Джозеф Хеллер - Maximum Impact

“Not blackmail, Lane. Merely the certainty that somebody on the staff wouldn’t be able to resist letting it out. This is a formal board meeting. The minutes are available to the staff. If something unfortunate should happen to another 811, they’ll fry you. And it’s my guess the President wouldn’t stand for the embarrassment.”

“I’d have your job for a leak like that,” Simmons threatened.

Sachs raised his hands in concession. “You haven’t got the authority. Maybe you have the clout. You can have the job now, but issue the order first. Ground the planes.”

Simmons looked around the table. “You all feel strongly about it?” Everyone nodded but Lund, who shook his head emphatically. Simmons’ gaze stopped at his old friend. “Looks like we’re outmanned, outgunned, and outmaneuvered, Vern.” Then he turned to Sachs. “You’ve got your grounding, effective immediately. But only for engine diagnostics, nothing more.”

“That’s all we asked for, Lane.”

Sachs stood and extended his hand.

Simmons ignored it, turned on his heel and left the room.

Captain Conrad Dixon still didn’t like the feel of the Number One engine of his Sexton 811. The vibration he sensed through the throttle was pronounced.

“Throttle back in increments; see if we can get rid of it,” Dixon told First Officer Patricia Singleton.

Now the co-pilot felt the vibration, too. She pulled the throttle lever back a fraction of an inch and shook her head. “It’s still there,” she said. “But the readouts are nominal.”

“Try a little more—” Dixon began. He was interrupted by a call from a regional ground controller monitoring Flight 957.

“TransAm niner-five-seven, call your company on the Kansas City frequency and report when you come back,” the controller said. Dixon and Singleton exchanged glances. Calling TransAm operations as they approached their destination was standard procedure, but to be asked to call in mid-flight was most unusual.

“TransAm niner-five-seven, roger,” he replied. Dixon was about to change frequencies when he heard the ground controller talk to another flight. “TransAm 1167, call your company on the Memphis frequency and report when you come back,” he said.

“What’s going on?” Singleton asked.

“Let’s find out,” said Dixon. He set the TransAm frequency in Kansas City into one of his radios and made contact.

“The FAA has just ordered the entire Sexton 811 fleet grounded for emergency engine diagnostics,” an operations official told Dixon. “You have the option of continuing to your destination or setting down now.”

“That sounds serious,” Dixon said.

“That’s what we have to find out,” the official replied.

“Stand by,” Dixon said. “We’ll advise.”

He looked across the throttles at Singleton, then lowered his hand to the throttle of Number One engine. It was vibrating, if anything, he thought, more severely than a few minutes earlier.

“We’re going to take her into Kansas City,” he said.

Singleton nodded her approval, and Dixon informed his operations chief.

“Any reason you don’t want to drive it to Dulles?” the operations chief asked.

“We’re already having some problems with Number One engine,” Dixon said. “I don’t want to take chances.”

“Roger, understood. It’s your call,” the ops man replied. “We’ll inform airport operations and start trying to rebook passengers. The controllers will vector you.”

“Niner-five-seven, roger.”

Dixon reported his intention back to regional air traffic control.

“Are you declaring an emergency, niner-five-seven?” one controller asked.

“TransAm niner-five-seven, negative,” he said. “But we are experiencing some engine difficulty and would appreciate some expediting.”

By now, news of the grounding of the 811 fleet was spreading quickly through the aviation industry, and emergency or no emergency, regional controllers and approach controllers at Kansas City’s International Airport acted to get the TransAm 811 down as quickly as possible. As Flight 957 changed course, First Officer Singleton reported the unscheduled landing to the passengers.

“We are experiencing some minor engine difficulty, and the captain has chosen to land at Kansas City as a purely precautionary measure,” she announced over the public address system. “There is absolutely nothing for you to be concerned about. We’ll be on the ground in a few minutes. Our ticket agents are working now to find all of you seats on other flights into the Washington area. We are sorry for the inconvenience, but the captain believes caution and your safety are paramount. Thank you for your patience.”

In seat 29A, Melissa Pace heaved a huge sigh. Everything was conspiring against her.

Flight 957 was on downwind to Runway 27, with two turns yet to make to final approach, when the deteriorating turbine disk in Number One engine disintegrated. In the cabin of the aircraft, it sounded like an explosion.

“Oh, my God, we’re going to be killed!” said the middle-aged man in the seat next to Melissa Pace. There were muffled cries and sobs from elsewhere in the cabin. Melissa looked out at the engine hanging under the port-side wing. It was her sense that the explosion had come from there. The leading edge of the wing was slightly behind her seat, and she twisted her head down, trying for a better view. She thought she could see a ripple in the metal of the engine cowling, but her view wasn’t good enough to be certain. There didn’t appear to be a fire, and she found that comforting.

“We’re okay,” she said to the man in the next seat. “We’re going to be fine.”

“How the hell would you know?” he asked savagely. “You’re a kid.”

“I know all about airplanes. My dad’s an aviation reporter .”

“Oh, joy,” the man said and let his head loll back on the seat.

On the flight deck, the crew hadn’t heard anything, but everyone felt a definite lurch. The readouts on Number One engine went crazy.

“Shut it down,” Dixon ordered as he and Singleton struggled to reconfigure the controls so they could fly the plane to the ground on one engine. “Pat, make a quick damage inspection in the cabin,” he ordered.

Singleton burst through the cockpit door and scanned the passenger area, struggling to keep her face and manners composed. “We’re fine,” she told several distressed customers. “We’ll be on the ground momentarily.” She satisfied herself that whatever had happened to Number One engine had not breached the cabin integrity and returned to the flight deck.

“No problem except the passengers are scared shitless,” he reported. “They think they heard an explosion.”

Singleton scanned her control panels. “No fire or smoke alarms anywhere,” she said.

Dixon had reported the engine failure to the approach controllers, and they gave him clearance to come straight in. The Sexton touched down seven minutes later, rolling nearly to a full stop on the runway before Dixon gingerly advanced power to taxi the crippled jetliner to a gate.

Half an hour later, with everyone safely inside the terminal, the flight-deck crew and Hal Carleton, TransAm operations chief in Kansas City, inspected the engine.

“My God, will you look at that!” Singleton whispered. She was looking at the surface of Number One engine facing the aircraft cabin. There was a fourteen-inch gash in the cowling, ripped by the jagged piece of metal that protruded through the tear.

Singleton pointed it out to Dixon. “If it had come through and breached the fuselage…” she said, unable to speak the words to finish the thought.

Dixon shook his head. “We are too fucking lucky to live,” he said.