ABOARD TPA 545
6:25 a.m.
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 snowed 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 die 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 man before. Casey tried to hold on to the armrests, tried to occupy her mind. She had forgotten to count she had forgotten to—
The weight again.
Sinking. Pressing.
Deep into the chair.
Casey couldn’t move. She couldn’t turn her head.
Then they were climbing again, steeper than before, the shriek of the engines loud in her ears, and she felt Jennifer reach for her, Jennifer grabbing her arm. Casey turned to look at her, and Jennifer, pale and wild-eyed, was shouting:
“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”
The plane was coming to the top of the rise. Her stomach lifting, a sickening sensation. Jennifer’s stricken look, hand clapped to her mouth. Vomit spurting through her fingers.
The plane going over.
Another dive.
Click. “Releasing the luggage bins. Give you a sense of how it was.”
Along both aisles, the luggage bins above the seats sprang open, and two-foot white blocks spilled out They were harmless neoprene foam, but they bounced around the cabin like a dense blizzard. Casey felt them strike her face, the back of her head.
Jennifer was retching again, trying to pull the bag from under her leg. The blocks tumbled forward, moving down the cabin toward the cockpit. They obscured their view on all sides, until one by one, they began to fall to the floor, roll over, and remain mere. The whine of the engines changed.
The sinking drag of added weight.
The plane was going up again.
The pilot in the F-14 chase plane watched as the big Norton widebody streaked upward through the clouds, climbing at twenty-one degrees.
‘Teddy,” he said over the radio. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Just reproducing what’s on the flight recorder.”
“Christ,” the pilot said.
The huge passenger jet roared upward, breaking through cloud cover at thirty-one thousand feet. Going up another thousand feet, before losing speed. Approaching stall. Then nosing over again.
Jennifer vomited explosively into the bag. It spilled out over her hands, dribbled onto her lap. She turned to Casey, her face green, weak, contorted.
“Stop it, please. . .”
The plane had started to nose over again. Going down.
Casey looked at her. “Don’t you want to reproduce the full event for your cameras? Great visuals. Two more cycles to go.”
The plane was diving steeply now. Still looking at Jennifer, Casey said, ‘Teddy! Teddy, take your hands off the controls!”
Jennifer’s eyes widened. Horrified.
Click. “Roger. Taking my hands off now.”
Immediately the plane leveled out. Smoothly, gently. The scream of the engines abated to a constant, steady roar. The foam blocks fell to the carpet, tumbled once, and did not move.
Level flight.
Sunlight streamed through the windows.
Jennifer wiped vomit from her lips with the back of her hand. She stared around the cabin in a daze. “What . . . what happened?”
“The pilot took his hands off the stick.”
Jennifer shook her head, not understanding. Her eyes were glazed. In a weak voice she said, “He took his hands off?”
Casey nodded. “That’s right.”
“Well then …”
“The autopilot is flying the plane.”
Malone collapsed back in her seat, put her head back. Closed her eyes. “I don’t understand,” she said.
‘To end the incident on Right 545, all the pilot had to do was take his hands off the column. If he had taken his hands away, it would have ended immediately.”
Jennifer sighed. “Then why didn’t he?”
Casey didn’t answer her. She turned to the monitor. ‘Teddy,” she said, “let’s go back.”
YUMA TEST STATION
9:45 a.m.
Back on the ground, Casey went through the main room of the Flight Test Station, and into the pilots’ room. It was an old, wood-paneled lounge for test pilots from the days when Norton still made military aircraft. A lumpy green couch, faded gray from sunlight. A couple of metal flight chairs, pulled up to a scratched Formica table. The only new object in the room was a small television, with a built-in tape deck. It stood beside a battered Coke machine, with a taped card that said OUT OF ORDER. In the window, a grinding air conditioner. It was already blazing hot on the airfield, and the room was uncomfortably warm.
Casey looked through the window at the Newsline crew, walking around Flight 545, filming it as it sat on the runway. The aircraft gleamed in the bright desert sun. The crew seemed lost, not certain what to do. They aimed their cameras as if composing a shot, then lowered them again immediately. They seemed to be waiting.
Casey opened the manila folder she had brought with her, and looked through the sheets of paper inside. The color Xeroxes she asked Norma to make had turned out rather well. And the telexes were satisfactory. Everything was in order.