Michael Crichton - Airframe

Airborne.

Click. "Oh-kay, ladies, we are going to proceed to flight level three seven zero, that's thirty-seven thousand feet, and we are going to circle there between Yuma station and Carstairs, Nevada, for the duration of this excursion. Everybody comfy? If you look to your left, you will see our chase plane coming alongside."

Jennifer looked out and saw a silver jet fighter, glinting in the morning light It was very close to their aircraft, close enough to see the pilot wave. Then suddenly it slid backward.

Click. "Uh, you probably won't see much more of him, he'll be staying high and behind us, out of our wake, the safest place to be. Right now we are coming up on twelve thousand feet, you may want to swallow, Ms. Malone, we're not creeping up like the airlines."

Jennifer swallowed, heard her ears pop loudly. She said, "Why are we going up so fast?"

"He wants to get to altitude quickly, to cold soak the plane."

"Cold soak?"

"At thirty-seven thousand feet, the air temperature is minus fifty degrees. The airplane is warmer than that right now, and different parts will cool off at different rates, but eventually on a long flight-such as a long Pacific crossing-all the parts of the plane will reach that temperature. One of the questions for the IRT is whether the cable rigging behaves differently at cold temperature. Cold soaking means putting the plane up at altitude long enough to cool it down. Then we begin the test"

"How long are we talking?" Jennifer said.

"Standard cold soak is two hours."

"We have to sit here for two hours?"

Singleton looked at her. "You wanted to come."

"You mean we spend two hours doing nothing?"

Click. "Oh, we'll try to amuse you, Ms. Malone," the pilot said. "We're now at twenty-two thousand feet and climbing. It'll be another few minutes to cruise altitude. We are at two eighty-seven KIAS and we will stabilize at three forty KIAS which is point eight Mach, eighty percent of the speed of

sound. That's the usual cruise speed for commercial aircraft Everybody comfy?"

Jennifer said, "Can you hear us?"

"I can hear you and see you. And if you look to your right, you can see me."

A monitor in the cabin in front of them came on. Jennifer saw the pilot's shoulder, his head, the controls arrayed in front of him. Bright light out the window.

Now they were high enough that full sunlight streamed in through the windows. But the ulterior of the plane was still cold. Because she was sitting in the center of the cabin, Jennifer could not see the ground out the windows.

She looked at Singleton.

Singleton smiled.

Click. "Ah, okay, we are now at flight level three seven zero, Doppler clear, no turbulence, a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Would you ladies please unbuckle your harnesses, and come to the cockpit"

What? Jennifer thought But Singleton was already taking hers off, standing up in the cabin.

"I thought we couldn't walk around."

"It's okay right now," Singleton said.

Jennifer climbed out of her harness, and walked with Singleton up through first class, to the cockpit. She felt the faint vibration of the airplane beneath her feet. But it was quite stable. The door to the cockpit was open. She saw Rawley in there, with a second man he didn't introduce, and a third who was working with some instrumentation. Jennifer stood with Singleton just outside the cockpit looking in.

"Now Ms. Malone," Rawley said. "You interviewed Mr. Barker, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"What did he say was the cause of the accident?"

"He said the slats deployed."

"Uh-huh. Okay, please watch carefully. This is the flaps slats handle here. We are at cruise speed, cruise altitude. I am now going to deploy the slats." He reached his hand forward to the thing between the seats.

"Wait a minute! Let me get strapped in!"

"You're perfectly safe, Ms. Malone."

"I want to sit down, at least."

"Then sit down."

Jennifer started back, then realized that Singleton was remaining standing by the cockpit door. Staring at her. Feeling foolish, Jennifer went back and stood by Singleton.

"Deploying slats now."

Rawley pushed the lever down. She heard a faint rumble that lasted a few seconds. Nothing else. The nose tilted, steadied.

"Slats are extended." Rawley pointed to the instrument panel. "You see the speed? You see the altitude? And you see that indicator that says SLATS? We have just duplicated the exact conditions that Mr. Barker insists caused the death of three people, on this very same aircraft. And as you see, nothing happened. The attitude is rock solid. Want to try again?"

"Yes," she said. She didn't know what else to say.

"Okay. Slats retracting. This time, maybe you'd like to do it yourself, Ms. Malone. Or maybe you'd like to walk over and look at the wings, see what actually happens when the slats extend. It's kind of neat."

Rawley pressed a button. "Ah, Norton station, this is zero one, can I have a monitor check?" He listened a moment. "Okay, fine. Ms. Malone, move a little forward, so your friends can see you on that camera up there." He pointed up to the ceiling of the cockpit. "Give 'em a wave."

Jennifer waved, feeling foolish.

"Ms. Malone, how many more times would you like us to extend and retract the slats to satisfy your cameras?"

"Well, I don't know…" She was feeling more foolish by the minute. The flight test was starting to seem like a trap. The footage would make Barker look like a fool. It would make the whole segment look ridiculous. It would make-

"We can do this all day, if you like," Rawley was saying. "That's the point. No problem deploying the slats at cruise speed on the N-22. Plane can handle it fine."

'Try it once more," she said, tightly.

"That's the handle there. Just flip that little metal cover up, and pull it down about an inch."

She knew what he was doing. Putting her in the shot.

"I think you'd better do it."

"Yes, ma'am. Whatever you say."

Rawley pulled the lever down. The rumbling occurred again. The nose went up slightly. Exactly as before.

"Now," Rawley said, "we've got the chase plane getting views for you showing the slats extending, so you'll have exterior angles showing all the action. Okay? Slats retracting."

She watched impatiently. "Well," she said. "If the slats didn't cause this accident, what did?"

Singleton spoke for the first time. "How long has it been now, Teddy?"

"We've been up twenty-three minutes."

"Is that long enough?"

"Maybe. Could happen any minute now."

"What could happen?" Jennifer said.

"The first part of the sequence," Singleton said, "that caused the accident."

"The first part of the sequence?"

"Yes," Singleton said. "Nearly all aircraft accidents are the result of a sequence of events. We call it a cascade. It's never one thing. There's a chain of events, one after another. On this aircraft, we believe the initiating event was an erroneous fault reading, caused by a bad part."

With a sense of dread, Jennifer said, "A bad part?'

She was immediately recutting the tape in her mind. Getting around this awkward point. Singleton had said it was the initiating event. That didn't have to be emphasized, especially if it was just a link in the chain of events. The next link in the chain was equally important-probably more important After all, what had happened on 545 was terrifying and spectacular, it involved the whole airplane, and it was surely unreasonable to blame it on a bad part.

"You said there was a chain of events…"

"That's right," Singleton said. "Several events in a sequence that we believe led to the final outcome."

Jennifer felt her shoulders drop.

They waited.