Airframe

by Michael Crichton

Chapter 6

  The policeman said to her, "Is there anything else?"

  She felt embarrassed; she mumbled thanks, and went back inside.

  "Make sure you lock that door, ma'am," the guards said politely.

  "Yeah, I got 'em parked in front of my house, too," Kenny Burne said. "Scared the hell out of Mary. What's going on, anyway? Labor negotiations aren't for another two years. " "I'll call Marder," she said.

  "Everybody gets guards," Marder said, on the phone. "The union threatens one of our team, we detail guards. Don't worry about it. "

  "Did you talk to Brull?" she said.

  "Yeah, I straightened him out. But it'll take a while for the word to filter down to the rank and file. Until it does, everybody gets guards. "

  "Okay," she said.

  "This is a precaution," Marder said. "Nothing more. "

  "Okay," she said.

  "Get some sleep," Marder said, and hung up.

  TUESDAY

  GLENDALE

  5:45 A. M.

  She awoke uneasily, before the alarm went off. She pulled on a bathrobe, walked to the kitchen to turn on the coffee, and looked out the front window. The blue sedan was still parked on the street, the men inside. She considered taking her five-mile run, she needed that exercise to start her day, but decided against it. She knew she shouldn't feel intimidated. But there was no point in taking chances.

  She poured a cup of coffee, sat in the living room. Everything looked different to her today. Yesterday, her little bungalow felt cozy; today, it felt small, defenseless, isolated. She was glad Allison was spending the week with Jim.

  Casey had lived through periods of labor tension in the past; she knew that the threats usually came to nothing. But it was wise to be cautious. One of the first lessons Casey had learned at Norton was that the factory floor was a very tough world - tougher even than the assembly line at Ford. Norton was one of the few remaining places where an unskilled high school graduate could earn $80,000 a year, with overtime. Jobs like that were scarce, and getting scarcer. The competition to get those jobs, and to keep them, was fierce. If the union thought the China sale was going to cost jobs, they could very well act ruthlessly to stop it.

  She sat with the coffee cup on her lap and realized she dreaded going to the factory. But of course she had to go. Casey pushed the cup away, and went into the bedroom to dress.

  When she came outside and got into her Mustang, she saw a second sedan pull up behind the first. As she drove down the street, the first car pulled out, following her.

  So Marder had ordered two sets of guards. One to watch her house, and one to follow her.

  Things must be worse than she thought.

  She drove into the plant with an uncharacteristic feeling of unease. First shift had already started; the parking lots were full, acres and acres of cars. The blue sedan stayed right behind her as Casey pulled up to the security guard at Gate 7. The guard waved her through and, by some unseen signal, allowed the blue sedan to follow directly, without putting the barrier down. The sedan stayed behind her until she parked at her spot in Administration.

  She got out of the car. One of the guards leaned out the window. "Have a nice day, ma'am," he said.

  "Thanks. I will. "

  The guard waved. The sedan sped off.

  Casey looked around at the huge gray buildings: Building 64 to the south. Building 57 to the east, where the twinjet was built. Building 121, the Paint Shed. The maintenance hangars in a row off to the west, lit by the sun rising over the San Fernando Mountains. It was a familiar landscape; she'd spent five years here. But today she was uncomfortably aware of the vast dimensions, the emptiness of the place in early morning. She saw two secretaries walking into the Administration building. No one else. She felt alone.

  She shrugged her shoulders, shaking off her fears. She was being silly, she told herself. It was time to go to work.

  NORTON AIRCRAFT

  6:34 A. M.

  Rob Wong, the young programmer at Norton Digital Information Systems, turned away from the video monitors and said, "Sorry, Casey. We got the flight recorder data - but there's a problem. "

  She sighed. "Don't tell me. "

  "Yeah. There is. "

  She was not really surprised to hear it. Flight data recorders rarely performed correctly. In the press, these failures were explained as the consequence of crash impacts. After an airplane hit the ground at five hundred miles an hour, it seemed reasonable to think that a tape deck might not be working.

  But within the aerospace industry, the perception was different. Everyone knew flight data recorders failed at a very high rate, even when the aircraft didn't crash. The reason was that the FAA did not require they be checked before every flight. In practice, they were usually function-checked about once a year. The consequence was predictable: the flight recorders rarely worked.

  Everybody knew about the problem: the FAA, the NTSB, the airlines, and the manufacturers. Norton had conducted a study a few years back, a random check of DFDRs in active service. Casey had been on that study committee. They'd found that only one recorder in six worked properly.

  Why the FAA would mandate the installation of FDRs, without also requiring that they be in working order before each flight, was a frequent subject of late-night discussion in aerospace bars from Seattle to Long Beach. The cynical view was that malfunctioning FDRs were in everybody's interest. In a nation besieged by rabid lawyers and a sensational press, the industry saw little advantage to providing an objective, reliable record of what had gone wrong.

  "We're doing the best we can, Casey," Rob Wong said. "But the flight recorder data is anomalous. "

  "Meaning what?"

  "It looks like the number-three bus blew about twenty hours before the incident, so the frame syncs are out on the subsequent data. "

  "The frame syncs?"

  "Yeah. See, the FDR records all the parameters in rotation, in data blocks called frames. You get a reading for, say, airspeed, and then you get another reading four blocks later. Airspeed readings should be continuous across the frames. If they're not, the frames are out of sync, and we can't build the flight. I'll show you. "

  He turned to the screen, pressing keys. "Normally, we can take the DFDR and generate the airplane in' tri-axis. There's the plane, ready to go. "

  A wire-frame image of the Norton N-22 widebody appeared on the screen. As she watched, the wire frame filled in, until it took on the appearance of an actual aircraft in flight.

  "Okay, now we feed it your flight recorder data. . . "

  The airplane seemed to ripple. It vanished from the screen, then reappeared. It vanished again, and when it reappeared the left wing was separated from the fuselage. The wing twisted ninety degrees, while the rest of the airplane rolled to the right. Then the tail vanished. The entire plane vanished, reappeared again, vanished again.

  "See, the mainframe's trying to draw the aircraft," Rob said, "but it keeps hitting discontinuities. The wing data doesn't fit the fuse data which doesn't fit the tail data. So it breaks up. "

  "What do we do?" she said.

  "Resync the frames, but that'll take time. "

  "How long? Marder's on my back. "

  "It could be a while, Casey. The data's pretty bad. What about the QAR?"

  "There isn't one. "

  "Well, if you're really stuck, I'd take this data to Flight Sims. They have some sophisticated programs there. They may be able to fill in the blanks faster, and tell you what happened. "

  "But Rob - "

  "No promises, Casey," he said. "Not with this data. Sorry. "

  BLDG 64

  6:50 A. M.

  Casey met Richman outside Building 64. They walked together in the early-morning light toward the building. Richman yawned.

  "You were in Marketing, weren't you?"

  "That's right," Richman said. "We sure didn't keep these hours. "
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  "What did you do there?"

  "Not much," he said. "Edgarton had the whole department doing a full court press on the China deal. Very hush-hush, no outsiders allowed. They threw me a little legal work on the Iberian negotiation. "

  "Any travel?"

  Richman smirked. "Just personal. "

  "How's that?" she said.

  "Well, since Marketing had nothing for me to do, I went skiing. "

  "Sounds like fun. Where'd you go?" Casey said.

  "You ski?" Richman said. "Personally, I think the best skiing outside of Gstaad is Sun Valley. That's my favorite. You know, if you have to ski in the States. "

  She realized he hadn't answered her question. By then they had walked through the side door, into Building 64. Casey noticed the workers were openly hostile, the atmosphere distinctly chilly.

  "What's this?" Richman said. "We got rabies today?"

  "Union thinks we're selling them out on China. " 96

  "Selling them out? How?"

  "They think management's shipping the wing to Shanghai. I asked Marder. He says no. "

  A Klaxon sounded, echoing through the building. Directly ahead, the big yellow overhead crane cranked to life, and Casey saw the first of the huge crates containing the wing tooling rise five feet up into the air on thick cables. The crate was constructed of reinforced plywood. It was as broad as a house, and probably weighed five tons. A dozen workers walked alongside the crate like pallbearers, hands up, steadying the load as it moved toward one of the side doors and a waiting flatbed truck.

  "If Marder says no," Richman said, "then what's the problem?"

  "They don't believe him. "

  "Really? Why not?"

  Casey glanced to her left, where other tools were being crated for shipment. The huge blue tools were first packed in foam, then braced internally, and then crated. All that padding and bracing was essential, she knew. Because even though the tools were twenty feet in length, they were calibrated to thousandths of an inch. Transporting them was an art in itself. She looked back at the crate, moving on the hoist.

  All the men standing beneath it were gone.

  The crate was still moving laterally, ten yards from where they stood.

  "Uh-oh," she said.

  "What?" Richman said.

  She was already pushing him. "Go!" she said, shoving Richman to the right, toward the shelter of the scaffolding that stood beneath a partially assembled fuselage. Richman resisted; he didn't seem to understand that -

  "Run!' she shouted. "It's going to break loose!"

  He ran. Behind her, Casey heard the creak of rending plywood, and a metallic twang! as the first of the hoist cables snapped, and the giant crate began to slide from its harness.

  They had just reached the fuselage scaffolding when she heard another twang! and the crate smashed down onto the concrete floor. Slivers of plywood exploded in all directions, whistling through the air. They were followed by a thunderous whomp! as the crate toppled over on its side. The sound reverberated through the building.

  "Jesus Christ," Richman said, turning to look back at her. "What was that!"

  "That," she said, "is what we call a job action. "

  Men were running forward, hazy forms in the cloud of lingering dust There were shouts, and calls for help. The medic alarm sounded, ringing through the building. At the opposite side of the building, she saw Doug Doherty, shaking his head mournfully.

  Richman looked over his shoulder, and pulled a four-inch splinter of plywood from the back of his jacket. "Jeez," he said. He took the jacket off, inspected the tear, putting his finger through the hole.

  "That was a warning," Casey said. "And they've also wrecked the tool. Now it'll have to be uncrated and rebuilt. This means weeks of delay. "

  Floor supervisors in white shirts and ties ran forward into the group around the fallen crate. "What happens now?" Richman said.

  "They'll take names and kick ass," Casey said. "But it won't do any good. There'll be another incident tomorrow. There's no way to stop it"

  "This was a warning?" Richman said. He put the jacket back on.

  'To the IRT," she said. "A clear signal: Watch your backs, watch your heads. We'll see falling wrenches, all sorts of accidents, whenever we're on the floor. We'll have to be careful. "

  Two workmen broke away from the group around the crate, and started walking toward Casey. One man was burly, wearing jeans and a red-checked work shirt. The other was taller, and wore a baseball cap. The man in the work shirt held a steel drill-press stanchion in his hand, swinging it at his side like a metal club.

  "Uh, Casey," Richman said.

  "I see them," she said. She was not going to get rattled by a couple of floor goons.

  The men walked steadily toward her. Suddenly a supervisor appeared in front of them, holding his clipboard, demanding the men show their badges. The men stopped to talk to the supervisor, glaring at Casey over his head.

  "We won't have any trouble with them," she said. "An hour from now, they'll be gone. " She went back to the scaffolding, picked up her briefcase. "Come on," she said to Richman. "We're late. "

  BLDG 64/IRT

  7:00 A. M.

  Chairs scraped as everyone pulled up to the Formica table. "Okay," Marder said, "let's get started. We're having some union activity, aimed at stalling this investigation. Don't let it get to you. Keep your eye on the ball. First item: weather data. "

  The secretary passed sheets around the room. It was a report from the LA Traffic Control Center on a form marked "Federal Aviation Administration / REPORT OF AIRCRAFT ACCIDENT. "

  Casey read:

  WEATHER DATA

  CONDITIONS IN ACCIDENT AREA AT TIME OF ACCIDENT

  JAL054 a B747/R was 15 minutes ahead of TPA545 on the same route and 1000' above. JAL054 made no report of turbulence.

  REPORT JUST PRIOR TO ACCIDENT

  UAL829 a B747/R reported moderate chop at the FIR 40. 00 North/165. 00 East at FL350. This was 120 miles north and 14 minutes ahead of TPA545. UAL829 made no other reports of turbulence. 100

  FIRST REPORT SUBSEQUENT TO ACCIDENT

  AAL722 reported continuous light chop at 39 North/170 East at FL350. AAL722 was on the same route, 2000' below, and approximately 29 minutes behind TPA545. AAL722 made no report of turbulence.

  "We still have satellite data coming, but I think the evidence speaks for itself. The three aircraft nearest in time and location to Transpacific report no weather except light chop. I'm ruling out turbulence as a cause of this accident. "

  There were nods around the table. No one disagreed.

  "Anything else for the record?"

  "Yes," Casey said. "Passenger and crew interviews agree the seat-belt sign was never illuminated. "

  "Okay. Then we're done with weather. Whatever happened to that plane wasn't turbulence. Flight recorder?"

  "Data's anomalous," Casey said. "They're working on it. "

  "Visual inspection of the plane?"

  "The interior was severely damaged," Doherty said, "but the exterior was fine. Cherry. "

  "Leading edge?"

  "No problem we could see. We'll have the aircraft here today, and I'll look at the drive tracks and latches. But so far, nothing. "

  "You test the control surfaces?"

  "No problem. "

  "Instrumentation?"

  "Bravo Zulu. "

  "How many times you test "em?"

  "After we heard the passenger's story from Casey, we did ten extensions. Trying to get a disagree. But everything's normal. "

  "What story? Casey? You got something from the interviews?"

  "Yes," she said. "One passenger gave a report of a slight rumble coming from the wing, lasting ten to twelve seconds. . . "

  "Shit," Marder said.

  ". . . followed by a slight nose up, then a dive. . . "

  "Goddamn it!"

  ". . . and
then a series of violent pitch excursions. "

  Marder glared at her. "Are you telling me it's the slats again? Have we still got a slats problem on this aircraft?"

  "I don't know," Casey said. "One of the flight attendants reported that the captain said he had an uncommanded slats deployment, and that he'd had problems with the autopilot. "

  "Christ. And problems with the autopilot?"

  "Screw him," Burne said. "This captain changes his story every five minutes. Tells Traffic Control he's got turbulence, tells the stewardess he's got slats. Right now I bet he's telling the carrier a whole different story. Fact is, we don't know what happened in that cockpit. "

  "It's obviously slats," Marder said.

  "No, it's not," Bume said. "The passenger Casey talked to said the rumbling sound came from the wing or the engines, isn't that right?"

  "Right," Casey said.

  "But when she looked at the wing, she didn't see the slats extend. Which she would have seen, if it happened. "

  "Also true," Casey said.

  "But she couldn't have seen the engines, because they'd be hidden by the wing. It's possible the thrust reversers deployed," Burne said. "At cruise speed that'd produce a definite rumble. Followed by a sudden drop in airspeed, probably a roll. The pilot shits, tries to compensate, overreacts - bingo!"

  "Any confirmation thrusters deployed?' Marder said. "Damage to the sleeves? Unusual rubstrips?"

  "We looked yesterday," Bume said, "and we didn't find anything. We'll do ultrasound and X rays today. If there's something there, we'll find it. "

  "Okay," Marder said. "So we're looking at slats and thrusters, and we need more data. What about the NVMs? Ron? The faults suggest anything?"

  They turned to Ron Smith. Under their gaze, Ron hunched lower in his seat, as if trying to pull his head between his shoulders. He cleared his throat.

  "Well?" Marder said.

  "Uh, yeah, John. We have a slats disagree on the FDAU printout. "

  "So the slats did deploy. "

  "Well, actually - "

  "And the plane started porpoising, beat hell out of the passengers, and killed three. Is that what you're telling me?"

  No one spoke.

  "Jesus," Marder said. "What is the matter with you people? This problem was supposed to be fixed four years ago! Now you're telling me it wasn't!"

  The group fell silent and stared at the table, embarrassed and intimidated by Marder's rage.

  "Goddamn it!" Marder said.

  "John, let's not get carried away. " It was Trung, the avionics head, speaking quietly. "We're overlooking a very important factor. The autopilot. "

  There was a long silence.

  Marder glared at him. "What about it?" he snapped.

  "Even if the slats extend in cruise flight," Trung said, "the autopilot will maintain perfect stability. It's programmed to compensate for errors like that. The slats extend; the AP adjusts; the captain sees the warning and retracts them. Meanwhile the plane continues, no problem. "

  "Maybe he went out of autopilot. "

  "He must have. But why?"

  "Maybe your autopilot's screwed up," Marder said. "Maybe you got a bug in your code. "

  Trung looked skeptical.

  "It's happened," Marder said. "There was an autopilot problem on that USAir flight in Charlotte last year. Put the plane into an uncommanded roll. "

  "Yes," Trung said, "but that wasn't caused by a bug in the code. Maintenance pulled the 'A' flight control computer to repair it, and when they reinstalled it, they didn't push it in the shelf far enough to fully engage the connector pins. The thing kept making intermittent electrical connection, that's all. "

  "But on Flight 545, the stewardess said the captain had to fight the autopilot for control. "

  "And I'd expect that," Trung said. "Once the aircraft exceeds flight params, the autopilot actively attempts to take over. It sees erratic behavior, and assumes nobody is flying the plane. "

  "Did that show up on the fault records?"

  "Yes. They indicate the autopilot tried to kick in, every three seconds. I assume the captain kept overriding it, insisting on flying the plane himself. "

  "But this is an experienced captain. "

  "Which is why I think Kenny is right," Trung said. "We have no idea what took place in that cockpit. "

  They all turned to Mike Lee, the carrier representative. "How about it, Mike?" Marder said. "Can we get an interview or not?"

  Lee sighed philosophically. "You know," he said, "I've spent a lot of time in meetings like this. And the tendency is always to blame the guy who's not there. It's human nature. I've already explained to you why the flight crew left the country. Your own records confirm the captain is a first-rate pilot. It's possible he made an error. But given the history of problems with this aircraft - slats problems - I'd look first at the aircraft. And I'd look hard. "

  "We will," Marder said. "Of course we will, but - " "Because it's to no one's advantage," Lee said, "to get into a pissing match. You are focused on your pending deal with Beijing. Fine, I understand. But I would remind you Trans-Pacific is also a valued customer of this company. We've bought ten planes to date, and we have twelve more on order. We're expanding our routes, and we are negotiating a feeder deal with a domestic carrier. We don't need any bad press at the moment. Not for the planes we've bought from you, and certainly not for our pilots. I hope I'm being clear. "

  "Clear as a fucking bell," Marder said. "I couldn't have said it better myself. Guys, you have your marching orders. Get on with it. I want answers. "

  BLDG 2O2/FSIM

  7:59 A. M.

  "Flight 545?" Felix Wallerstein said. "It's very disturbing. Very disturbing indeed. " Wallerstein was a silver-haired, courtly man from Munich. He ran the Norton Flight Simulator and Pilot Training program with Germanic efficiency.

  Casey said, "Why do you say 545 is disturbing?"

  "Because," he shrugged. "How could it happen? It does not seem possible. "

  They walked through the large main room of Building 202. The two flight simulators, one for each model in service, stood above them. They appeared to be truncated nose sections of the aircraft, held up by a spidery array of hydraulic lifts.

  "Did you get the data from the flight recorder? Rob said you might be able to read it. "

  "I tried," he said. "With no success. I hesitate to say it is useless, but - what about the QAR?"

  "No QAR, Felix. "

  "Ah. " Wallerstein sighed.

  They came to the command console, a series of video screens and keyboards to one side of the building. Here the instructors sat while they monitored the pilots being trained in the simulator. Two of the simulators were being used as they watched.

  Casey said, "Felix, we're concerned the slats extended in cruise flight. Or possibly the thrust reversers. "

  "So?" he said. "Why should that matter?"

  "We've had problems with slats before. . . "

  "Yes, but that is long since fixed, Casey. And slats cannot explain such a terrible accident Where people are killed? No, no. Not from slats, Casey. "

  "You're sure"

  "Absolutely. I will show you. " He turned to one of the instructors at the console. "Who's flying the N-22 now?"

  "Ingram. First officer from Northwest"

  "Any good?"

  "Average. He's got about thirty hours. "

  On the closed-circuit video screen, Casey saw a man in his mid thirties, sitting in the pilot's seat of the simulator.

  "And where is he now?" Felix said.

  "Uh, let's see," the instructor said, consulting his panels. "He's over the mid-Atlantic, FL three-thirty, point eight Mach. "

  "Good," Felix said. "So he's at thirty-three thousand feet, eight-tenths the speed of sound. He's been there awhile, and everything seems to be fine. He's relaxed, maybe a little lazy. "