Fly by Wire (2010)

by Larsen, Ward

  A man stood in front of the group talking and gesturing. He might have been lecturing a class of undergraduates. His frame was tall and angular, the face dominated by high cheekbones and a prominent nose. He had clear skin with few lines -- mid-fifties, but not a guy who spent time outdoors. The gray hair on top was thin, but on the sides it was long and wavy and tousled. His outfit was a classic -- tan cotton shirt and vest, pants with lots of pockets, and at the bottom a virgin set of hiking boots. Indiana Jones minus the hat, whip, and dust. His movement seemed stunted, locking in position now and again, and Davis realized he was posing for the photographer.

  The man addressed the gathering in English, under a heavy French accent. One look at the crowd told Davis why. There were clearly a lot of nationalities here. But then, CargoAir was a worldwide consortium, a far-flung archipelago of suppliers and designers and subcontractors. The inquiry would have to reflect it. There would be a hundred interested parties -- some helping, others getting in the way. For the most part, Davis would avoid them, because he wasn't here to make friends or build teams. He was here to solve a crash. And to do that, he preferred to work alone, a pelagic creature that swam where it liked and ignored the currents. There were always currents.

  "You can see the captain's station is largely intact," the speaker said. His words flowed with a carefree ease derivative of two possible sources -- competence or sublime overconfidence. "This indicates that the copilot s side of the aircraft was the first to impact. Of course, data will confirm this in time. But if proven, it will be a confirming indicator of which pilot was at the controls in the moments before impact." He paused, waiting for the obvious.

  "Why is that?" someone asked obligingly.

  "Empirical psychological studies have proven that in the last instant of any crash, be it aircraft or automobile, the operator will instinctively steer away from impact to save himself."

  Empirical psychological studies? Davis cringed.

  Another voice prodded, "Even if the outcome is hopeless?"

  The speaker emphasized, "Particularly if the outcome is hopeless. So, with regard to the captains thoughts, this section tells us--"

  "Nothing," Davis interjected.

  The speaker fell silent. A sea of heads turned.

  Davis said, "When an airplane hits, tons of metal hit the ground and break up -- it's chaos and it's random. Certain parts of the airframe, because of their inherent structural strength or frangible nature, tend to be the most intact. Wings, tail, landing gear. If a main body section this big survives, there's one of two reasons." Davis paused, but nobody asked. "You either have a low speed or low-angle impact."

  The speaker reestablished control. "I don't think we have met, sir."

  "Jammer Davis, NTSB."

  "Ah, yes. Our American liaison. Thank you for your . . . opinion. As you are leading the human factors group, you will be happy to know that this is my specialty as well. I am a resident professor at Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, specializing in aviation psychology. "The man paused, and Davis had the impression he was mulling coverage of the rest of his curriculum vitae. Instead, he edged through the crowd and held out a hand. "I am Dr. Thierry Bastien, investigator-in-charge of this inquiry."

  Davis thought, Christ, a shrink at the helm. He said, "Nice to meet you."

  The two shook hands. Then the Frenchman arced out an arm and said, "The others here are also involved in our investigation. We will be gathering for lunch soon. However, since all the working group leaders are present, perhaps an impromptu meeting would be in order."

  "A meeting?"

  "Certainement! Your information, Mr. Davis, the seventy-two-hour profile of the captain -- it holds great interest for us all."

  "Really? Why is that?"

  Bastien did not answer. He only smiled politely, adjourned his lesson, and then asked for the key players to remain behind.

  Chapter EIGHT

  Lyon, France

  The meeting took place in a side room, a generic rectangular space that might have been a break room or an office in its previous life. There were a dozen scattered chairs and a white board was nailed to one wall. A square table sat empty in the middle, looking for all the world like it was waiting for a four-sided card game, and above that was a central light fixture. Someone had added a ceiling fan as an afterthought, and as it turned slowly its long blades clipped the incandescent glow to spin oblong shadows over a scuffed linoleum floor.

  A young man came in with two pots of coffee. He set them on the table, along with a fancy assortment of china cups and saucers and silver spoons. Davis didn't hesitate. It was a nice blend, thick and smooth. He hoped it was a sign of things to come. If this had been an NTSB affair it would have been Folgers in a Styrofoam cup. Plastic lid and stir stick included.

  Bastien had been buttonholed by a reporter in the hangar, and so the rest of the group began to mingle. Davis walked slowly through the room, nodding here, checking a credential badge there. He wasn't sure who or what he was looking for -- he was just trolling, his eyes dragging a line. Then the hit came.

  It was the company name on the badge that first drew his attention-- CargoAir. Then the man. He was small with a compact build, almost certainly of Middle Eastern extraction. Egyptian or maybe Lebanese. His jet black hair was cropped short, showing the first few threads of gray at the sides. A bushy moustache hovered over his mouth like an awning. He stood away from the crowd, shoulders sagging and head bent down, like his entire body was subject to some great weight.

  Davis went over and held out a hand. "Jammer Davis."

  The dark eyes came alight, quick and intelligent, even though the rest of the man still lagged -- it was like two bright searchlights reaching out from a deep fog.

  "Hello, Mr. Davis. I am Dr. Ibrahim Jaber."

  Davis shook a hand that disappeared in his own. "Good to meet you," he said.

  "I understand you will be in charge of the Human Factors Group, Mr. Davis. You may find yourself a very busy man." Jaber's voice was every bit as dull and heavy as his body language.

  "Yes, I think Monsieur Bastien will see to that. But I suspect we'll all be busy."

  "Indeed," Jaber agreed. "You must have extraordinary expertise."

  Davis cocked an inquisitive eyebrow. "What makes you think that?"

  "You are the only foreigner on the formal investigation team."

  "Really? So the other group leaders are all French?"

  Jaber nodded and gave Davis a rundown on the room. He pointed out three men and a woman who were set to lead other groups. All were engaged in animated conversation, and many were clearly friends -- not necessarily a good thing, Davis knew. Friends had trouble criticizing friends, and sometimes in an investigation you had to do exactly that. Six months from now, they might not be so close. They might be taking swings at one another.

  Davis said, "Have they all done crash work?"

  "Of course. Their backgrounds are a mix, as you would expect -- government and corporate. But all are experienced investigators ."Jaber was about to say something else, but the words were cut off by a retching cough.

  "That sounds bad," Davis remarked.

  I've been a touch under the weather," Jaber replied. "It is nothing, So in what capacity are you here?'

  "I will act as the chief CargoAir consultant, working closely with the Systems and Design Group." He made a sweeping gesture across the room. "Most of those you see here are like myself, technicians brought in to help understand what has happened."

  "And the whole whirlwind is headed up by Monsieur Bastien," said Davis.

  "Indeed. A very capable man."

  Davis paused, then said, "Good. I like capable people." He sipped his coffee. "So tell me, Dr. Jaber, what is your usual job at CargoAir?"

  Jaber also held coffee. His cup was full, like he hadn't touched it. "I am the chief project engineer for the C-500."

  Davis' head tilted to one side and he pursed his lips. As if he was impressed. "So this is your b
aby."

  The engineer's sharp gaze went awry. His English was good, but the metaphor had caused him to stumble. Then he smiled. "Yes, yes. I am the father."

  Davis was trying to figure out why such a senior person would be present at this stage of the investigation. Usually a company would send a lower-level representative, someone whose diplomatic skills outweighed their use with a slide rule. The big technical guns only got their hands dirty when they had to. If they had to. His next thought was interrupted by a spoon tapping on a china cup. Bastien had arrived to call the impromptu meeting to order. There was a scraping of chairs as everyone maneuvered and sat. Twelve chairs, thirteen people. Davis was left standing like the kid who hadn't heard the music stop.

  Bastien rose three quarters from his chair and held out an introductory arm. "Ladies and gentlemen, I would like you to meet our associate from the United States, Mr...." he hesitated, "Jammer Davis. We have been waiting for your report on Captain Moore, sir."

  Davis set his coffee cup on the table and looked out at the faces -- they were intense, maybe eager. A lot of anticipation. Had they been talking? Speculating? Of course they had. Gossip and innuendo would be rampant. Accident investigations were no different from church socials or office parties. The participants just stood around charred wreckage instead of a punch bowl. And in place of pay raises and sex, they talked about chafed wire bundles and metal fatigue.

  "Yesterday, I began a seventy-two-hour look-back on the crew," Davis said. "The first officer was here in France for the week preceding the flight, so my efforts concentrated on the captain. I flew to Houston and interviewed both his wife and his flight surgeon." He decided to get the worst out of the way. "Earl Moore had his license pulled just over a year ago. Alcohol. He went through rehabilitation and got his medical back."

  "And since then?" Bastien prodded.

  Davis paused. "His flight surgeon thinks that Moore may have had a problem last week."

  "A problem?" another voice asked. They were all looking at him like he was a suspect juggler -- everyone waiting for the balls to drop.

  "He may have had a run-in with the law. Possibly for an alcohol related offense. Let me stress that none of this is confirmed yet."

  "Yes," Bastien said, as if the cosmos were aligning with great precision. "This would go with the rest."

  "The rest of what?" Davis asked.

  Bastien said, "We have interviewed several employees at the hotel where Moore was staying. The bartender there, a young woman, remembered Moore well. There is record of a significant bar tab on the night before our incident. I will provide you with a list of names and specifics, Mr. Davis, for your further pursuit."

  Davis frowned. "Do we have anything from toxicology yet?" he asked.

  "The body was ..." the Frenchman hesitated, "in poor condition. But yes, forensic blood alcohol tests are ongoing."

  "Blood alcohol tests," Davis repeated, his voice flat. He scanned the faces in the room, looking for suspicion. He saw none. "Am I the only one who finds this whole line of thought distracting?"

  No replies.

  "Even if Moore had alcohol in his system," Davis reasoned, "its not the kind of thing that will make an airplane dive straight down from thirty-eight thousand feet. There are a lot of other things to consider. For example, carbon monoxide in the blood. If they lost pressurization, you'd have excess CO."

  "Of course, yes, Mr. Davis," Bastien said with a shooing motion of his hand. "A full postmortem will be performed."

  A voice in back asked, "What about Moore's personal life?"

  Davis, still the only one standing, thrust his hands in his pockets. That way he wouldn't lunge for any throats. "He and his wife split up last year. Their divorce was nearly final."

  "So--" someone else suggested, "the man was under some amount of stress."

  "Stress?" Davis queried. "He used to land jets on aircraft carriers in the middle of the night."

  "But that is different," Bastien argued.

  "Is it?" Davis shot back.

  There was a pointed silence, a pause that announced the imminent departure of civility.

  Bastien ended the impasse. He redirected the discussion to more mundane matters, bland queries about medical licenses, Earl Moore's travel to France, and sleep cycles. Then he covered what the local team had discovered regarding the first officer's seventy-two-hour history. There wasn't much.

  Davis made a conscious effort to ratchet down. The target was off his back for the moment, and while he wasn't happy about having been set up, he didn't need to alienate everyone in the first thirty minutes.

  Bastien finally ended the ambush by saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest we break for lunch. It will provide a good chance for us to circulate these ideas, and perhaps get to know one another." He seemed to look to Davis for approval.

  With all the control he could muster, Davis nodded and said, "Sure, Terry. Sounds like a plan."

  Bastien cringed at the Anglicized stomping of his name. He said coolly, "Dr. Bastien, if you don't mind, sir. We try to keep things as professional as possible."

  "Okay. But you can just call me Jammer."

  * * *

  Lunch was nice. Roast duck in wine sauce, poached oysters, and jam-bon persille. Presented with the usual selection of salads, cheese, breads, and pastries, it was offered in a buffet that stretched the length of a twenty-foot table. Included was a sampling of wine from the surrounding regions -- Burgundy, Bordeaux, Champagne. Good food, casual atmosphere, alcohol at midday, and an investigator-in-charge still posing for photos as he pranced through it all. If there was an Apgar score for newborn investigations, Davis thought, this one would rate a flatline zero.

  All the same, he knew now wasn't the time to start grumbling about a lack of urgency -- or the high level of interest in Captain Earl Moore. Soon maybe, but not yet. Instead, Davis made an effort to work the room and meet as many of the investigative team as he could. He shook hands and tried to remember names. He was wearing his old Air Force-issue bomber jacket, and the side pocket filled up with business cards until he felt like a walking Rolodex. In one-on-one chats they seemed a reasonable bunch, more agreeable than in the "team-meeting" crossfire he'd just faced.

  Aside from those he'd already met, there were dozens of new faces, representing the usual mix of government entities and corporate nameplates. Engineers, pilots, insurers, reinsurers, mouthpieces for individual companies. A lot of smart people, some wanting to get to the bottom of the crash, others only here to act as dummies for their corporate ventriloquists. It was quite the U. N. Davis must have heard a dozen different languages by the time he'd cracked the last crab leg on his plate. Of course, English would dominate the investigation, but most of that would be heavily accented. So when he heard a woman's voice with a straight Midwestern slant, Davis locked on.

  She was standing by the bread basket, a trim thing with flaxen blonde hair pulled back hard in a ponytail -- the way women did when they didn't have to worry about dark roots. From where he stood, she had a great profile. Wanting to be sure, he discreetly took a few steps to change his aspect and looked again. Still great. Probably just on the far side of thirty, she was dressed in dark slacks and a loose sweater, no attachments or baubles. Very basic. She was smiling, nice and patient, while an Oriental guy, Korean maybe, stood next to her butchering his consonants.

  Davis edged over and heard, "America very big place. I study engineering there at jojotek."

  The woman kept smiling, but her eyes were a blank.

  Davis had spent a year in Korea. He said, "The Yellow Jackets."

  The Koreans eyes lit. "Yes, yes!"

  Davis turned to the woman. "Georgia Tech."

  She smiled again. Probably meant it this time. "Of course."

  "You go there?" The Korean asked Davis.

  "No, no. I went straight into the seminary."

  The man looked befuddled, and he eyed the collar of Davis' polo shirt. The top two buttons were undone. With the con
versation suddenly at loggerheads, the man politely excused himself and went back to the buffet.

  Her smile was definitely the real thing now. She said, "Thanks. He was nice, but--"

  "A little hard to understand? Some guys can be like that."

  She sipped orange juice from a glass. "You don't say."

  "Jammer Davis," he said, holding out a hand.

  Her handshake was good -- not flimsy, but also not one of those girls-can-go-to-the-gym-too statements.

  "Anna Sorensen."

  There was that voice again. There was something about it. Rich, with a slightly nasal tone, the words clipped and precise. Davis turned his head to one side and read an identity badge that looked a lot like his. It was hanging from a lanyard, centered on her chest. "Anna V. Sorensen. S-o-r-e-n-s-e-n. Perfect!"