Arthur Hailey: Evening News

"On big passenger planes there's an emergency system to get the landing wheels down if hydraulic power is out. The pilots release all hydraulic power so the gear, which is heavy, should fall under its own weight, then lock. But once it's down they can't get it up again, even if they want to.”

As the fireman spoke, the Airbus landing gear could be seen slowly coming down.

Moments later, once more the calm voice of an air traffic controller: "Muskegon, we see your gear down. Be advised that flames are close to the right front gear.”

It was obvious that if the right front tires were consumed by fire, as seemed probable, that side of the landing gear might collapse on impact, skewing the airplane to the right at high speed.

Minh, fondling a zoom lens, had his camera running. He too could see the flames which had now reached the tires. The Airbus was floating over the airport boundary . . . Then it was closer in, barely a quarter mile from the runway . . . It was going to make it to the ground, but the fire was greater, more intense, clearly being fed by fuel, and two of the four right-side tires were burning, the rubber melting . . . There was a flash as one of the tires exploded.

Now the burning Airbus was over the runway, its landing speed 150 mph. As the aircraft passed the waiting emergency vehicles, one by one they swung onto the runway, following at top speed, tires screaming. Two yellow foam trucks were the first to move, the other fire trucks close behind.

On the runway, as the airplane's landing gear made contact with the ground, another right-side tire exploded, then another. Suddenly all right tires disintegrated . . . the wheels were down to their rims. Simultaneously there was a banshee screech of metal, a shower of sparks, and a cloud of dust and cement fragments rose into the air . . . Somehow, miraculously, the pilots managed to hold the Airbus on the runway . . . It seemed to continue a long way and for a long time . . . At last it stopped. As it did, the fire flared up.

Still moving fast, the fire trucks closed in, within seconds pumping foam. Gigantic whorls of it piled up with incredible speed, like a mountain of shave cream.

On the airplane, several passenger doors were opening, escape slides tumbling out. The forward door was open on the right side, but on that side fire was blocking the mid-fuselage exits. On the left side, away from the fire, another forward door and a mid-fuselage door were open. Some passengers were already coming down the slides.

But at the rear, where there were two escape doors on each side, none had so far opened.

Through the three open doors, smoke from inside the airplane was pouring out. Some passengers were already on the ground. The latest ones emerged coughing, many vomiting, all gasping for fresh air.

By now the exterior fire was dying down under a mass of foam on one side of the airplane.

Firemen from the RIV's, wearing silver protective clothing and breathing apparatus, had swiftly moved in and rigged ladders to the unopened rear doors. As the doors were opened manually from outside, more smoke poured out. The firemen hurried inside, intent on extinguishing any interior fire. Other firemen, entering the wrecked Airbus through the forward doors, helped passengers to leave, some of them dazed and weak.

Noticeably, the outward flow of passengers slowed. Harry Partridge made a quick estimate that nearly two hundred people had emerged from the plane's interior, though from the information he had gathered he knew that 297, including crew, were reportedly aboard. Firemen began to carry some who appeared badly burned—among them two women flight attendants. Smoke was still drifting from inside, though less of it than earlier.

Minh Van Canh continued to videotape the action around him, thinking only professionally, excluding other thoughts, though aware that he was the only cameraman on the scene and in his camera he had something special and unique. Probably not since the Hindenburg airship disaster had a major air crash been recorded visually in such detail, while it happened.

Ambulances had been summoned to the on-site command post. A dozen were already there, with more arriving. Paramedics worked on the injured, loading them onto numbered backboards. Within minutes the crash victims would be on their way to area hospitals alerted to receive them. With the arrival of a helicopter bringing doctors and nurses, the command post near the Airbus was becoming an improvised field hospital with a functioning triage system.

The speed with which everything was happening spoke well, Partridge thought, of the airport's emergency planning. He overheard the fire captain report that a hundred and ninety passengers, more or less, were out of the Airbus and alive. At the same time that left nearly a hundred unaccounted for.

A fireman, pulling off his respirator to wipe the sweat from his face, was heard to say, "Oh Christ! The back seats are chock full of dead. It must have been where the smoke was thickest.” It also explained why the four rear escape doors had not been opened from inside.

As always with an aircraft accident, the dead would be left where they were until a National Transportation Safety Board field officer, reportedly on the way, gave authority to move them after approving identification procedures.

The flight-deck crew emerged from the Airbus, pointedly declining help. The captain, a grizzled four-striper, looking around him at the injured and already knowing of the many dead, was openly crying. Guessing that despite the casualties the pilots would be acclaimed for bringing the airplane in, Minh held the captain's grief-stricken face in closeup. It proved to be Minh's final shot as a voice called, "Harry! Minh! Ken! Stop now. Hurry! Bring what you've got and come with me. We're feeding to New York by satellite.”

The voice belonged to Rita Abrams, who had arrived on a Public Information shuttle bus. Some distance away, the promised mobile satellite van could be seen. The van's satellite dish, which folded like a fan for travel, was being opened and aimed skyward.

Accepting the order, Minh lowered his camera. Two other TV crews had arrived on the same shuttle bus as Rita—one from KDLS, the CBA affiliate—along with print press reporters and photographers. They and others, Minh knew, would carry the story on. But only Minh had the real thing, the crash exclusive pictures, and he knew with inward pride that today and in days to come, his pictures would be seen around the world and would remain a piece of history.

* * *

They went with Vernon in the PIO station wagon to the satellite van. On the way Partridge began drafting the words he would shortly speak. Rita told him, "Make your script a minute forty-five. As soon as you're ready, cut a sound track, do a closing standup. Meanwhile, I'll feed quick and dirty to New York.”

As Partridge nodded acknowledgment, Rita glanced at her watch: 5:43 P.m., 6:43 in New York. For the first-feed National Evening News, there was barely fifteen minutes left of broadcast time.

Partridge was continuing to write, mouthing words silently, changing what he had already written. Minh handed two precious tape cassettes to Rita, then put a fresh cassette in the camera, ready for Partridge's audio track and standup close.

Vernon dropped them immediately alongside the satellite van. Broderick, who had come too, was going on to the terminal to phone his own report to New York. His parting words were, "Thanks, guys. Remember, if you want the in-depth dope tomorrow, buy the Times."

“O'Hara, the high-technology buff, regarded the equipmentpacked satellite van admiringly.”How I love these babies!”

The fifteen-foot-wide dish mounted on the van's platform body was now fully open and elevated with a 20-kilowatt generator running. Inside, in a small control room with editing and transmitting equipment tightly packed in tiers, a technician from the two-man crew was aligning the van's uplink transmitter with a Kuband satellite 22,300 miles above them — Spacenet 2. Whatever they transmitted would go to transponder 21 on the satellite, then instantly by downlink to New York to be rerecorded.