Airframe (16 page)

But in the end, it was a political problem, not her area. She went to the next telex: FROM: S. NIETO, FSR VANC TO: C. SINGLETON, QA/IRT

FIRST OFFICER LU ZAN PING UNDERWENT EMERGENCY SURGERY FOR SUBDURAL

HEMATOMA AT VANC GEN HOSPITAL 0400 HRS TODAY. F/O NOT AVAILABLE FOR

QUESTIONS AT LEAST 48 HRS. FURTHER DETAILS TF.

Casey had been hoping for an interview with the injured first officer sooner than that. She wanted to know why he was in the back of the plane, and not in the cockpit. But it seemed an answer to that question would have to wait until the end of the week.

She came to the next telex, and stared in astonishment.

FROM: RICK RAKOSKI, FSR HK TO: CASEY SINGLETON, QA/IRT

RECEIVED YOUR REQUEST MAINTENANCE RECORDS FOR TPA FLIGHT 545, FUSE

271, FOREIGN REGISTRY 098/443/HB09 AND PASSED IT ON TO THE CARRIER.

IN RESPONSE TO FAA REQUEST TRANSPACIFIC RELEASED ALL RECORDS FROM

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REPAIR STATION KAITAK HK, REPAIR STATION SINGAPORE, REPAIR STATION

MELBOURNE. THESE UPLOADED TO NORTON ONLINE SYSTEMS AS OF 2210 LOCAL

TIME. STILL WORKING ON CREW INTERVIEWS. MUCH MORE DIFFICULT. DETAILS TF.

A smart move by the carrier, she thought. Since they didn't want to grant crew interviews, they had decided to provide everything else, in an apparent display of cooperation.

Norma came into her office. "Records from LAX are corning in now," she said. "And Hong Kong already delivered."

"I see that. Have you got the storage address?"

"Right here." She handed her a slip of paper, and Casey typed it into the terminal behind her desk. There was a delay for the call to the mainframe, and then a screen flashed up.

MAINT REC N-22 / FUSE 271 / FR 098/443/HB09

DD 5/14 AS 6/19 MOD 8/12

< RS KAITAK - MAINT REC (A-C)

< RS SNGPOR - MAINT REC (B ONLY)

< RS MELB - MAINT REC (A, B ONLY)

"All right," she said. She went to work.

It was the better part of an hour before Casey had her answers. But at the end of mat time, she had a good picture of what had happened to the slats locking pin on the Transpacific aircraft.

On November 10 of the previous year, on a flight from Bombay to Melbourne, the Transpacific aircraft had experienced a problem with radio communications. The pilot made an unscheduled stop on the island of Java, in Indonesia. There, the radio was repaired without difficulty (a blown circuit panel was changed out), and Javanese ground crews refueled the plane for the continuing flight to Melbourne.

After the aircraft landed in Melbourne, Australian ground crews noted that the right wing was damaged.

Thank you, Amos.

The wing was damaged.

Mechanics in Melbourne noted that the fuel coupling was bent on the right wing, and the adjacent slats locking pin was slightly damaged. This was thought to have been caused by ground personnel in Java during the previous fueling stop.

The fuel line couplings on the N-22 were located on the underside of the wing, just behind the leading edge. An inexperienced ground person had used the wrong power lift truck for the N-22

and had jammed the platform railing into the fuel hose while the hose was hooked into the wing.

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This bent the hose bracket into the wing coupler, bent the coupler plate, and damaged the nearby slats pin.

Slats locking pins were an infrequent change item, and Melbourne repair station did not have one in stock. Rather than delay the aircraft in Australia, it was decided to allow the plane to continue to Singapore and change the part there. However, a sharp-eyed maintenance person in Singapore noticed that the paper on their replacement locking pin appeared suspect.

Maintenance crews were uncertain whether the replacement pin was genuine or not.

Since the part already in place functioned normally, Singapore elected not to replace it, and the aircraft was sent on to Hong Kong, the home terminal for Transpacific, where a genuine replacement part was assured. Hong Kong Repair Station—fully aware they were located in a world center for counterfeiting—took special precautions to insure their spare aviation parts were genuine. They ordered parts directly from the original equipment manufacturers in the United States. On November 13 of the previous year, a brand-new slats locking pin was installed on the aircraft.

Paper for the part appeared to be proper; a photocopy came up on Casey's screen. The part had come from Hoffman Metal Works in Montclair, California—Norton's original supplier. But Casey knew the paper was fake, because the part itself was fake. She would run it down later, and find out where the part had actually come from.

But right now, the only question was the one Amos had posed:

Were other parts replaced, as well?

Sitting at her terminal, Casey scrolled through the maintenance summary records for Hong Kong Repair Station for November 13, to find what else had been done to the aircraft mat day.

It was slow going; she had to look at photocopies of maintenance cards, with scrawled handwritten notations after each checkbox. But eventually she found a list of work that had been done on the wing.

There were three notations.

CHG RT LDLT FZ-7. Change the right landing light fuse 7.

CHG RT SLTS LK PIN. Change the right slats locking pin.

CK ASS EQ PKG. Check the associated equipment package. This was followed by a mechanic's notation NRML. Meaning it was checked and normal.

The associated equipment package was a maintenance sub-grouping of related parts that had to be checked whenever a faulty part was detected. For example, if seals on the right fuel lines were found to be worn, it was standard practice to check' seals on the left side as well, since they were part of the associated equipment package.

Changing the slats locking pin had triggered a maintenance check of associated equipment.

But which equipment?

She knew the associated equipment packages were specified by Norton. But she couldn't pull 88

up the list on her office computer. To do that, she would have to go back to the terminal on the floor.

She pushed away from her desk.

BLD6 64

2:40 P.M.

Building 64 was nearly deserted, the widebody line seemingly abandoned between shifts.

There was a one-hour delay between first and second shifts, because it took that long for the parking lots to clear. First shift ended at 2:30 P.M. Second shift started at 3:30.

This was the time that Jerry Jenkins had said she should examine the records because there wouldn't be an audience. She had to admit he was right. There was nobody around now.

Casey went directly to the parts cage, looking for Jenkins, but he wasn't there. She saw the QA section manager, and asked where Jerry Jenkins was.

"Jerry? He went home," the manager said.

"Why?"

"Said he wasn't feeling good."

Casey frowned. Jenkins shouldn't have left until after five. She went to the terminal to bring up the information herself.

Typing at the keyboard, she soon had called up the database of associated maintenance packages. She keyed in RT SLATS LK PIN and got the answer she was looking for.

RT SLATS ERV TRK

(22 / RW / 2-5455 / SLS)

RT SLATS LVR (22 / RW / 2-5769 / SLS)

RT SLATS HVD ACT

(22 / RW / 2-7334 / SLS)

RT SLATS PSTN (22 / RW / 2-3444 / SLS)

RT SLATS FD CPLNG (22 / RW / 2-3445 / SLC)

RT PRX SNSR (22 / RW / 4-0212 / PRC)

RT PRX SNSR CPLNG (22 / RW / 4-0445 / PRC)

RT PRX SNSR PLT

(22 / RW / 4-0343 / PRC)

RT PRX SNSR WC

(22 / RW / 4-0102 / PRW)

It made sense. The associated parts package consisted of the other five elements of the slats drive track: the track, the lever, the hydraulic actuator, the piston, the forward coupling.

In addition, the list instructed mechanics to check the nearby proximity sensor, its coupling, cover plate, and wiring.

She knew Doherty had already inspected the drive track. If Amos was right, they ought to look very carefully at that proximity sensor. She didn't think anybody had done that yet.

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The proximity sensor. It was located deep in the wing. Difficult to get to. Difficult to inspect.

Could that have caused a problem?

Yes, she thought, it was possible.

She shut down the terminal and crossed the plant floor, heading back to her office. She needed to call Ron Smith, to tell him to check the sensor. She walked beneath deserted aircraft toward the open doors at the north end of the building.

As she neared the doors, she saw two men enter the hangar. They were silhouetted against the midday sunlight, but she could see that one wore a red checked shirt. And the other had on a baseball cap.

Casey turned to ask the QA floor manager to call Security. But he was gone; the wire cage stood empty. Casey looked around, and suddenly realized the floor was deserted. She saw no one except an elderly black woman at the far end of the building, pushing a broom. The woman was half a mile away.

Casey looked at her watch. It would be another fifteen minutes before people started showing up.

The two men were walking toward her.

Casey turned and started to walk away from them, heading back the way she had come. She could handle this, she thought.

Calmly, she opened her purse, pulled out her cell phone to call Security.

But the phone didn't work. She didn't get a signal. She realized she was in the center of the building, which was hung with copper mesh along the ceiling to block extraneous radio transmissions while the aircraft systems were being tested.

She wouldn't be able to use her cell phone until she reached the other side of the building.

Half a mile away.

She walked faster. Her shoes clicked on the concrete. The sound seemed to echo through the building. Could she really be alone here? Of course not. There were several hundred people in the building with her, right now. It was just that she couldn't see them. They were inside the airplanes, or standing behind the big tools around the planes. Hundreds of people, all around her. Any minute, she'd see some of them.

She glanced over her shoulder.

The men were gaining on her.

She picked up her pace, almost starting to jog, unsteady in her low heels. And she suddenly thought, This is ridiculous. I'm an executive of Norton Aircraft and I am running through this plant in the middle of the day.

She slowed to a normal walk.

She took a deep breath.

She glanced back: the men were closer now.

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Should she confront them? No, she thought. Not unless other people were around.

She walked faster.

To her left was a parts staging area. Ordinarily, there would be dozens of men inside there, fetching parts kits, working the bins. But now the cage was empty. .

Deserted.

She looked over her shoulder. The men were fifty yards behind, and closing.

She knew that if she started to scream, a dozen mechanics would suddenly appear. The goons would slip away, vanishing behind tools and scaffolding, and she'd look like a fool. She'd never live it down. The girl who lost it that day on the floor.

She wouldn't scream.

No.

Where the hell were the fire alarms? The medic alert alarms? The hazardous materials alarms? She knew they were scattered all over the building. She'd spent years working in this building. She ought to be able to remember where they were located.

She could hit one and say it was an accident...

But she saw no alarms.

The men were now thirty yards behind. If they broke into a run, they'd reach her in a few seconds. But they were being cautious—apparently they, too, expected to see people at any moment.

But she saw nobody.

On her right, she saw a forest of blue beams—the big industrial jigs that held the fuselage barrels in place, while they were riveted together. The last place she might hide.

I'm an executive of Norton Aircraft. And it's—

The hell with it.

She turned right, ducking among the beams, scrambling through them. She passed staircases and hanging lamps. She heard the men behind her shout in surprise, and start to follow. But by then she was moving in near darkness through the girders. Moving fast.

Casey knew her way around here. She moved quickly, with assurance, always glancing up, hoping to see someone above. Usually there were twenty or thirty men at each position on the scaffolding overhead, joining the barrels in a glare of fluorescent light. Now she saw nobody.

Behind her, she heard the men grunt, heard them bang into the crossbeams, swearing.

She started to run, dodging low-hanging beams, jumping over cables and boxes, and then suddenly she came out into a clearing. Station fourteen: a plane stood on its landing gear, high above the floor. And higher still, all around the tail, she saw the hanging gardens, rising sixty feet into the air.

She looked up at the widebody, and she saw the silhouette of someone inside. Someone in the window.

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Someone inside the plane.

Finally! Casey climbed the stairs to the plane, her feet clanging on the steel steps. She went two stones up, then paused to look. High above her, in the hanging gardens, she saw three burly mechanics in hard hats. They were only ten feet below the ceiling, working on the topmost hinge of the rudder; she heard the quick, sputtering buzz of power tools.

She looked down and saw the two men following her on the floor below. They broke clear of the forest of blue jigs, looked up, saw her, and started after her.