Free Fall (4 page)

Six

Washington, DC

J
ake Hooper kept pace with the rhythmic jingling of the leash as he and his German shepherd, Pax, trotted alongside the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool at the National Mall.

Pax panted happily. He loved running here. But Hooper was running with a heavy heart. His dog was getting on and his arthritic pain and bone spurs had taken a toll. The vet didn't give Pax much time before the pain would be unbearable and he'd have to be put down.

Hooper and his wife, Gwen, couldn't have children. For them, Pax was a cherished family member who gave them nothing but unconditional love. Hooper was thinking about what life would be like without him when his phone rang and he stopped cold.

It was from the National Transportation Safety Board duty officer.

“Jake, it's Crawley at the comms center. We got one at LaGuardia, an EastCloud Richlon-TitanRT-86. More than two dozen injured. No fatalities. Landed without incident.”

“Thank God for that. Do we have a suspected cause?”

“Crew reports a flight control computer malfunction.”

“A computer malfunction?” Hooper considered it.

“The RT-86 is a new model. That's why we're traveling on this one. I'm sending you a ticket now.”

“Okay. I'll get home, grab my bag and get to National.”

Hooper cupped Pax's head in his hands, reading the question in his big eyes.

“That's right. I gotta go, pal.”

They caught a cab home to their porch-front row house in Glover Park. Hooper took a quick shower, called a cab and set out bowls of fresh water and food for Pax, who whined a goodbye as Hooper shouldered his prepacked bag and locked the house.

In the cab to the airport, he texted Gwen, who was at her sister's in Georgetown. Then he digested the information coming in about the aircraft and the occurrence.

EastCloud Flight 4990 had originated in Buffalo, bound for LaGuardia, with eighty passengers and five crew aboard. The plane had been twenty-seven thousand feet over the Catskills when it suddenly rolled ninety degrees right, then ninety degrees left, then dropped seven thousand feet before the crew regained control. Result: twenty-eight passengers and two attendants injured, some of them seriously. There was damage to the cabin.

The crew reported a flight-management systems problem. But there are safety features to guard against that.

Hooper's years as an NTSB investigator had taught him that initial information on the circumstances of an incident was often incomplete. He always regarded preliminary data with caution. They had a long way to go yet and a lot to do, like analyze the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, and talk to the crew.

He considered the plane.

The RT-86 had come on stream about two years ago with few problems. The new model had a good safety record with no incidents with significant implications. Bottom line, Hooper thought the RT-86 was a very solid, state-of-the-art commercial jetliner.

So what could've caused the problem?

Don't overthink this. Wait until all the facts are known,
he thought. But it was impossible not to consider theories. He was a detective. Probing crashes and incidents was all he'd done since he'd got his degree in aeronautical science from Arizona State University.

Hooper had been among the top graduates of his class. Right out of school he'd been hired as a civilian at Naval Air Systems Command in Virginia, where he'd examined United States Navy and Marine Corps aircraft accidents.

Along the way, he'd become a licensed pilot, then a flight instructor, and he'd obtained an engineering degree. He'd left Virginia when he'd been hired by the MacCalleb Aircraft Company in Wichita, Kansas, as a flight test engineer. He'd taken part in dozens of accident investigations, providing technical help to Federal Aviation Administration safety inspectors and the NTSB. He'd frequently and successfully challenged their findings.

Hooper's exceptional work led to a position as an NTSB regional investigator then, eventually, a job with Major Investigations Division at their headquarters in Washington. His insights impressed seasoned experts and he was not afraid to challenge supervisors. Hooper didn't care because he adhered to the belief, as did all investigators, that safety was paramount; that with each tragedy, each incident, his job was to find information that would prevent other accidents and enhance the safety of air travel.

He was obsessed, almost pathologically so, with ensuring that nothing in an investigation was ruled out without being triple-checked and triple-checked again.

Today, he was anxious because this was his last time on a Go Team as a senior air safety investigator. After this investigation, he'd be promoted to investigator-in-charge, the IIC, and would lead his own team.

Hooper's cab stopped at Departures and he headed for the American Airlines desk. The NTSB comms center had sent him an electronic ticket for the next flight to LaGuardia. Tapping his mobile boarding pass and showing his ID, Hooper made his way through security to the preboarding area of his gate, where he recognized members of the Go Team.

“Hey, Jake, you old tin-kicker.” Swanson, the expert on power plants, shook his hand.

They were joined by Willet from maintenance. From human performance, sitting off alone working on a laptop, was Irene Zimm. She was known as Good Night Irene, because if she found that a pilot had violated any aspect of safety procedures, it meant a world of pain.

The one man who didn't greet Hooper was on the phone: Bill Cashill, a case-hardened veteran. He had no love for Hooper, who'd once corrected Cashill at an investigation, something Cashill had never forgotten and never forgiven. Cashill was set to retire after thirty years as a leading investigator on some of the board's biggest crashes. He was the investigator-in-charge. He glanced at Hooper then resumed concentrating on his call before he finally stood and surveyed his team.

“What do you think about this EastCloud incident, Bill?” Willet asked.

“I think this is overkill, even with a partial team.”

“But it's a new-generation aircraft,” Swanson said.

“I'm aware of that, but my gut's telling me that this thing has all the indications of an overreaction by the crew to clear-air turbulence.”

“But the crew said—” Hooper started.

“I know what the crew said, Jacob.”

Hooper preferred to be called Jake, and Cashill knew it.

An uneasy moment passed before Irene Zimm broke it.

“Bill, would you come over for a second and look at this?”

Cashill went over to Zimm, who turned her computer so he could see the screen. They chatted quietly. A short time later, they boarded their jet for the one-hour flight to New York. As it leveled off, Hooper took stock, reflecting on Gwen. They'd been high school sweethearts and they had an anniversary coming up. He was going to surprise her with a pearl necklace and matching earrings.

The soft cry of a baby two rows ahead saddened him, not only because Hooper and Gwen would never have children, but because it pulled him back to the horrors of his job.

No matter how many investigations he'd done, it never got easier. He'd lost count of how many times he'd found charred remains, dead passengers holding each other at the moment of impact, victims entwined in metal debris, impaled in trees, buried in the ground.

He still had nightmares.

The baby in the seat ahead continued crying and pulled him back to last year, when a commuter jet had lost both engines on its approach to Memphis during a storm at night and plowed into a hillside. Forty-seven people had died. Walking alone in a wooded area among scattered pieces of twisted wreckage, Hooper had come upon a baby.

The only visible injury had been a tiny bloodied scrape on its head.

The child had been beautiful, a perfect angel, wearing pajamas with teddy bears and rabbits. Its eyes had been closed and it had appeared to be sleeping as a soft breeze lifted strands of its hair.

The baby had been dead.

Suddenly the wall Hooper had built to protect himself from the emotional toll of his work had crumbled and he'd been overcome. He'd dropped to his knees beside the baby and said a silent prayer, had removed his jacket and gently covered the child, then reached for his radio to call the medical examiner's staff.

Now, as his plane jetted to New York, he looked at the sky, relieved this incident had had no fatalities.

Seven

Queens, New York

T
he next morning a vacuum cleaner hummed down the hall from a meeting room in LaGuardia's central terminal.

Outside the room's closed doors, Captain Raymond Matson waited alone to be interviewed by NTSB investigators. Nervous tension had dried his throat and he'd grown thirsty.

He hadn't slept well.

He thought of his passengers and crew—they'd suffered fractures and concussions. Rosalita Ortiz, one of the flight attendants, had broken her back.

Matson clenched his eyes tight.

He'd already given a verbal report to an FAA inspector who'd met him and the first officer yesterday at the gate, and he'd provided a blood sample for analysis.

After several seconds, Matson opened his eyes. He resumed reviewing his notes when his phone vibrated with a text from his lawyer.

Papers are ready to sign whenever you can drop by. That'll be it.

Matson stared at the message. With his signature, his sixteen-year marriage would be over. For a brief instant, he remembered a time when they'd been happy. He stared at a mural on the wall of Manhattan's skyline and his wife's accusations played through his thoughts:

You're never home. You've become a ghost to us and I'm so tired of being a single parent to three children.

She'd already taken the kids and moved back to Portland. She'd let him take care of the house in Westfield; a for-sale sign was on the front lawn. She'd get 60 percent when it sold, according to the settlement. It was true. He'd missed birthdays, Little League games, recitals and graduations. He was married to his job and now it was hanging by a thread. The doors opened.

“Captain Matson, we're ready to see you.”

A woman invited him inside to an empty chair at one end of a large boardroom table. The woman, dressed in a burgundy jacket, white top and matching pants, took her seat at the opposite end.

“Thank you for coming in so early this morning, Captain. I'm Irene Zimm with NTSB. I'll be leading this session. To my right is Bill Cashill and Jake Hooper with the NTSB, then we have...”

She introduced the half dozen other officials who were seated at the table with notepads and pens poised. Small microphones rose from the table before each of them, as well as Matson himself. All eyes and a video camera were on him as Zimm proceeded.

“As we begin, you understand that this interview is being recorded, and anything you say will inform our investigation?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“And you understand the rules and policies of the board, your airline and union, about talking to the media or public?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Very well, we'll go over some preliminary matters. We have a summary of your verbal report. You've been in contact with Gus Vitalley from the pilots' union, seated to your left.”

“Yes, we spoke yesterday.”

“And we have your blood sample.”

“Yes.”

Zimm tapped her pen on an open file folder she had before her and consulted a laptop next to it. “We'll confirm your personal background with you. You've been with EastCloud for approximately thirteen years, and have been a captain for six of those years, correct?”

“That is correct.”

“You have over twelve thousand total flight hours, of which you were pilot-in-command for seven thousand flight hours.”

“Yes.”

“I see that you have no incidents and no failed check rides.”

“Correct.”

“As for the new Richlon-TitanRT-86, you have approximately eight hundred flight hours as the pilot-in-command.”

“Yes.”

“Prior to this trip, you and the first officer, Roger Anderson, had flown together twice before?”

“Yes. Chicago to San Diego and Phoenix to Atlanta, both in RTs.”

“Thank you. The aircraft has been taken out of service and moved to a maintenance hangar. The flight data recorder and the voice cockpit recorder have been removed and sent to our lab in Washington for analysis. We'll also be examining air traffic control radar and weather. Now, leading up to the incident, you reported the trip as routine with no weather issues.”

“That's correct.”

“Approximately twenty-five minutes into the flight, your course was one hundred fifteen degrees southeast, speed was four hundred ninety-one knots and your altitude was twenty-seven thousand feet, when you experienced a sudden, unintended series of roll oscillations, ninety degrees to the right then ninety degrees to the left, then a banked, unintended descent of seven thousand feet before you, Captain, regained control of the plane and alerted New York Center, then LaGuardia.”

“That's correct.”

Zimm looked to the experts around the table as a cue to begin questioning Matson.

“The autopilot was engaged prior to the incident?” Bill Cashill asked.

“It was.”

“Did you at any time encounter turbulence?”

“No. And there was nothing of note on radar, and no reports of turbulence from earlier flights.”

“Clear-air turbulence doesn't appear on radar, and the autopilot could make any needed adjustments for it,” Cashill said.

“I'm aware of the characteristics of clear-air turbulence. We didn't encounter it.”

“Captain Matson,” Cashill said, “the Richlon-TitanRT-86 is a fly-by-wire model with an array of auto-detect safety systems to address any anomalies or problems that arise. The new design also has a provision that allows the pilot to disable those safety features so that in an emergency he or she can make control inputs that would not otherwise be permitted.”

“I am absolutely aware of the features of the RT-86.”

“Speaking strictly from a preliminary perspective, a strong theory would be that you encountered clear-air turbulence and did not feel the aircraft was responding to it, leading you to take the extreme step of disabling the safety features. In the process you overcontrolled the aircraft, causing the severe rolling, before you regained control.”

“I'm telling you there was no turbulence and I'm telling you that I did not disable the safety features. For a time the aircraft just went crazy and when I intervened, it refused to respond to our inputs. After we got tossed around, the plane inexplicably allowed me to take control again. This was a flight control computer malfunction, not pilot error.”

“No one said it was pilot error, Captain,” Cashill said.

“That's what you're implying,
from a preliminary perspective
.”

A few long, tense seconds passed before Jake Hooper spoke.

“Our analysis is not complete. We still need to download the data and conduct a full examination of the aircraft, along with other aspects.”

Another moment passed as Irene Zimm flipped through pages of a file folder then looked over her glasses at Matson.

“Captain, I'm looking at the results of your blood analysis.”

Matson met her gaze and braced himself.

“It shows traces of antidepressants.”

“Yes, I'm taking medication prescribed by my doctor.”

“Yes,” Zimm said. “I see that, and in keeping with airline policy you've reported the prescription and that it arises from therapy you're undergoing as a result of divorce proceedings.”

Matson cleared his throat and swallowed hard at having his life exposed to the painful core.

“Yes,” he said.

“It's my job to be familiar with the impact of substances,” Zimm said, “and I'm familiar with the adverse side effects of some antidepressants. Did your doctor tell you that the medication you're taking can, and I'm not saying this happened in your case, but can, in some instances, cause you to become agitated, emotional, suffer insomnia and confusion?”

“Yes, she did. But she indicated—and it should be in the file—that in my case, the medicine and dosage put me at a very low risk of exposure to those adverse effects and she green-lighted me to fly.”

“Yes, I see that in your file.”

Zimm tapped her pen and went around the table for follow-up questions.

Half an hour later, Matson was free to leave.

Since he was pulled from EastCloud's roster to fly for at least a week, he went to Manhattan and walked through Central Park until early afternoon. Amid the splendor of the trees, the ponds, the lawns and the gardens, he felt the walls of his world closing in on him.

He knew what was coming.

Matson went to Saddle River, ended his marriage and asked his divorce lawyer to recommend a criminal defense attorney.