Michael Crichton - Airframe

"Marder approved these charges?"

"Apparently. Evelyn's checking for me. I'll get more later." Norma shuffled papers on her desk. "Not much else here… FAA's going to be late with the transcript of the CVR. There's a lot of Chinese spoken, and their translators are fighting about the meaning. The carrier's also doing their own translation, so…"

Casey sighed. "What else is new," she said. In incidents like this one, the cockpit voice recorders were sent to the FAA, which generated a written transcript of the cockpit conversation, since the pilots' voices were owned by the carrier. But disputes over the translation were the rule on foreign flights. It always happened.

"Did Allison call?"

"No, honey. The only personal call you got was from Teddy Rawley."

Casey sighed. "Never mind."

"That'd be my advice," Norma said.

In her office, she thumbed through the files on her desk. Most of it was paper on Transpacific 545. The first sheet summarized the stack that followed:

FAA form 8020-9, accident/incident preliminary notice

FAA form 8020-6, report of aircraft accident

FAA form 8020-6-1, report of aircraft accident (continuation)

FAA form 7230-10, position Loos

honolulu ARINC

Los angeles ARTCC

southern california ATAC

automatic sign-in/sign-off log

southern california ATAC

FAA form 7230-4, daily record of facility operation

Los angeles ARTCC

southern california ATAC

FAA form 7230-8, flight progress strip

Los angeles ARTCC

southern california ATAC

flight plan, ICAO

She saw a dozen pages of flight path charts; transcriptions of air traffic control voice recordings; and more weather reports. Next was material from Norton, including a sheaf of fault record data-so far the only hard data they had to work with.

She decided to take it home. She was tired; she could look at it at home.

He sat up in bed abruptly, turned, put his feet on the floor. "So. Listen babe," he said, not looking at her.

She stared at the muscles of his bare back. The ridge of his spine. The strong lines of his shoulders.

"This was great," he said. "It's great to see you."

"Uh-huh," she said.

"But you know, big day tomorrow."

She would have preferred he stay. The truth was, she felt better having him here at night. But she knew he was going to go. He always did. She said, "I understand. It's okay, Teddy."

That made him turn back to her. He gave her his charming, crooked smile. "You're the best, Casey." He bent over and kissed her, a long kiss. She knew this was because she wasn't begging him to stay. She kissed him back, smelling the faint odor of beer. She ran her hand around his neck, caressing the fine hairs.

Almost immediately, he pulled away again. "So. Anyway. Hate to run."

"Sure, Teddy."

"By the way," Teddy said, "I hear you toured the gardens, between shifts…"

"Yeah, I did."

"You don't want to piss off the wrong people."

"I know."

He grinned. "I'm sure you do." He kissed her cheek, then bent over, reaching for his socks. "So, anyway, I probably should be heading out…"

"Sure, Teddy," she said. "You want coffee, before you go?"

He was pulling on his cowboy boots. "Uh, no, babe. This was great. Great to see you."

Not wanting to be left alone in the bed, she got up, too. She put on a big T-shirt, walked him to the door, kissed him briefly as he left. He touched her nose, grinned. "Great," he said.

"Good night, Teddy," she said.

She locked the door, set the alarm.

Walking back through the house, she turned off the stereo, glanced around to see if he had left anything. Other men usually left something behind, because they wanted a reason to come back. Teddy never did. All trace of his presence was gone. There was only the unfinished beer on the kitchen table. She threw it in the trash, wiped away the ring of moisture.

She had been telling herself for months to end it (End what? End what? a voice said), but she somehow never got around to saying the words. She was so busy at work, it was such an effort to meet people. Six months earlier she had gone with Eileen, Marder's assistant, to a country-and-western bar in Studio City. The place was frequented by young movie people, Disney animators-a fun crowd, Eileen said. Casey found it agonizing. She wasn't beautiful, and she wasn't young; she didn't have the effortless glamour of the girls that glided through the room in tight jeans and crop tops.

The men were all too young for her, their smooth faces unformed. And she couldn't make small talk with them. She felt herself too serious for this setting. She had a job, a child, she was looking at forty. She never went out with Eileen again.

It wasn't that she had no interest in meeting someone. But it was just so difficult. There was never enough time, never enough energy. In the end, she didn't bother.

So when Teddy would call, say he was in the neighborhood, she'd go unlock the door for him, and get in the shower. Get ready.

That was how it had been for a year, now.

She made tea, and got back in bed. She propped herself up against the headboard, reached for the stack of papers, and began to review the records from the fault data recorders. She started to thumb through the printout:

A/S PWR TEST 00000010000

AIL SERVO COMP 00001001000

AOA INV 10200010001

CFDS SENS FAIL 00000010000

CRZ CMD MON 10000020100

EL SERVO COMP 00000000010

EPR/N1 TRA- 00000010000

FMS SPEED INV 00000040000

PRESS ALT INV 00000030000

G/S SPEED ANG 00000010000

SLAT XSIT T/O 00000000000

G/S DEV INV 00100050001

GND SPD INV 00000021000

TAS INV 00001010000

TAT INV 00000010000

AUX 1 00000000000

AUX 2 00000000000

AUX 3 00000000000

AUX COA 01000000000

A/S ROX-P 00000010000

RDR PROX-1 00001001000

There were nine more pages of dense data. She wasn't sure what all the readings represented, particularly the AUX fault checks. One was probably the auxiliary power unit, the gas turbine in the rear of the fuselage which provided power when the plane was on the ground, and backup power in the event of electrical failure during flight. But what were the others? Auxiliary line readings? Checks of redundant systems? And what was AUX COA?

She'd have to ask Ron.

She flipped ahead to the DEU listing, which stored faults by each leg of the flight. She scanned them quickly, yawning, and then suddenly she stopped:

DEU FAULT REVIEW

LEG 04 FAULTS 01

R/L SIB PROX SENS MISCOMPARE

8 APR 00:36

FLT 180 FC052606H

ALT 37000

A/S 320

She frowned.

She could hardly believe what she was seeing.

A fault in the proximity sensor.

Exactly what her check of maintenance records told her to look for.

More than two hours into the flight, a proximity sensor error was noted on the inboard electrical bus. The wing had many proximity sensors-little electronic pads which detected the presence of metal nearby. The sensors were needed to confirm that the slats and flaps were in the proper position on the wing, since the pilots couldn't see them from the cockpit.

According to this fault, a "miscompare" had occurred between sensors on the right and left sides. If the main electrical box in the fuselage had had a problem, faults would have been generated on both wings. But the right wing alone had generated the miscompare. She looked ahead, to see if the fault repeated. She skipped through the listing quickly, shuffling papers. She didn't see anything at once. But a single fault in the sensor meant it should be checked. Again, she would have to ask Ron…

It was so difficult to try and assemble a picture of the flight from these bits and pieces. She needed the continuous data from the flight recorder. She'd call Rob Wong in the morning, and see how he was coming with that.