Final Approach (10 page)

“What's the status of wreckage security and distribution?” Joe asked, shifting the subject rapidly.

“Most of the pieces, both large and small, are confined to the outer and inner taxiways alongside Runway 19, and the hammerhead area. Some pieces ended up on the runway. The front fuselage and cockpit section of the Airbus ended up in the grass halfway between the taxiways and the runway, and that, fortunately, didn't burn. The pilot and copilot, two flight attendants, and twelve passengers came out of that section alive. I know we don't have much time, but just so you know, the heroics of the two surviving flight attendants in getting the people away from the wreckage was something else! No one else on the Airbus made it. We have all the bodies that were thrown free marked and covered but not moved, waiting for you. My orders, in accordance with the handbook, were that the police not allow a single piece of wreckage to be moved except to pull out survivors. I think they've complied. The airport manager, by the way, wanted me to tell you he needs his runway open again as soon as possible.”

Joe snorted. “It may be days. He has another runway, we just landed on it.”

“There's a big Air Force plane trapped down there, and I guess the crew is giving him a hard time, but I told him we couldn't commit to when the wreckage could be moved.”

“You told him right,” Joe confirmed. “Have you had time to make any ground arrangements?”

“Yes. All done.” Carloni pulled a packet of papers from his coat pocket. “The manager of the Marriott here on the airport property came out hours ago and has helped set everything up. We have the main ballroom as the headquarters, and the phones will be in about now. I reserved fifteen rooms; I didn't know who was coming, so there are no names attached. I've also got portable cellular phones for all of you rented from a rental-car counter. They're expensive, but they'll keep everyone on line and in touch. There are four rented minivans parked at the hotel and one parked at the curb here, and the airport police have already given me flight-line passes for them. Ah, I also rented one small conference room for interviews.”

Carloni continued as Joe made notes, impressed with all the young investigator had accomplished.

“How about passenger lists, survivor lists, hospitals, all that?” Joe asked.

Carloni shook his head disgustedly. “North America's command and control here is nonexistent. They're in mass confusion. A fellow named Rustigan is their station manager, and he's been so emotionally thwacked by all this, he makes promises but forgets them.”

“The lists, then?”

“Promised, but I haven't seen anything yet.”

The door to the office fairly burst open, revealing a disgusted Andy Wallace. “
There
you are! Joe, I've just come from baggage claim … these idiots have lost half our damn bags, including the field kit.”

“Wonderful.”

“Yeah. They're going back to the aircraft to check. The flight goes on to San Francisco. If they're not there, they didn't make it on in D.C.”

Joe looked at Susan, who was shaking her head as well, then back at Andy. “File the reports, Andy, then get everyone over to the hotel and start rounding up the incoming team members from North America, Airbus, FAA, the Air Line Pilots Association—all of the parties who're sending people. Stay in charge until I get there. Schedule an organizational meeting with just us staffers”—Joe stopped and glanced at Susan Kelly with a small grin—“plus the Board member at, say, nine
A.M.
Let's tell the media, if Dr. Kelly agrees, that we'll do a conference for them around noon, and a briefing of all the parties at two
P
.
M.”

Andy reached for the doorknob, but Joe stopped him.

“Andy, if you need to change any times, do it. Those are initial targets.”

Andy Wallace smiled at Joe, appreciating the trust. His style of command under pressure had endeared Joe Wallingford to everyone. He was considerate, and that meant something.

Joe wanted an initial tour of the wreckage, but for ten minutes more he and Carloni compared notes, Rich doing most of the talking, relating his actions and the problems that were already getting in the way of an orderly investigation.

They left at Joe's signal, getting into the rented minivan and entering the flight line, Carloni using a borrowed police radio to get clearance from ground control to enter the ramp area and taxiway.

It was familiar, but it never became routine, looking in person at the immediate aftermath of a major air disaster. Susan was silent, her eyes intent on the scores of tarps covering the bodies of the dead, all of whom had been left in place.

“My God,” she said softly.

“The tail of the 320 is relatively intact,” Rich told them. “I imagine the voice and flight recorders will be found easily. Same for the 737 when the people are finally pulled out, though there won't be a lot to read on those tapes, I suppose. They just were unfortunate to have been in the way.”

They passed the separated forward section of the Airbus, which had been flung to the side as the aircraft disintegrated, and, weaving to avoid other clumps of wreckage, finally approached a confused mass of emergency vehicles, empty ambulances, cherry pickers, maintenance stands, and fire trucks surrounding a mass of jumbled aerospace metal with the remains of a 737 tail fin stabbing the murky air, the emblem of North America Airlines blaring its presence with the same incongruous impact of brightly colored plumage marking the fallen carcass of a dead bird.

Rich shook his head in disgust. “Would you believe North America sent a paint-sprayer crew out here before dawn to paint out their name and logo?”

“Standard procedure,” Joe replied with a snort. “Every airline lists that in their emergency response checklists as one of the most vital duties.”

“Unbelievable,” Rich said quietly. “As if people will be too stupid to know whose airplanes crashed here. I had the cops escort them out of here—at least until the survivors are rescued, for God's sake!”

They got out then, walking toward the glut of firemen and other emergency personnel standing restlessly around the wreck, many of them holding fire extinguishers—a fire-fighting-foam truck mere feet away, its nozzle manned and ready to shoot fire suppressant onto the wreck—and the survivors—at the first hint of a spark.

A tired and dirty chief, whom Joe estimated to be six foot four, stood with a walkie-talkie, exuding authority but saying nothing before they approached. Joe introduced himself, and the chief explained the frustrating difficulty of having to use great care to pull away the heavier structural pieces, cutting others, all with a hydraulic tool called the Jaws of Life, which was designed to work in such conditions, its gasoline generator placed a safe distance from the flammable wreckage.

“You can't use torches or saws, right?”

“You've got it. We light a cutting torch or create sparks with a saw, we'll lose all of them in there. We have to be damn careful using Jaws, too, foaming the area we're working in.”

“How are they doing in there?”

The big man looked at Joe, a look of great sadness and empathy. “God, it's been hard. There are six of them. One was dead by the time they were discovered. At least he's not moving, but we haven't been able to get a stethoscope in yet. The one who kept yelling and finally got herself heard is a young college girl, I think in her twenties, who's got a … a … metal rod literally through her leg, impaling her. She's unbelievable. She's been guiding us in calmly. One of the doctors managed to get several hypos of morphine in, and she's worked on her seatmates, a seven-year-old boy and his four-year-old sister, who're both in bad shape. We may lose them.”

“How about the others?” Susan asked.

“A husband and wife. She's unconscious; he's been hysterical and in pain, trying to get to his kids, and afraid he's going to lose his wife. He's not cooperating at all. The two little kids are his. We think his wife may be close to death, but until a doctor gets in there, we can't tell.”

Joe turned away and nearly fell over a tall man in a business suit who had appeared unannounced behind them. The fellow extended his hand, identifying himself as an FBI agent assigned to investigate the accident.

“Where do you want to talk, Agent … was it Jamison?”

“Yes sir. Chet Jamison. I'll ride back with you.”

The startlingly loud report of brittle metal reaching the breaking point filled the air suddenly, and all eyes whirled back toward the wreckage in apprehension.

Deep within the aerospace prison which held her, Linda Ellis heard the noise as a distant sound which forced her mind back toward reality as she opened her eyes and stared at the gray daylight filtering in, a bit more of it now, she thought, than before. The morphine had made her head feel fuzzy as it dulled the pain, and she had to struggle to think as she watched the outlines of worried rescuers laboring behind the jungle of metal, so close yet still out of reach. There had been a noise … one of them was saying something, and she strained to pay attention.

“Hang in there, Linda. We've got another major piece out of the way. We'll be able to get a doctor in there in a few minutes.”

Linda looked to her left at the contorted face of the little girl in the middle seat. Linda had been in an aisle seat, the little girl … what was her name? Jill. That was it. Jill was four, and her brother was seven. Jill had been in the middle seat. Their parents were across the aisle … somewhere. Too much debris separated them. Linda had tried to reach the father, who kept yelling. She had tried to give him the hypodermic needle with the painkiller, but she couldn't get her arm through.

Jill was unconscious again. With a start Linda felt for her wrist and found a pulse. The brother—she had forgotten his name again—was holding his sister's shoulder and crying softly. Jill closed her eyes and repeated the same phrase she had clung to for so long. “I will survive this. We will survive this. We
will
survive this!”

It was so cold. So very cold. The men trying to reach them had a machine blowing warm air into the area, but it wasn't enough. She had tried to think of fires and fireplaces, imagine herself in front of the family fireplace in Austin or on a sunny beach, but it didn't work. She was freezing, and Jill's father kept yelling that they were all going to die of hypothermia.

At least she had found the milk. Her eyes had hurt so badly from the fuel that covered her, but part of the wreckage holding her prisoner was from the plane's galley, and there had been an unopened milk carton by her side. She had poured it in her eyes—rubbed the milk in her eyes—and they felt much better. God had sent her the milk. That meant she was supposed to survive. She had to survive. It was her duty. The milk carton proved it.

“How much longer?” She heard Jill's father yell the question, and the same answer as before came back from the faceless forms above. “Soon.” Always soon. Soon was becoming an eternity. The fuzziness returned and the University of Missouri sophomore felt herself surrendering to it. She would sleep awhile. Soon they would be out, and safe.

5

Saturday morning, October 13

North America 135 was the first Saturday flight in from Dallas, a point not lost on most members of the media, who had positioned themselves to meet it. Passengers with no connection to the crash and grieving family members alike emerged from the jetway unprepared, blinking into the confusing glare of TV lights, a forest of camera lenses recording their varied expressions.

Among the first wave, Bill Deason, a harried-looking man in his thirties, emerged with only a topcoat, read the Gate 10 sign quickly, and turned right, hurrying past several gates before finding the appropriate door he had noted on his hastily copied instructions. He pushed his way inside, past a departing priest, and immediately spotted his brother-in-law sitting alone near a corner in the club room. Mark Weiss heard his name as Bill approached and nodded weakly, both of them standing for a few seconds in awkward silence before Bill hugged Mark, a gesture that at any other time might have been embarrassing to the two men, but in the pain of the moment was merely a background to the tears cascading from both faces.

As the passengers continued to flow into the terminal from the Dallas flight, a North America executive emerged with a contingent of other airline personnel behind, each escorting family members of those lost or injured in the crash. Two buses waited at the curb, exhaust fumes curling around their undercarriages in the moisture-laden air, one bound for the hospital with the relatives of survivors, the other with instructions to proceed to a nearby hotel, where the airline would help make arrangements for such painful tasks as body identification and shipment.

When the other passengers had all emerged, a lone figure stepped out of the jetway, her face a haunted study in panic and grief, her clothes stylish but hastily donned. She wore the telltale signs of tears instead of makeup and carried only a handbag, and to one curious reporter, there was something strange and wrenching about the nervous self-consciousness with which she tried to move across the gate area as anonymously as possible, avoiding both of the buses and heading instead for a taxi stand, where she disappeared quickly into the first cab in line. Mrs. Richard Timson repeated the name of the hospital to the cabby and sank back in the seat, her mind racing—her badly injured pilot husband some 12 miles away. The taxi sped toward the freeway past the airport hotel where at that moment Joe Wallingford was beginning the task of organizing the NTSB's search for the answer to the burning question on everyone's mind: Why?

In the small conference room at the Marriott, Dr. Susan Kelly was fighting hard to concentrate—to keep the awful images of the crash site from controlling her mind and her feelings. The agony of the kids in the wreckage kept pulling her away. She had not seen their faces, of course, but she could feel their agony. This was not what she had imagined accident investigation would be.