“Captain, you have seen the transcript of your statements to copilot Don Leyhe. Would you characterize those exchanges to be an argument?”
“Of course not.” The reply was quiet and even. “I’m the captain. I do not have an argument with a subordinate, though I may tolerate a discussion. When that discussion is over, if he doesn’t know it, it’s up to me to tell him. Don did not understand what I was doing, and he mistakenly thought we were running a risk of flying back into windshear. He was wrong, but he wouldn’t let it go. I had to speak sharply to get him to quiet down so I could concentrate on flying. It’s as simple as that.”
The man’s eyes were boring into Joe’s. Timson obviously felt strongly about this, but his words conveyed an amazingly archaic attitude.
“Sir,” Joe began, “what is your philosophy of flight management in an airline cockpit? Are there two pilots up there, or only one pilot and an assistant who follows orders blindly?”
Timson smiled, and Joe thought he heard a small snort of derision. “Of course there are two pilots, Mr. Wallingford, and the FAA says they share responsibility. But there is only one captain, and he has the final authority. He should listen to recommendations and then make a decision, and when that decision is made, the other pilot should shut up and support it.”
“Blindly?”
“Not blindly, but with respect and obedience.”
“Are you familiar with a type of training called cockpit resource management?”
Now Timson did snort, audibly and with considerable derision. “Sure. You incorporate that, and you end up flying by committee, or by consensus, with a captain who can’t make a decision without checking with everyone on board. That is a major mistake, and this industry will pay dearly for embracing it.”
“Captain, did you hear the testimony this morning from Captain Rohr that if your copilot had taken control just seven-tenths of a second before he did, none of us would be going through this right now?”
“Yes.”
“Do you accept that testimony as true?”
“Well, he said they flew a bunch of simulator flights, so I suppose it’s accurate … in a vacuum.”
“What do you mean, ‘in a vacuum’?”
“They weren’t there. It takes time for a copilot to recognize he needs to take over from his commander without being ordered to, and there just wasn’t time for me to give that order. As I said, I thought I had, but apparently the words didn’t clear my throat.”
Joe stared at Timson, waiting without a word for several seconds, watching the captain’s reactions. Was his resolve that firm, or was this well-practiced posturing? If Joe got too rough with him, there would be protests, and worse, there would be an outpouring of sympathy that might get in the way of the truth—whatever that might be.
“Captain, had you ever flown with Don Leyhe before?”
“No. I knew him, though. He was one of my pilots.”
“Did you discuss with him when it was okay for him to take control?”
“Of course not. That’s common sense.”
“Is it?”
“Sure. You don’t touch a captain’s yoke unless you’re asked to, ordered to, or it’s obvious that the captain has no control.”
Joe nodded slowly. “Okay … okay, let’s pursue that. Let’s say a copilot sees the captain is no longer able to control the situation. You would want him to take control at that point, right?”
“Of course. I expect it. That, you see, Mr. Wallingford, is what a copilot is really for. He’s a standby entity in many respects, a captain-in-training under the complete control of the flight captain.”
“All right. Now, the period of time it takes for a copilot to recognize a deteriorating situation which the captain, for whatever reason, has lost the ability to control, that period of time is not finite, correct?”
“What do you mean?”
“In other words, that time will vary from copilot to copilot.”
“Oh. Yes.”
“One guy may be more aggressive and self-confident and may spot the problem sooner and seize control sooner than a weaker or more tenuous individual, right?”
“Sure. That’s logical.”
“And in such an emergency, you would want the copilot to recognize the problem as soon as possible, wouldn’t you?”
“I believe so.”
“Otherwise, why is he or she there, right?”
“Right.”
“So, is it a desirable state of affairs to train these copilots to be slower to act, or to be so uncertain of themselves that they may not act in time in the admittedly rare instance where they need to take over?”
“Of course not. We don’t train our copilots to be slow, nor do we train them to seize control anytime they don’t like what the captain is doing.”
“Would it make sense to you, Captain Timson, as chief pilot, that you should step in and stop a form of training that seeks to make copilots so reluctant to act that they may not act in time in an emergency?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“And, would you agree that a copilot who has been intimidated by a more powerful fellow in a superior position, intimidated and told to keep his hands off the controls, is going to be less likely to act in time?”
Timson stared at Joe, his face slowly turning red, having walked into a trap. “You’re misconstruing that conversation.”
“I wasn’t talking about your conversation. I was talking generally. But now that you mention it, wasn’t your statement on that downwind leg to a shaken Don Leyhe, your answer to him when he asked, and I quote”—Joe turned the page to find the line—“‘What do you want me to do, Captain?’ and your reply was, ‘I want you to shut your goddamn face and let me fly my airplane.’” Joe looked up again and slowly removed his reading glasses. “Wasn’t that statement, Captain, one that would intimidate any copilot into being much slower to act in an emergency? Didn’t you intimidate your copilot right out of the loop? Wasn’t he effectively removed from the cockpit?”
“He wouldn’t stop blathering. I had to correct him. I had made my decision and he wanted to question it. I was in command, and he did not have the right to keep questioning my decision. It was time to get him out of the loop. I … I …” Timson was sputtering, his direction lost, his mind grappling with the fact that he had been painted into a corner.
“Thank you, Captain.”
“No, I’m not through.”
Joe leaned forward instinctively, the phrase just slipping out before he could think about it. “Yes, Captain, I’m afraid you are. You’ve answered the question.” It was more the type of editorial remark Susan could make, but there it was, and Timson suddenly was silent. Joe felt sorry for him, which he hadn’t expected to do. The man really didn’t understand why his method hadn’t worked, didn’t work, couldn’t work. Andy had been absolutely right. Whatever had happened between Tim-son’s left hand and the flight-control system, the methods he used as a captain and a chief pilot were vital to the investigation.
From the second row in the audience, Mark Weiss watched Timson’s head drop. He watched the man take a deep breath, and once again he tried to hate the man, hate him for what he’d done. But it wouldn’t come. Just pity. Pity Dick Timson, and pity those like him who couldn’t accept the responsibility for what they’d done. And pity those pilots who kept clinging to the idea that real pilots must always fly alone, even in a two-or three-pilot cockpit.
Dick Timson fielded questions from the technical panel and other parties for two more hours, his North America boss John Walters trying to repair the record and make up for the answers elicited by Joe’s questions, and doing more damage in the process. It was crystal clear that Dick Timson, and officially North America, had their feet set in concrete on the issue of how to fly airliners: the captain was God, and that was that. They were fighting the NTSB’s right to question the philosophy, rather than debating whether it was the correct philosophy.
Mercifully, Susan marked Ti
mson’s dismissal with a fifteen-minute recess, and Joe lingered a minute to watch him as he left the stand, expecting his wife to rush forward to him. She was nowhere to be seen, which was odd. Louise Timson, Joe knew from Andy’s research, had spent almost every waking moment by her husband’s side at Truman Medical Center for the entire two weeks he had been hospitalized, sleeping mostly in his room on a chair. And, as he also knew, her actions had raised concerns for her mental health, concerns Andy had found out about but had been unable to pursue. Whether they were related to any information about her husband useful to the investigation, Andy didn’t know. Dick Timson had refused all NTSB requests to interview his wife.
Mark Weiss took Joe aside as he poured a glass of water at the rear of the room. “There’s something I’ve got to lay out for you, Joe. This afternoon or evening. Something I can only show you in private.”
“Can you give me a hint?”
“Only that it concerns Timson’s testimony. I can’t say more here.” Mark patted Joe’s elbow once, turned, and disappeared into the corridor, leaving Joe with unanswered questions and a piqued curiosity. In his limited experience with the man, Dr. Mark Weiss was not normally so secretive.
Andy was beside him then, and Susan approached, all three of them huddling to one side, discussing Timson’s statements, agreeing that the answers were pivotal. Timson wasn’t backing down a millimeter from his insistence that he never relaxed his back pressure on the control stick. He had thrown a direct challenge to the NTSB to prove equipment failure wasn’t the cause, and Joe knew with a sinking feeling he’d been entertaining for weeks that they probably couldn’t rise to the challenge.
“Who’s next?” Andy asked.
“We’re going to get the tower controller up there and let North America chew at him awhile.”
Carl Sellers was precise and impressive once he began his testimony, piecing together each and every act of his life on that Friday evening, adding convincing explanations to match and even documenting the time and exact duration of the momentary power spike in the tower which had attracted so much media attention. He had no idea, he said, whether the power glitch had any connection with the machine being loaded by the Air Force C-5B. No, he was not excessively distracted in the tower cab that evening. Yes, he was aware of the windshear monitors as North American 255 approached, and no, they did not go off. It wasn’t until North America’s vice-president John Walters had tossed every have-you-stopped-beating-your-wife? question he could possibly think of that one finally found a nerve and Sellers began emerging from his cocoon of precision, his temper building as he considered the questions, and at last passed his personal critical mass.
“Mr. Sellers,” Walters had asked, “the pilot of the landing Metroliner obviously meant windshear when he used the phrase ‘gusty out there.’ You were the tower controller, you knew there were thunderstorms in the area, why on earth didn’t you correct him? Why didn’t you ask him whether he really meant to say ‘windshear’ instead of ‘gusty’?”
Sellers had leaned forward to the microphone, his hands formed into fists on each side of its base. The sound of his overamplified voice boomed through the ceiling speakers in the ballroom, slightly distorted and startling. “Mr. Walters, I’ve been sitting here all afternoon putting up with your snide and sarcastic insinuations that I’m too stupid to know what I’m doing, and now you’re implying that I should have edited the pilot’s statements. This may be hard for you to understand—”
“Mr. Sellers, please contain—,” Joe began.
“No, let me finish. This desk jockey has had his opportunity, Mr. Chairman, and I demand mine.”
“This is not a personal confrontation, gentlemen,” Joe interjected, all but unheard as Walters bowed with a little flourish, saying, “By all means, Mr. Sellers, fire away.”
“The point is this. It is not now, nor has it ever been my job, or the job of any controller, to think and speak and act for the goddamn pilots. When these people come down final, they should be trained adults able to call a spade a spade, and a microburst a microburst. The fact that jerkwater commuters like this one hire greenhorn children and put them in the cockpit without training them is not my fault, nor is it that of the FAA!”
Susan and Joe both could see the frantic look on the face of the FAA men at their table as Sellers spoke, pleading with him by expression and hand signals to simmer down. Walters, however, pulled the plug on their attempts.
“Are you quite through, Mr. Sellers? Can I continue now? Or would you like to snarl a bit more at me and the world in general for your demonstrated incompetence?”
Sellers’s mouth came open as Susan rose from her chair and shouted at them both, banging the palm of her hand on the table for emphasis.
“GENTLEMEN! THAT … IS … ENOUGH! This is supposed to be an orderly proceeding, and I will not tolerate such behavior in here again. Is that clear?”
There was no response, the veins in Sellers’s neck standing out a quarter inch as he struggled to keep control as he watched Walters, who had painted the most witheringly disdainful sneer he could manage across his face.
“Mr. Walters? Mr. Sellers? I’m talking to both of you!” Susan said.
“I’m sorry, Madam Chairman, I shall contain my comments,” a surprised Walters said as he turned to her. Sellers nodded as well. “I apologize for the outburst.”
As Susan regained her seat, the barely concealed smiles on the faces of the television cameramen betrayed their analysis of the exchange: that was great camera! The choice of a sound bite for the evening news was now a foregone conclusion.
Joe avoided Farris entirely when Susan adjourned the hearing for the day. He assembled the staff for a planned briefing twenty minutes later, but kept it short so everyone could unwind and get sufficient rest. There had been enough emotion for one day, but Tuesday’s session had everyone worried.
Jeff Perkins found Joe as the staff meeting broke up and shanghaied him to dinner, trying unsuccessfully to keep his obviously worried friend off the subject of the next day’s agenda.
“It’s going to be one of the toughest I’ve ever dealt with, Jeff. The 737 captain is the second witness. He asked us to let him testify. Demanded, was more like it, and ALPA underscored the request. We all want to get a clear record on Timson’s management style, but their eagerness frightens me a bit, since this is supercharged emotionally already.”
“You set this witness list up yourself, Joe?”
“I supervised. My human-performance group chairman, Andy Wallace, did most of the work, and he’s promised not to make a circus out of it—promised to keep it from looking like an exercise in airline bashing—but there are four other North America pilots whom we’ll put on tomorrow.”
“This is on the question of why copilots can’t monitor captains?”
“Yeah, as well as why oppressive management styles can adversely affect safety. You heard Captain Timson’s testimony today, and that from the ALPA pilot who said the copilot could have recovered?”
“That shocked me.”
“Well, it shocked me when I first heard how clear-cut the simulator tests had turned out. God, there was no doubt.”
“Joe, I’m no pilot, but it seems to me that this is really a simple matter if you deal with people like machinery.”
“That’s what we’re trying to not do, Jeff. Or do I miss your point?”
“Well, what I mean is, most of these airplanes have main hydraulic systems and backup systems in case the main hydraulics fail, right?”
“Yes.”
“All right, Timson was like their main hydraulic system, okay? And the copilot was the backup system. When the primary failed—whatever the reason—the backup should have worked. So if I understand what you guys and gals are up to, you’re saying you don’t know why the primary system failed, but you’re damn well going to find out why the backup system didn’t work so it won’t happen again. In fact, you’re saying the failure of the backup is at least as impo
rtant as the failure of the primary, and maybe more so. Am I close?”
Joe looked at his friend with admiration. “That’s a hell of a good summary, Jeff—for a cop.”
“Thanks, I think.” They were both laughing, and Joe was glad he knew Perkins could still be kidded.
“Joe, by the way …” He glanced around, assuring they were not being overheard. “Our office has been asked to get a copy of the leaked control tower tape from that radio station and ship it to D.C. The lab wants to electronically compare it to the original … see where the copy came from.”
“How can they do that?”
“Each recorder tape head leaves characteristic sounds and errors on a tape unique to it. So if the station’s tape came from the NTSB’s copy, they’ll find it out.”
“Meaning?” Joe asked.
“Meaning, just a friendly heads-up. You might want to question your man again, just to make sure he’s telling it like it is.”
Joe nodded slowly, chilled by the thought that he had trusted Gardner too much. He had begun to seriously suspect him a month ago.
“Jeff, is it possible—and permissible—for you to look into who holds stock in a public corporation? Is there an easy way?”
“I can do that. Who?”
“Bill Caldwell of the FAA. I’m curious whether he owns any aircraft manufacturer’s stock.”
“I’ll call you,” Perkins said simply.
“Bill?”
“Yes. Who is this?” Bill Caldwell’s phone had been ringing as he turned the key in his front door lock in the Georgetown district of Washington, D.C. He figured it had gone through at least ten rings by the time he got to it, which meant someone really wanted to find him.
“This is Jake McIntyre, Bill.”
“Doc! Well how the hell are you?” Memories of Dr. Jake lounging and laughing with his father in the Caldwell family home back in Texas flashed across his mind. Doc had been a guardian angel after Bill Caldwell senior had died, leaving behind a confused eight-year-old boy. Doc had been like a father after that, paying for his college, guiding him, and even keeping him out of the military draft through a few back-door manipulations of his medical record. He realized suddenly that the familiar voice on the other end of the phone was shaking. “Are you okay, Doc?”
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