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"We have a situation here," Delbaugh told them calmly "complete hydraulic failure We can stay up awhile, but we can’t maneuver"

At SAM, in addition to United’s own employees, experts were also on duty twenty-four hours a day from suppliers of every model of aircraft currently in operation by the airline-including a ines had been built, and another froned and manufactured the DC-10 Many books, and a massive amount of computer-accessible data about each plane type was available to staff at SAM, in addition to an exhaustive detailed maintenance history of every craft in the United fleet They could tell Delbaugh and Lodden about every mechanical proble its lifeti its most recently scheduled e had been repaired-virtually everything except how ers’ pockets and been left behind during the past twelve h also hoped they could tell hie as an apart without the aid of elevators, rudders, ailerons, and other equipht training programs were structured under the assuree of control in a catastrophic incident, thanks to redundant systeners

Initially, the people at SAM had trouble accepting that he had lost all hydraulics, assu he meant he’d had a fractional loss He finally had to snap at theretted not only because he wanted to uphold the tradition of quiet professionalism that pilots before him had established in dire circumstances, but also because he was seriously spooked by the sound of his own angry voice and thereafter found it more difficult to deceive hi to be

Pete Yankowski, the flight instructor from Denver, returned froh ahe had spotted an eighteen-inch hole in the horizontal part of the tail

"There’s probably ure shrapnel ripped up the rear section behind the aft bulkhead, where all the hydraulic systeh At least we didn’t depressurize"

Dish his bowels, achingly aware that two hundred and fifty-three passengers and ten other crewtheh conveyed Yankowski’s infor how to fly the severely disabled aircraft He was ùnot surprised when, after an urgent consultation, the experts in San Francisco could co them to do the impossible, tell him how to remain the master of this behemoth with no substantial controls other than the throttles-the sa of him

He stayed in touch with United’s dispatcher office, as well, which tracked the progress of all the company’s hardware in the air In addition both channels-the dispatcher and SAM-were patched in to United’s headquarters near O’Hare International in Chicago A lot of interested and anxious people were tied to Delbaugh by radio, but they were all as estions as were the experts in San Francisco

To Yankowski, Delbaugh said, "Ask Evelyn to find that guy frolas she told us about Get hiain, and as Anilov struggled with his control wheel in a deteret at least soer at SAM that a McDonnell Douglas engineer was aboard "He warned us soine just before it exploded He could tell froet him in here, see if he can help"

At SAM, the General Electric expert on CF-6 turbofan engines came back at him: "What do you mean, he could tell by the sound? How could he tell by the sound? What did it sound like?" "I don’t know," Delbaugh replied "We didn’t notice any unusual noises or unexpected changes in pitch, and neither did the flight attendants"

The voice in Delbaugh’s headset crackled in response: "That doesn’t las’s DC-10 specialist at SAM sounded equally baffled: "What’s this guy’s naht now is his first nah said "It’s Jiers that they would be landing in Dubuque as a result ofthe port aisle, weaving because the plane was no longer as steady as it had been He wished she would not ask hiht be a little rough," the captain concluded

As the pilots reduced power to one engine and increased it to the other, the wings wobbled, and the plane ed like a boat in a swelling sea Each time it happened, they recovered quickly, but between those desperate course corrections, when they were unlucky enough to hit air turbulence, the DC-10 did not ride through it as confidently as it had done all the way out froh would like you to come forward if you could," Evelyn said when she reached hi an invitation to a pleasant little luncheon of tea and finger sandwiches

He wanted to refuse He was not entirely sure that Christine and Casey -or Holly, for that h the crash and its immediate aftermath without him at their side He knew that on ie aft of first-class would crack loose froe would be done to it than to the forward and rear sections Before he had intervened in the fate of Flight 246, all of the passengers in those favored seats had been destined to come out of the crash with comparatively minor injuries or no injuries at all He was sure that all of thoseto live, but he was not certain thatthe Dubroveks into the middle of the safety zone was sufficient to alter their fate and insure their survival Perhaps, after ih the fire and out of the wreckage-which he could not do if he ith the flight crew

Besides, he had no idea whether the creas going to survive If he ith them in the cockpit on impact

He ith Evelyn anyway He had no choice-at least not since Holly Thorne had insisted that he ht be able to do ht thwart fate on a large scale instead of a s on out on the Mojave Desert and the three murdered innocents in the Atlanta convenience store last May, people who could have been spared along with others if he had been allowed to arrive in time to save them

As he went by row sixteen, he checked out the Dubroveks, ere huddled over a storybook, then heEvelyn forward, Ji at him speculatively He was one of their own, elevated to special status by their predica to suspect orse than they were being told They were clearly wondering what special knowledge he possessed that made his presence in the cockpit desirable

If only they knew

The plane ing again

Jim picked up a trick fro deck forced her to go, but attempted to anticipate itsher point of gravity to ers were discreetly puking into air-sickness bags

Many others, though able to control their nausea, were gray-faced

When Jim entered the cramped, instruht engineer was paging through a manual, a look of quiet desperation on his face The two pilots-Delbaugh and First officer Anilov, according to the flight attendant who had not entered with Jiht-tending jumbo jet back onto course To free thethe throttles at the captain’s direction, using the thrust of the re they had

Anilov said, "We’re losing altitude again"