Page 3 (1/2)

She knew the forward cabin would have the least dae, but even here some of the seat backs were broken Arage bins were cracked, the doors hanging open OxygenThere was blood on the carpet, blood on the ceiling Puddles of vo his nose He looked pale "This happened because of turbulence?"

"No," she said "Almost certainly not"

"Then ould the pilot - "

"We don&039;t know yet," she said

Casey went forward to the flight deck The cockpit door was latched open, and the flight deck appeared nor A tiny infant&039;s shoe was on the floor Bending to look at it, she noticed a ed beneath the cockpit door A video camera She pulled it free, and it broke apart in her hands, an untidy heap of circuit boards, silverfroave it to Richman

"What do I do with this?"

"Keep it"

Casey headed aft, knowing it would be worse in the back Already she was forht "There&039;s no question: this aircraft underwent severe pitch oscillations That&039;s when the plane noses up and down," she explained

"How do you know?" Richers vo ?" Richrabbed them as they fell," she said It must have happened that way "And the seat backs are broken - do you kno much force it takes to break an airplane seat? They&039;re designed to withstand an impact of sixteen Gs People in this cabin bounced around like dice in a cup And froe, it looks like it went on for a while"

"How long?"

"At least two minutes," she said An eternity for an incident like this, she thought

Passing a shattered e was much worse Many seats were broken There was a broad swath of blood across the ceiling The aisles were cluttered with debris - shoes, torn clothing, children&039;s toys

A cleanup crew in blue unifors, putting thes Casey turned to a woman "Have you found any cameras?"

"Five or six, so far," the woman said "Couple of video cameras There&039;s all sorts of stuff here" She reached under a seat, ca carefully over the litter in the aisles, Casey moved farther aft She passed another divider and entered the aft cabin, near the tail

Richiant hand had smashed the interior Seats were crushed flat Overhead bins hung down, al panels had split apart, exposing wiring and silver insulation There was blood everywhere; some of the seats were soaked deep maroon The aft lavs were ripped apart,open, twisted

Casey&039;s attention was drawn to the left of the cabin, where six para to hold a heavy shape, wrapped in white nylonbin The para shifted, and suddenly a man&039;s head flopped out of the htless, wisps of hair dangling

"Oh God," Richman said He turned and fled

Casey went over to the paraed Chinese man "What&039;s the problem here?" she said

"Sorry, et hiood His left leg"

One of the parah the overhead bin, into the silver insulation above thepanel She tried to reht critical "Just be careful getting hialley, she heard a cleanup wo I ever saw"

Another woet here?"

"Damned if I know, honey"

Casey went over to see what they were talking about The cleaning wo a blue pilot&039;s cap It had a bloody footprint on the top

Casey reached for it "Where&039;d you find this?"

"Right here," the cleaning wo way from the cockpit, isn&039;t it?"

"Yes" Casey turned the cap in her hands Silver wings on the front, the yellow Transpacific medallion in the center It was a pilot&039;s cap, with a stripe for a captain, so it probably belonged to one of the backup crew If this plane carried a backup crew; she didn&039;t know that yet

"Oh dear me this is awful just awful"

She heard the distinctiveDoherty, the structural engineer, striding into the aft cabin

"What did they do to my beautiful plane?" he moaned Then he saw Casey "You knohat this is, don&039;t you It&039;s not turbulence They were porpoising"

"Maybe," Casey said "Porpoising" was the ter in water

"Oh yes," Doherty said, gloomily "That&039;s what happened They lost control Terrible, just terrible"

One of the paramedics said, "Mr Doherty?"

Doherty looked over "Oh don&039;t tell ed?"

"Yes, sir"

"Wouldn&039;t you know," he said, glooht where every flight-critical systeether to - okay, let me see What is it, his foot?"

"Yes, sir" They shone the light for hiainst the body, which swayed in the harness

"Can you hold hi? You probably don&039;t but - "

One of the paraan to cut Bits of silver insulation floated to the ground Doherty cut again and again, his handquickly Finally he stopped "Okay He missed the A59 cable run He missed the A47 cable run He&039;s left of the hydraulic lines, left of the avionics pack Okay, I can&039;t see he hurt the plane in any way"

The para the dead body, stared at Doherty One of the intently "What? Oh yeah sure Cut hi ed the jaws between the overhead luggage bins and the ceiling, then opened the sound as the plastic broke

Doherty turned away "I can&039;t watch," he said "I can&039;t watch them tear up my beautiful aircraft" He headed back to the nose The parahtly euys doing on the wing?"

Casey bent down, looked through the s at the engineers on the wing "They&039;re inspecting the slats," she said "Leading edge control surfaces"

"And what do slats do?"

You&039;II have to start hi about aerodynamics? No? Well, an aircraft flies because of the shape of the wing" The wing looked simple, she explained, but it was actually the most complicated physical coest to build By coe - was siether And the tail was just a fixed vertical vane, with control surfaces But a as a work of art Nearly two hundred feet long, it was incredibly strong, capable of bearing the weight of the plane But at the same time, precisely shaped to within a hundredth of an inch

"The shape," Casey said, "is what&039;s crucial: it&039;s curved on top, flat on the botto has to move faster, and because of Bernoulli&039;s principle - "

"I went to law school," he reasstrea it" she said "Since air , it creates a vacuuh to support the fuselage, so the whole plane is lifted up That&039;s what makes a plane fly"

"Okay "

"Noo factors deter reater the curvature, the greater the lift"

"Okay"

"When the wing is ht Mach, it doesn&039;t need much curvature It actually wants to be al takeoff and landing, the wing needs greater curvature to maintain lift So, at those ti sections in the front and back - flaps at the back, and slats at the leading edge"

"Slats are like flaps, but in the front?"

"Right"

"I never noticed the out the

"Smaller planes don&039;t have thehs close to three-quarters of a ot to have slats on a plane this size"

As they watched, the first of the slatsstuck their hands in their pockets and watched

Richman said, "Why are the slats so important?"

"Because," Casey said, "one possible cause of &039;turbulence&039; is slat extension inshould be almost flat If the slats extend, the plane may become unstable"

"And ould make the slats extend?"

"Pilot error," Casey said "That&039;s the usual cause"

"But supposedly this plane had a very good pilot"

"Right Supposedly"

"And if it wasn&039;t pilot error?"

She hesitated "There is a condition called uncommanded slats deploy, all by themselves"

Richman frowned "Can that happen?&039;

"It&039;s been known to occur," she said "But we don&039;t think it&039;s possible on this aircraft" She wasn&039;t going to get into the details with this kid Not now

Richman still frowned "If it&039;s not possible, why are they checking?&039;

"Because itMaybe there&039;s a problem with this particular aircraft Maybe the control cables aren&039;t properly rigged Maybe there&039;s an electrical fault in the hydraulics actuators Maybe the proxiy We&039;ll check every systeht noe haven&039;t got a clue"

Four men were squeezed into the cockpit, hunched over the controls Van Trung, as certified for the aircraft, sat in the captain&039;s seat; Kenny Bu was functioning the control surfaces, one after another - flaps, slats, elevators, rudder With each test, the flight deck instrumentation was verified visually

Casey stood outside the cockpit with Rich said

"We&039;ve got diddly-squat," Kenny Burne said "This bird is cherry There&039;s nothing wrong with this plane"

Richman said, "Then maybe turbulence caused it, after all"

&039;Turbulence my ass," Burne said "Who said that? Is that the kid?"

"Yes," Richlancing over his shoulder

&039;Turbulence," Casey said to Rich on the flight deck Turbulence certainly occurs, and in the old days, planes had soh to cause injuries is unusual"

"Because?"

"Radar, pal," Burne snapped "Commercial aircraft are all equipped eather radar Pilots can see weather forot much better coh weather at your flight level two hundred et a course change So the days of serious turbulence are over"

Richman was annoyed by Burne&039;s tone "I don&039;t know," he said "I&039;ve been on planes where turbulence got pretty rough - "

"Ever see anybody get killed on one of those planes?"

"Well, no"

"Seen people thrown from their seats?"

"No"

"Seen injuries of any kind?"

"No," Richht," Burne said

"But surely it is possible that - "

"Possible?" Bu is possible?&039;