. It’s pressing on me again. Please! I hurt so bad! Please!”

  “Hang on, sir. I had to pause a minute. Now, you must promise me not to move, not to talk. Can you do that?”

  “What?”

  “Can you be absolutely still for me?”

  “Yeah. Just hurry. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

  Manning was not reliable, but the man was hurting. If Burnsall somehow dislodged his grip, if he let go of that rib, it could slam into Manning’s chest and do more damage. Perhaps he should back out of there and let the rescuers take over. The sight of the man’s wild-eyed look, though, told him he had to try again.

  “How’s it going, Jeff?”

  The voice behind him was from one of the fire rescue team. “I’m okay. I’ve got to move one piece, then I can get the sling in.”

  Burnsall took a deep breath and grabbed the rib again, straining evenly as he displaced it through 4 inches, then 6, 8, and 10 inches, keeping his grip firm and even, watching the target piece he must hook it to, getting the rib within a few inches. Just … a … little bit … more … and …