by Bill Adair
Brenner sent questionnaires to the pilots’ families and scoured public and private records about them. He found that Germano got seven and a half hours of sleep in a typical night and had a ruptured disk in his back that had been removed six months before the crash. He also had mild allergy problems and suffered from a runny nose and postnasal drip. He received a traffic ticket a year before the crash for failing to give a proper signal. He was said to be cheerful the day before the accident, when he flew three legs and had a layover in Jacksonville. He joined other crew members in singing “Happy Birthday” to one of the flight attendants, and he ordered a turkey croissant from room service shortly before midnight.
Emmett had been married for two years and had no children. He had taken flying lessons as a teenager, became a corporate pilot, and then was hired by Piedmont, which merged with USAir. He had clean driving and flying records and no criminal history. A check pilot who rode with him in a simulator test described him as “well-prepared… a sharp guy.” Fellow pilots described him as “exceptional… the kind of first officer you’d want to fly with.” He had responded calmly when a plane had a hydraulic failure one month before the Flight 427 crash. His wife said he was an occasional drinker and usually slept eight hours. A USAir chief pilot told investigators that Emmett was a dependable guy who reminded the chief pilot of his son.
Brenner’s amiable personality was a big asset in investigating the pilots because he frequently had to call grieving relatives. He had tracked down wives, husbands, girlfriends, and boyfriends to ask about a dead pilot. But running the Flight 427 human-performance group had not been easy. It had some of the strongest personalities in the investigation, especially Curt Graeber, a human factors expert from Boeing.
Graeber had an in-your-face approach that was the polar opposite of Brenner’s lighthearted style. A former army lieutenant colonel who had been assigned to NASA and the space shuttle Challenger investigation, Graeber believed the NTSB had done a poor job of looking into the pilots’ backgrounds. He thought the safety board had asked shallow, easy questions of the pilots’ coworkers and ended up with a predictable profile of above-average guys who were loved by everyone. Graeber thought the NTSB should have asked tougher, more pointed questions that would go deeper into the pilots’ training records and how they performed in the cockpit.
Graeber viewed Brenner as a weak manager who let the group’s meetings drift into pointless discussions. Instead of staying focused on the pilots, the group would go off on tangents about wake turbulence and servo valves and then someone would say they should stick to the facts and the conversation would abruptly end. Brenner seemed unwilling to take charge and keep the group focused. “Malcolm is supposedly the best human factors guy [the safety board has] got, which is a sad statement,” Graeber said.
But Brenner felt he had to give everyone a chance to air his or her opinion. He knew they were at the edge of what could be proved scientifically, but he wanted to consider every possibility. To address Boeing’s questions, he enlisted a pathologist to study the broken rudder pedals and try to determine if the pilots were pushing left or right at impact. (The doctor concluded left, but that was later called into question because he was not a metallurgist.) He and other group members tracked down further training records to determine if Emmett and Germano had aerobatic experience (none of any significance) and interviewed two Southwest Airlines 737 pilots to see whether they had used the rudder when they encountered a sudden roll in March. (The pilots did, but one pushed right, the other left.) Brenner’s group also reviewed medical records for the USAir pilots to see if they had been treated for any problems that might affect their behavior in the cockpit. (They had not, although Germano had gotten allergy shots to treat his runny nose and postnasal drip.)
When it was all added up, Brenner’s team had lots of evidence but nothing close to a conclusion. The pilots had little aerobatic experience, but they should not have needed any special training to recover from wake turbulence. Some clues suggested that they had pushed the pedals, but they could have done that right before impact. Ultimately the team was stymied. On June 6, 1995, Brenner’s group approved this statement: “There is no way we can conclude for certain that the crew did or did not put in rudder input.”
14. DECEDENT
In the eyes of the Cook County Circuit Court, the value of Joan’s life would be determined primarily by coldhearted economics—how long she would have lived, how much she would have earned in her lifetime, and how much she would have spent. To calculate that number, economists would use life expectancy tables, details about Joan’s health, estimates of her career earnings, and Brett’s account of her household chores.
Brett’s lawyers would make an initial settlement proposal to USAir’s insurance company, based on prior cases and Joan’s earnings. But if the company balked at that number—and that was usually what happened—his law firm would hire an economist to do a more scholarly report based on the interrogatories and depositions about Joan.
In previous crashes, airlines and their insurers had occasionally delved into the private lives of crash victims by hiring private detectives to question neighbors and coworkers of the victim. Airlines called it the search for truth, so they could pay a fair price for a claim. In one famous 1986 case, Delta Air Lines fought for the right to mention in court that a passenger was gay. The airline said the man’s sexuality was relevant because of the possibility that he might have gotten AIDS and therefore would have had a shorter life. In other cases, airlines have dredged up information about victims’ marital infidelities, drug addictions, and alcohol abuse. But only rarely did airlines hire private detectives. Usually the important details about a victim emerged from interrogatories and depositions.
Awards in plane crash cases averaged $2 million, but they could be much higher for people in high-paying jobs with a long career ahead of them. A planeload of young doctors would be a lot more expensive than a plane full of sixty-year-old grocery-store cashiers. The family of a $300,000-per-year surgeon won a $7.4 million verdict after a 1992 USAir crash. The family of Rodney Culver, a running back with the San Diego Chargers who was killed in the 1996 ValuJet crash, received $28 million.
USAir’s chief counsel for the Flight 427 cases was a brash Washington attorney named Mark Dombroff Although Boeing had its own team of lawyers from a prominent Seattle firm, Dombroff and a Chicago law firm had taken the lead for settling the cases. Boeing and USAir never revealed how they had agreed to divide up the liability, but it was clear that Dombroff and the insurance company Associated Aviation Underwriters were speaking for both USAir and Boeing.
Brett’s first legal skirmish with USAir and Boeing had been about the venue for the case. Dombroff removed the case to federal court in Chicago so it would be transferred to federal court in Pittsburgh, which was likely to be more favorable for USAir. But Brett’s lawyers managed to get the case back to Chicago because they had shrewdly listed Gerald Fox as one of the defendants. Fox was the USAir maintenance chief at O’Hare who had the gurgling-sound conversation with Germano. That gave the case a toehold in Chicago and helped convince a federal judge to keep it in Cook County Circuit Court.
In the file folder for Brett’s lawsuit, Case No. 94 L 12916, Joan was referred to as “DECEDENT.” USAir’s first step in determining the size of the award was to send Brett an interrogatory, a series of broad questions about Joan’s lifestyle, education, career, and income. It would give Dombroff and the insurance company an overview of Joan’s life so they could begin settlement discussions.
State complete details concerning DECEDENT’S employment history, including military service. Include in your description the title, position or rank of each job held, the name and business address of the person or entity employing DECEDENT at each job, the dates each employment began and ended, the type of work involved in each job, the name of the immediate supervisor for each job, the salary, wages, sources and total yearly compensation (including fringe benefits) recei
ved for each job, and the date and reason any employment was terminated.
Brett replied that Joan had been a waitress at J.C.’s Cafe in Iowa City, Iowa, while she attended college, earning minimum wage plus tips; she was assistant manager of a restaurant in Vail, Colorado, at $10 per hour; and then she took the job with Akzo Nobel Chemical, where she earned $46,000 per year plus a bonus. For her reason for leaving Akzo, Brett and his lawyers wrote: “Self-explanatory.” There was no need to write “killed in plane crash.”
Fully describe DECEDENT’S health for the ten (10) years prior to death. Include in your description any injury, illness, diseases, or condition suffered by DECEDENT and, for each injury, illness, disease or condition suffered, describe how any effect was manifested… identify all health care providers of any kind… and set forth the reasons for said consultation and/or treatment. Also state whether DECEDENT was ever refused life or disability insurance.
Brett and his lawyer said Joan was in excellent health, that her only significant problem in the past ten years had been a kidney infection. She had regular exams with her doctor and gynecologist and routine visits with her dentist. She had never been refused life or disability insurance.
Describe DECEDENT’S eating, smoking and alcoholic intake habits and state whether DECEDENT, at the time of his/her death or at any time during the ten (10) years prior to that date, took any medication (narcotic or otherwise) or other type of drug, whether DECEDENT ever participated in Alcoholics Anonymous or any similar 12-step or self-help group, the identity of such medication, drugs or groups and the reasons for same.
“Decedent’s eating habits were normal,” Brett and the lawyers wrote. “Plaintiff’s decedent consumed alcohol only socially and did not smoke. Plaintiff’s decedent did not take any medications (with exception to an occasional aspirin for an ailment), narcotic or otherwise, on a regular basis in the ten (10) years prior to her death. Plaintiff’s decedent did not participate in any self-help group.”
Brett knew the lawsuit was the only legitimate way he could get revenge against Boeing and USAir. He thought that the companies knew about the 737’s rudder defects and rolled the dice with passengers’ lives, believing that the malfunction would not occur again. In his view, they made life-and-death decisions for innocent people and seemed to be accountable to no one. Boeing and USAir seemed to think they were above the law.
In his lowest moments during the months following the crash, he became so angry that he briefly fantasized about committing some act of violence against Boeing, to put the company and its families through the same horror he was going through. Those thoughts of personal vengeance and violence were short-lived, however. He realized that the only legal way to retaliate was to hurt the companies in their balance sheets, to win an award so large it would hurt their bottom lines. He hoped an expensive settlement would pressure Boeing to fix the problems with its airplanes. He figured the company might decide it was cheaper to fix the planes than to become involved in additional lawsuits.
Associated Aviation Underwriters, the airline’s insurance company, had begun settling cases in January 1995 for an estimated $2 million each. But Brett was in no hurry. He had received about $800,000 from Joan’s insurance policies and workers’ compensation coverage. He used some of it to set up a scholarship fund in Joan’s name to send a young woman from her hometown to the University of Iowa. He also set up college trust funds for each of Joan’s ten nieces and nephews. He felt Joan would want him to do positive things with the money. He said, “I want her life to have a contribution to this world.”
A beep-beep-beep echoed through the USAir hangar in Pittsburgh as the front-end loader tilted the giant Dumpster and then drove in reverse, emptying it on a plastic tarp. The contents came out as a muddy, solid block, like a brown ice cube popped out of a tray. It was March 6, 1995, still so cold that the fifteen volunteers could see their breath.
The volunteers, from the NTSB, USAir, and families of the victims, had come to recover passengers’ belongings from the frozen mess. Hundreds of items—watches, teddy bears, books, wallets, and jewelry—had already been returned to families. But many other items had mistakenly been thrown in the trash bin and left outside during the frigid winter. Leaders of the family group, the Flight 427 Air Disaster Support League, had been complaining for months that they didn’t get back all the items they should have. After they saw the big trash bins during a visit to the hangar, they kept pestering USAir and the safety board until they got permission to look inside.
The families were still furious with USAir. Not only were they angry about the airline’s performance immediately after the crash, but they were also unhappy with the company’s decisions about the crash memorial and a burial service. When the airline held a service for the burial of unidentified human remains, families could see two caskets. But the airline did not mention that thirty-eight other caskets had already been buried. USAir, which had followed the advice of the Pennsylvania Funeral Directors Association, said it was trying to be sensitive by avoiding the display of lots of caskets, but the families said they had been deceived.
The memorial was also a point of controversy. Shortly after the crash, USAir had announced that it might buy the Hopewell site to build a monument. That pleased many family members, who wanted a place that would honor their relatives. Several had launched a separate effort to buy the land, but they put their plans on hold when they heard that USAir was interested. The airline scrapped the idea, however, and instead chose to provide three big tombstones at a cemetery ten miles from the crash site.
The granite monument read: IN LOVING MEMORY OF OUR FAMILY MEMBERS AND FRIENDS INTERRED HERE WHO DIED SEPTEMBER 8, 1994.
Many of the families were unhappy with that inscription. It did not mention the crash or Flight 427. Once again, the airline’s efforts to be sensitive had backfired. (The airline then built a granite bench across from the monument with the inscription THIS MEMORIAL IS DEDICATED TO THE PASSENGERS AND CREW ON USAIR FLIGHT 427.)
The families were also upset at USAir for refusing to bring the first batch of personal effects to the Hilton during the January public hearing. The relatives had said it would be more convenient to go through them at the hotel, but the airline had refused. USAir officials were afraid the media-savvy family group would turn the whole thing into a big spectacle, with mangled personal effects displayed for the TV cameras.
With all of the other mistakes USAir had made, it was natural to blame the airline for leaving the items in the Dumpster. Mike Benson, an NTSB spokesperson, tried to direct the blame that way, telling the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the NTSB presumed there was nothing valuable inside, since USAir employees had looked through the Dumpster. But USAir said the trash bins were the safety board’s responsibility. The truth was that no one realized there was anything valuable inside. The NTSB investigators were intent on finding significant parts from the plane. The material in the Dumpster looked like burned trash. Haueter knew there were burned, shredded clothes inside, but he never thought a family member might want them back.
“May I have your attention, please!” Cindy Keegan, the NTSB investigator who headed the structures group, called to the volunteers. “What we’re looking for here are any personal articles, whether it be a watch or whatever.”
One person saw a muddy piece of clothing in the pile and asked, “Did you say you wanted clothing?”
Yes, she said, they should pick out anything that belonged to the people on the plane.
The volunteers wore white coveralls and gloves. A few wore surgical masks, a remnant from the worries about biohazards. John Kretz and Marita Brunner, the leaders of the family group, stood at the back of the pile. When volunteers brought something, Brunner cleaned off the mud and wrote a description of the item on her clipboard:
Casio multi-function calculator—telephone directory, etc.
Sony Microcassette recorder
Woman’s yellow vinyl damask manicure set
Pin
k hair brush
Speedo eye goggles—swimming
Garage door opener Master Mechanic 750MM K722
Green and white striped Dept. of Energy golf umbrella
Accutron man’s watch
Macintosh Users Guide for Macintosh PowerBook 160/180
Man’s manicure set/maroon leather case
Golf balls—1 Top Flite Logo Reedsburg Country Club; 2 Titleist; 3 Blue Max Trumbull Marriott; 1 Maxfli DDH-100
2 hair brushes, 1 Avon
1 pair scissors
A surprising number of items had passengers’ names on them. Dennis Dixon, whose wife was killed in the crash, found her shredded briefcase. The volunteers found a luggage tag and business card for David Huxford, a Maryland computer consultant who was heading home after a business trip. They found Kevin Rimmell’s Blockbuster Video card and Dewitt Worrell’s business card holder.
They also found three fragments of human bones.
15. STALLED
The phone rang just as Haueter and his wife, Trisha Dedik, were headed out on a Friday night. It was Ron Schleede, one of Haueter’s bosses. Within minutes, Haueter and Schleede had a three-way call going with Greg Phillips, the systems group chairman. For two hours, they talked about the latest developments in the USAir case and where they should go next. So much for Haueter and Dedik’s Friday night plans.
Dedik was livid. The crash had consumed her husband’s life. It interrupted dinners and dates and weekend plans. It kept him at the office late and sent him out of town. He was obsessed by it. They would be having a perfectly nice conversation, and then she would see his mind drift away as he contemplated some damn theory about the damn accident. And then, right in the middle of their conversation, he’d say something about the crash, as if he had not been listening to a word she said.