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So it to be repaired, sometime in the past

But what?

She still had more work to do

And very little time to do it

NORTON QA

12:30 PM

If the part was bad, where had it come from? She needed maintenance records, and they hadn&039;t arrived yet Where was Richh a stack of telexes All the FSRs around the world were asking for inforht Service Rep in Madrid was typical

FROM: S RAMONES, FSR MADRID TO: C SINGLETON, QA/IRT

PERSISTENT REPORTS VIA MY IBERIA CONTACT B ALONSO THAT DUE TO MIAMI INCIDENT JAA WILL ANNOUNCE CONTINUED DELAY OF CERTIFICATION OF N-22 AIRCRAFT CITING "AIRWORTHINESS CONCERNS"

PLS ADVISE

She sighed What the FSR was reporting was entirely predictable The JAA was the Joint Aviation Authorities, the European equivalent of the FAA Recently, Aood deal of difficulty with it The JAA was flexing new regulatory ency had uish between negotiated trade advantage and airworthiness issues For so special efforts to force the Aines The Aical that the JAA would take advantage of the rotor burst in Mia certification

But in the end, it was a political problem, not her area She went to the next telex:

FROM: S NIETO, FSR VANC TO: C SINGLETON, QA/IRT

FIRST OFFICER LU ZAN PING UNDERWENT EMERGENCY SURGERY FOR SUBDURAL HEMATOMA AT VANC GEN HOSPITAL 0400 HRS TODAY F/O NOT AVAILABLE FOR QUESTIONS AT LEAST 48 HRS FURTHER DETAILS TF

Casey had been hoping for an intervieith the injured first officer sooner than that She wanted to knohy he was in the back of the plane, and not in the cockpit But it seemed an answer to that question would have to wait until the end of the week

She came to the next telex, and stared in astonishment

FROM: RICK RAKOSKI, FSR HK TO: CASEY SINGLETON, QA/IRT

RECEIVED YOUR REQUEST MAINTENANCE RECORDS FOR TPA FLIGHT 545, FUSE 271, FOREIGN REGISTRY 098/443/HB09 AND PASSED IT ON TO THE CARRIER

IN RESPONSE TO FAA REQUEST TRANSPACIFIC RELEASED ALL RECORDS FROM REPAIR STATION KAITAK HK, REPAIR STATION SINGAPORE, REPAIR STATION MELBOURNE THESE UPLOADED TO NORTON ONLINE SYSTEMS AS OF 2210 LOCAL TIME STILL WORKING ON CREW INTERVIEWS MUCH MORE DIFFICULT DETAILS TF

A sht Since they didn&039;t want to grant crew interviews, they had decided to provide everything else, in an apparent display of cooperation

Nor in now," she said "And Hong Kong already delivered"

"I see that Have you got the storage address?"

"Right here" She handed her a slip of paper, and Casey typed it into the terminal behind her desk There was a delay for the call to the mainframe, and then a screen flashed up

MAINT REC N-22 / FUSE 271 / FR 098/443/HB09

DD 5/14 AS 6/19 MOD 8/12

< RS KAITAK - MAINT REC (A-C)

< RS SNGPOR - MAINT REC (B ONLY)

< RS MELB - MAINT REC (A, B ONLY)

"All right," she said She went to work

It was the better part of an hour before Casey had her answers But at the end of ood picture of what had happened to the slats locking pin on the Transpacific aircraft

On Noveht from Bombay to Melbourne, the Transpacific aircraft had experienced a problem with radio communications The pilot made an unscheduled stop on the island of Java, in Indonesia There, the radio was repaired without difficulty (a blown circuit panel was changed out), and Javanese ground crews refueled the plane for the continuing flight to Melbourne

After the aircraft landed in Melbourne, Australian ground crews noted that the right as daed

Mechanics in Melbourne noted that the fuel coupling was bent on the right wing, and the adjacent slats locking pin was slightly daround personnel in Java during the previous fueling stop

The fuel line couplings on the N-22 were located on the underside of the wing, just behind the leading edge An inexperienced ground person had used the wrong power lift truck for the N-22 and had ja into the fuel hose while the hose was hooked into the wing This bent the hose bracket into the wing coupler, bent the coupler plate, and da pins were an infrequent change item, and Melbourne repair station did not have one in stock Rather than delay the aircraft in Australia, it was decided to allow the plane to continue to Singapore and change the part there However, a sharp-eyed apore noticed that the paper on their replace pin appeared suspect Maintenance creere uncertain whether the replaceenuine or not

Since the part already in place functioned norapore elected not to replace it, and the aircraft was sent on to Hong Kong, the hoenuine replace Repair Station - fully aware they were located in a world center for counterfeiting - took special precautions to insure their spare aviation parts were genuine They ordered parts directly froinal equipment manufacturers in the United States On Nove pin was installed on the aircraft

Paper for the part appeared to be proper; a photocopy came up on Casey&039;s screen The part had come from Hoffinal supplier But Casey knew the paper was fake, because the part itself was fake She would run it down later, and find out where the part had actually coht now, the only question was the one A at her terh theRepair Station for November 13, to find what else had been done to the aircraft ; she had to look at photocopies of maintenance cards, with scrawled handwritten notations after each checkbox But eventually she found a list of work that had been done on the wing

There were three notations

CHG RT LDLT FZ-7 Change the right landing light fuse 7

CHG RT SLTS LK PIN Change the right slats locking pin

CK ASS EQ PKG Check the associated equipe This was followed by ait was checked and nore was aof related parts that had to be checked whenever a faulty part was detected For exaht fuel lines were found to be worn, it was standard practice to check&039; seals on the left side as well, since they were part of the associated equipered a maintenance check of associated equipment

But which equipes were specified by Norton But she couldn&039;t pull up the list on her office coo back to the terminal on the floor

She pushed away fro 64 was nearly deserted, the widebody line seely abandoned between shifts There was a one-hour delay between first and second shifts, because it took that long for the parking lots to clear First shift ended at 2:30 PM Second shift started at 3:30

This was the time that Jerry Jenkins had said she should examine the records because there wouldn&039;t be an audience She had to adht There was nobody around now

Casey went directly to the parts cage, looking for Jenkins, but he wasn&039;t there She saw the QA section er, and asked where Jerry Jenkins was

"Jerry? He went ho good"

Casey frowned Jenkins shouldn&039;t have left until after five She went to the ter at the keyboard, she soon had called up the database of associated ot the answer she was looking for

RT SLATS ERV TRK (22 / RW / 2-5455 / SLS)

RT SLATS LVR (22 / RW / 2-5769 / SLS)

RT SLATS HVD ACT (22 / RW / 2-7334 / SLS)

RT SLATS PSTN (22 / RW / 2-3444 / SLS)

RT SLATS FD CPLNG (22 / RW / 2-3445 / SLC)

RT PRX SNSR (22 / RW / 4-0212 / PRC)

RT PRX SNSR CPLNG (22 / RW / 4-0445 / PRC)

RT PRX SNSR PLT (22 / RW / 4-0343 / PRC)

RT PRX SNSR WC (22 / RW / 4-0102 / PRW)

It e consisted of the other five elements of the slats drive track: the track, the lever, the hydraulic actuator, the piston, the forward coupling

In addition, the list instructed , cover plate, and wiring

She knew Doherty had already inspected the drive track If Aht to look very carefully at that proximity sensor She didn&039;t think anybody had done that yet

The proxiet to Difficult to inspect

Could that have caused a probleht, it was possible

She shut down the ter back to her office She needed to call Ron Smith, to tell him to check the sensor She walked beneath deserted aircraft toward the open doors at the north end of the building

As she neared the doors, she sao ainst the ht, but she could see that one wore a red checked shirt And the other had on a baseball cap

Casey turned to ask the QA floor e stood empty Casey looked around, and suddenly realized the floor was deserted She saw no one except an elderly black wo a broom The woman was half a mile away

Casey looked at her watch It would be another fifteenup

The twotoward her

Casey turned and started to walk away fro back the way she had coht

Calmly, she opened her purse, pulled out her cell phone to call Security

But the phone didn&039;t work She didn&039;t get a signal She realized she was in the center of the building, which was hung with copperto block extraneous radio trans tested

She wouldn&039;t be able to use her cell phone until she reached the other side of the building

Half a mile away

She walked faster Her shoes clicked on the concrete The sound see Could she really be alone here? Of course not There were several hundred people in the building with her, right now It was just that she couldn&039;t see the tools around the planes Hundreds of people, all around her Any lanced over her shoulder

Theon her

She picked up her pace, al, unsteady in her low heels And she suddenly thought, This is ridiculous I&039;h this plant in the middle of the day

She slowed to a norlanced back: the ht Not unless other people were around

She walked faster

To her left was a parts staging area Ordinarily, there would be dozens ofthe bins But now the cage was empty

Deserted

She looked over her shoulder The

She knew that if she started to screaoons would slip away, vanishing behind tools and scaffolding, and she&039;d look like a fool She&039;d never live it down The girl who lost it that day on the floor

She wouldn&039;t scream

No