Page 2 (1/2)
BLDG 64
6:45 AM
"Bob Richman," he said "I&039;m your new assistant" His handshake was polite, reserved She couldn&039;t remember which side of the Norton fanized the type Plenty of ood schools, and an unshakable sense of entitleleton," she said "Get in We&039;re late"
"Late," Richman said, as he climbed into the car "It&039;s not even seven"
"First shift starts at six," Casey said "Most of us in QA work the factory schedule Don&039;t they do that at GM?"
"I wouldn&039;t know," he said "I was in Legal"
"Spend any tihed It was going to be a long six weeks with this guy, she thought "You&039;ve been over in Marketing so far?"
"Yeah, a few "
She drove south toward Building 64, the huge structure where the widebody was built Casey said, "By the hat do you drive?"
"A BMW," Richht want to trade it in," she said, "for an American car"
"Why? It&039;s made here"
"It&039;s assembled here," she said "It&039;s not made here The value&039;s added overseas The mechanics in the plant know the difference; they&039;re all UAW They don&039;t like to see a Bea lot"
Richht happen to it?&039;
"Guaranteed," she said "These guys don&039;t screw around"
"I&039;ll think about it," Richman said He suppressed a yawn "Jesus, it&039;s early What are we rushing to?"
"The IRT It&039;s been pushed up to seven," she said
&039;The Incident Review Tea happens to one of our planes, the IRT ure out what happened, and e should do about it"
"How often do you hly every twoto have to start hi
"Actually," Casey said, "two months is pretty infrequent We have three thousand aircraft in revenue service around the world With that s happen And we&039;re serious about custo we hold a conference call with the service reps around the world They report everything that caused a dispatch delay the day before Most of it&039;s ht failed But we track it in QA, do a trend analysis, and pass that on to Product Support"
"Uh-huh" He sounded bored
"Then," Casey said, "once in a while, we hit a proble that affects flight safety Apparently we&039;ve got one today If Marder&039;s pushed theup to seven, you can bet it&039;s not a bird strike"
"Marder?"
"John Marder was the progra officer So it&039;s probably an incident involving the N-22"
She pulled over and parked in the shadow of Building 64
The gray hangar loo The asphalt in front of the building was streith disposable earplugs, which the uns
They walked through the side doors and entered an interior corridor that ran around the peri The corridor was dotted with food dispensers, in clusters a quarter of a ot time for a cup of coffee?" She shook her head "Coffee&039;s not allowed on the floor" "No coffee?" He groaned "Why not? It&039;s made overseas?" "Coffee&039;s corrosive Aluh another door, onto the production floor "Jesus," Richleaes of construction were arranged in two long rows under the vaulted roof Directly ahead of thee sections The barrels of the fuselage were surrounded by scaffolding Beyond the fuselage stood a forest of asseht blue Richs and looked up, open-mouthed It was as wide as a house and six stories tall
"A," he said He pointed upward at a broad flat surface "Is that the wing?"
"The vertical stabilizer," Casey said
"The what?"
"It&039;s the tail, Bob"
"That&039;s the tail&039; Rich is over there," she said, pointing across the floor "It&039;s two hundred feet long - al as a football field"
A Klaxon sounded One of the overhead cranes began to move Richman turned to look
"This your first ti around, looking in all directions "Aweso," Casey said
"Why are they all lireen?"
"We coat the structural elements with epoxy to prevent corrosion And the alu assehly polished and very expensive So we leave that coating on until Paint Shed"
"Sure doesn&039;t look like GM," Richht," Casey said "Compared to these aircraft, cars are a joke"
Richman turned to her, surprised "A joke!"
"Think about it," she said "A Pontiac has five thousand parts, and you can build one in two shifts Sixteen hours That&039;s nothing But these things" - she gestured to the aircraft looh above them - "are a completely different animal The widebody has one million parts and a span time of seventy-five days No other manufactured product in the world has the co even co is built to be as durable You take a Pontiac and run it all day every day and see what happens It&039;ll fall apart in a few n our jets to fly for twenty years of trouble-free service, and we build them to twice the service life"
"Forty years?" Richman said, incredulous "You build theot lots of N-5s in service around the world - and we stopped building theot planes that have accuhty years of service Norton planes will do that Douglas planes will do that But no one else&039;s birds will do that You understand what I&039;
"We call this the bird far, it&039;s hard to get a sense of the scale" She pointed to one aircraft to their right, where small clusters of people worked at various positions, with portable lights shining up on the ht?"
"No, noton that plane - enough to run an entire automobile line But this is just one position on our line - and we have fifteen positions in all There&039;s five thousand people in this building, right now"
The kid was shaking his head, amazed "It looks sort of empty"
"Unfortunately," Casey said, "it is sort of e at sixty percent capacity - and three of those birds are white-tails"
"White-tails?"
"Planes we&039;re building without customers We build at a ot all the orders ant The Pacific Rirowth sector but with Japan in recession, thattheir planes longer So business is very coht ofquickly Rich, went up another flight "I&039; you this," she said, "so you&039;ll understand theinto We build the hell out of these planes People here are proud of what they do And they don&039;t like it when soh above the asselass-walled room that seemed to be suspended from the roof They came to the door Casey opened it
"And this," she said, "is the War Rooh his eyes: a large conference roo, a round Formica table, tubular metal chairs The walls were covered with bulletin boards, lass, and overlooked the assembly line
Five men in ties and shirtsleeves were there, a secretary with a notepad, and John Marder, wearing a blue suit She was surprised he was here; the COO rarely chaired IRTs In person, Marder was dark, intense, in his mid forties, with slicked-back hair He looked like a cobra about to strike
Casey said, &039;This is my new assistant, Bob Richman"
Marder stood up and said, "Bob, welcoave a rare smile Apparently Marder, with his finely tuned sense of corporate politics, was ready to fawn over any Norton family member, even a nephew on loan It made Casey wonder if this kid was ht he was
Marder introduced Riche of structure and ht man of forty-five, with a potbelly, bad colasses Doherty lived in a state of perpetual gloom; he spoke in a mournful monotone, and could always be counted on to report that everything was bad, and getting worse Today he wore a checked shirt and a striped tie; he otten out of the house before his wife saw hiuyen Van Trung, avionics " Trung was thirty, trim and quiet, self-contained Casey liked hi people at the plant The avionics guys were MIS specialists, involved with the aircraft coraer, better educated, better manners
"Ken Burne, powerplant " Kenny was red haired and freckled; his chin thrust forward, ready to fight Notoriously profane and abusive, he was known in the plant as Easy Burne because of his quick temper
"Ron S pens in his pocket Ron was extremely competent; it often seemed he carried the schematics for the aircraft around in his head But he was painfully shy He lived with his invalid mother in Pasadena
"Mike Lee, who represents the carrier " A well dressed ray hair cropped short, in a blue blazer with a striped tie Mike was a foreneral He was TransPacific&039;s rep at the plant
"And Barbara Ross, with the notepad" The IRT secretary was in her forties, and overweight She glared at Casey with open hostility Casey ignored her
Marder waved the kid to a seat, and Casey sat down beside hi QA to the IRT Considering the way she handled the RTO at DFW, she&039;ll be our press spokesman fro his head Marder turned to hiood job with the press on a rejected takeoff at Dallas-Fort Worth last et Okay? We all on the saet started Barbara?" The secretary handed around stapled packets of paper
&039;Transpacific Flight 545," Marder said "An N-22, fuse nu at 2200 hours yesterday Uneventful takeoff, uneventful flight until approxi, when the aircraft encountered what the pilot described as severe turbulence - "
There were groans throughout the rooineers shook their heads
" - severe turbulence, producing extreht"
"Ah, Christ," Burne said
"The aircraft," Marder continued, " at LAX, and medical units were on hand Our preliminary report indicates fifty-six injured, and three dead"
"Oh that&039;s very bad," Doug Doherty said in a sad lasses "I suppose this ot the NTSB on our backs," he said
Casey leaned over to Richman and whispered, "National Transportation Safety Board usually gets involved when there are fatalities"
"Not in this case," Marder said "This is a foreign carrier, and the incident occurred in international airspace NTSB has its hands full with the Colo to pass on this one"
&039;Turbulence," Kenny Burne said, snorting "Is there any confirmation?"
"No," Marder said "The plane was at thirty-seven thousand feet when the incident took place No other aircraft at that altitude and position reported weather proble"
"What about the passengers?" she said "Did the captain n on?"
"Nobody&039;s interviewed the passengers yet But our preliests no announceain Casey scribbled a note on her yellow pad, tilted it so he could read: No Turbulence
Trung said, "Have we debriefed the pilot?"
"No," Marder said "The flight crew caught a connecting flight out, and left the country"
"Oh great," Kenny Burne said, throwing his pencil on the table "Just great We got a damn hit-and-run"
"Hold on, now," Mike Lee said, in a cool tone "On behalf of the carrier, I think we have to recognize the flight crew acted responsibly They have no liability here; but they face possible litigation fro, and they went hoht Crew Unavailable
"Do, uh, we knoho the captain was?&039; Ron Smith asked timidly
"We do," Mike Lee said He consulted a leather notebook "His na, six thousand hours&039; experience He&039;s Trans-Pacific&039;s senior pilot for the N-22 Very skilled"
"Oh yeah?" Burne said, leaning forward across the table "And as he last recertified?"
"Three ht here," Mike Lee said "On Norton flight si unhappily
"Do we knoas rated?" Casey asked
"Outstanding," Lee said "You can check your records"