Reichs, Kathy - Fatal Voyage

Again, I wondered what he meant. Whose unwise choices? Mine? His? Someone else's?

The next forty-eight hours were spent with trowels and brushes and human bones. My team dug and documented while Crowe's deputies hauled and sifted dirt. Ryan brought me coffee and doughnuts and news of the crash. McMahon brought me reports on the operation upstairs. I gave him Mr. Veckhoff 's diary, and explained my notes and theories during lunch breaks.

I forgot the names engraved in stone. I forgot the strange caricatures watching silently from walls and ceilings. I forgot the bizarre underground chambers and caves in which I worked.

We recovered eight people in all, the last on Halloween.

The following day we learned who blew up Air TransSouth 228.

“A PIPE. THE KIND THAT YOU PUT IN YOUR MOUTH AND SMOKE.”

McMahon nodded.

“In a checked bag.” My voice registered my incredulity.

“An airline employee remembers telling this guy arriving at the last moment that his duffel was too large for the overhead bin and he would have to check it. The guy was sweaty and distracted, and pulled off his sport jacket and stuffed it into the duffel before giving it to a baggage handler. They're saying he left a hot pipe in the pocket of the jacket.”

“What about smoke detectors? Fire detectors?”

“Baggage compartments don't have them.”

Ryan, McMahon, and I were seated in folding chairs in a briefing room at NTSB central. I could see Larke Tyrell at the end of our row. The front of the room was filled with personnel of the response and investigative teams, the back crammed with journalists.

Magnus Jackson was making a statement, projecting visuals onto a screen behind him.

“Air TransSouth 228 was brought down by an unpredictable confluence of events resulting in fire, explosion, depressurization, and in-flight breakup. In that order. I'll take it step by step, take questions when I'm done.”

Jackson worked the keys of a laptop, bringing up a diagram of the passenger cabin.

“On October fourth, at approximately eleven forty-five A.M.passenger Walter Lindenbaum presented himself to Air TransSouth agent James Sartore for boarding of Flight 228. Agent Sartore had just announced last call for boarding and stated that Mr. Lindenbaum was extremely agitated, concerned that his late arrival had caused the forfeiture of his seat.

“Mr. Lindenbaum had two bags, a small one and a larger canvas duffel. Agent Sartore informed Mr. Lindenbaum that there was no overhead space left for the duffel and that it was too large to fit under the seat. He tagged the bag and told Lindenbaum to leave it on the jetway and the baggage handler would take care of it. Mr. Lindenbaum then removed a knitted fabric sport jacket, put it in the duffel, and boarded the aircraft.”

Jackson brought up a credit card receipt.

“Mr. Lindenbaum's credit card records reflect the purchase of a one-liter bottle of 151-proof Demerara rum on the evening prior to flight.”

More keystrokes, and the receipt was replaced by several views of a charred canvas bag.

“The Lindenbaum bag and its contents, and these objects alone, of all the artifacts recovered from the crash”— the phrase emphasized by a hard look to the audience—“manifest geometric burn patterns showing symmetry and more combustion inside than outside.”

He traced the patterns with his laser pointer.

“Interviews with family members have disclosed that Walter Lindenbaum was a pipe smoker. He was of the habit when entering a no-smoking area of slipping his pipe into his pocket and relighting it later. All evidence points to the presence of a smoldering pipe in the pocket of the Lindenbaum jacket when that jacket went into the cargo bay.”

A murmur spread through the back of the room. Hands shot up and questions were shouted. Jackson ignored them as he projected additional pictures of burned clothing, unfolded then folded.

“Inside the baggage compartment, fragments of smoldering tobacco and ash spilled from the pipe bowl and communicated incandescent combustion to surrounding fabrics in the bag, generating what we call a hot spot.”

More shots of burned canvas and clothing.

“Let me repeat. Geometric burn patterns have been found on no other items recovered from the wreckage. I'm not going to go into it here, but the press release explains how evidence of slow burning of folded clothes inside the bag cannot be explained by anything that occurred after a midair explosion.”

The next visual showed smoke-blackened fragments of glass.

“Mr. Lindenbaum's rum bottle. Inside the loosely packed duffel, smoke spread at a temperature consistent with that of the localized combustion, a temperature warmer than the bottle and its contents, which were not involved in the combustion process. The bottle remained intact, and smoke was deposited on it. These deposits, seen in this view, have been analyzed by our lab. The products of decomposition present in the smoke are consistent with the point of origin as I am describing it. Traces of tobacco smoke were positively identified on the bottle, among other traces, especially since forensic analysis also disposed of unburned tobacco strands in the pipe bowl as reference.”

Jackson switched to a diagram of the plane.

“In the Fokker-100, fuel lines run under the cabin floor, above the baggage compartments, from wing tanks to aft-mounted engines.”

He traced the route with his pointer, clicked to a close-up of a fuel line, then zoomed in on a fitting.

“Our structures team has found evidence of a fatigue crack in a fuel line fitting where it passes through the bulkhead at the rear of the baggage compartment. In all likelihood, this crack was generated by a flawed through-fitting acting as a stress riser.”

A magnified image of a hairline fracture filled the screen.

“Heat from the incandescent combustion in Mr. Lindenbaum's duffel aggravated the crack, allowing minute quantities of vaporized fuel to dissipate from the line into the hold.”

He brought up a dirty and discolored chunk of metal casting.

“Localized heat degradation, manifested in localized discoloration, is clearly recognizable on the fuel line at the point of failure due to heat exposure. I'll go to simulation now.”

Keys clicked, the screen went blank, then filled with an animation of an F-100 in flight. Time ticked in one-second increments at the top of the screen.

The Lindenbaum duffel could be seen high in the left rear of the baggage compartment, immediately below seats 23A and B. I watched it ooze from pink, to salmon, to red, a cold lump in the pit of my stomach.

“Incandescent combustion in the duffel,” Jackson narrated. “A first ignition sequence.”

Pale blue specks began to seep from the bag.

“Smoke.”

The particles formed a fine, transparent mist.

“The baggage compartment is pressurized the same as the passenger cabin, meaning it is supplied with air containing an adequate proportion of oxygen. The significance is that there is a lot of warm air moving around down there.”

The mist slowly dispersed. Red colored the ends of the Lindenbaum suitcase.

“Though it was contained at first, the smoke eventually spread from the duffel. The heat eventually pierced, and then there was a development to laminar flaming combustion outside the duffel, igniting the suitcases on each side and giving off dense smoke.”

Tiny black dots appeared at a fuel line running along the inner wall of the baggage compartment. I stared, mesmerized, as the dots multiplied and slowly descended, or were entrained in the ambient air movement.