“So where does that leave us, George?” Sawyer calmly asked.
Kaplan looked back up. He sighed. “Next we look at possible mechanical
or nondesign structural failure. Catastrophic results on an aircraft
usually stem from two or more failures happening almost simultaneously.
I listened to the transmission record between the pilot and the tower.
The captain radioed in a Mayday several minutes before the crash,
although it was clear from what little she said that they were unsure
what had happened. The plane’s transponder was still kicking the radar
signals back until impact, so at least some of the electrical systems
were working up until then. But let’s say we had an engine catch on
fire at the same time a fuel leak occurred.
Most people might assume fuel leak, flames from the engine–wham, you
got yourself an explosion and there goes the wing. Or there might not
have been an actual explosion, although it sure as hell looks like there
was. The fire could’ve weakened and finally collapsed the spar and the
wing gets torn off. That could explain what we think happened to Flight
3223, at least at this early stage.” Kaplan did not sound convinced.
“But?” Sawyer looked at him.
Kaplan rubbed at his eyes, the frustration clear in his troubled
features. “There’s no evidence that anything was wrong with the damned
engine. Except for the obvious damage caused from its impact with the
terrain and ingesting debris from the initial explosion, nothing leads
me to believe that an engine problem played a role in the crash. If
there was an engine fire, standard procedure would dictate cutting off
the fuel flow to that engine and then turning off the power. The L500’s
engines are equipped with automatic fire detection and extinguisher
systems. And, more importantly, they’re mounted low, so no flames would
fly toward the wings or the fuselage.
So even if you have twin catastrophes–a flaming engine and a fuel
leak–the design features of the aircraft and the environmental
conditions prevailing at thirty-five thousand feet and an airspeed of
over five hundred miles per hour would pretty much ensure that the two
shall not meet.” He rubbed his foot against the wing. “I guess what I’m
saying is I wouldn’t bet the farm on a bad engine having crashed this
bird.” He paused. “There’s something else.”
Kaplan once again knelt beside the jagged edge of the wing.
“Like I said, there is clear evidence of an explosion. When I first
checked the wing, I was thinking some type of improvised explosive
device. You know, like Semtex wired to a timer or altimeter device.
Plane hits a certain altitude, the bomb goes off. The blast fractures
the skin, you got almost immediate rivet failure. Hundreds-of
miles-per-hour winds hitting it, that wing’s gonna open right up at the
weakest point, like unzipping your fly. Spar gives way, and barn.
Hell, the weight of the engine on this section of the wing would have
guaranteed that result.” He paused, apparently to study ,the interior of
the wing more closely. “The twist is I don’t think a typical explosive
device was involved.”
“Why’s that?” Sawyer asked.
Kaplan pointed inside the wing to the exposed section of the fuel tank
near the fuel panel. He held his light over the spot. “Look at this.”
A large hole was clearly visible. All around the perforation were light
brown stains and the metal was warped and bubbled. “I noticed those
earlier,” Sawyer said.
“There is no way in the world a hole like this could have been naturally
generated. In any event, it would’ve been caught on routine inspection
before the plane took off,” Kaplan said.
Sawyer put on his gloves before touching the area. “Maybe it happened
during the explosion.”
“If it did, it was the only ?pot it happened to. There are no other
markings like this on this section of the wing, although you got fuel
everywhere. That pretty much rules out the explosion having caused it.
But I do believe something was put on the fuel tank wall.” Kaplan paused
and nervously rubbed his fingers together. “I think some thing was put
on it deliberately to cause that hole.”
“Like a corrosive acid?” Sawyer asked.