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"Ladies," he said "I urge you not to do this" He was looking ry at her
Singleton said, "Fly the plane, Teddy"
"That&039;s your best offer?"
"Best and final"
He disappeared The intercom clicked "Prepare to close, please" The doors were closed, clicked shut Thunk, thank The air was still cold Jennifer shivered in her harness
She looked over her shoulder at the rows of eleton stared straight ahead
Jennifer heard the whine of the jet engines as they started up, a lowin pitch The intercom clicked She heard the pilot say, &039;Tower this is Norton zero one, request clearance for FT station check"
Click "Roger zero one, taxi across runo left contact point six"
Click "Roger, tower"
The plane began to htening After a few ?" Jennifer asked
"Weighing it," Singleton answered "They weigh before and after, to guarantee we&039;ve si conditions"
"On some kind of scale?"
"Built into the concrete"
Click &039;Teddy Need, uh, about two feet ines increased Jennifer felt the plane inch forward slowly Then it stopped again
Click "Thank you Got it You&039;re at fifty-seven two seven GW and CO is thirty-two percent MAC Right where you want to be"
Click "Bye, guys" Click &039;Tower zero one request clearance for takeoff"
Click "Cleared runway three contact ground point six three when off the runway"
Click "Roger"
Then the plane began to roll forward, the engines increasing fro until it sounded louder to Jennifer than any engines she had beard before She felt the thu over the cracks in the runway And then suddenly they had lifted off, the plane going up, the sky blue out the s
Airborne
Click "Oh-kay, ladies, we are going to proceed to flight level three seven zero, that&039;s thirty-seven thousand feet, and we are going to circle there between Yuma station and Carstairs, Nevada, for the duration of this excursion Everybody comfy? If you look to your left, you will see our chase plane coside"
Jennifer looked out and saw a silver jet fighter, glinting in the h to see the pilot wave Then suddenly it slid backward
Click "Uh, you probably won&039;t see h and behind us, out of our wake, the safest place to be Right noe are co up on twelve thousand feet, youup like the airlines"
Jennifer sed, heard her ears pop loudly She said, "Why are we going up so fast?"
"He wants to get to altitude quickly, to cold soak the plane"
"Cold soak?"
"At thirty-seven thousand feet, the air terees The airplane is warht now, and different parts will cool off at different rates, but eventually on a long flight - such as a long Pacific crossing - all the parts of the plane will reach that temperature One of the questions for the IRT is whether the cable rigging behaves differently at cold te the plane up at altitude long enough to cool it down Then we begin the test"
"How long are we talking?" Jennifer said
"Standard cold soak is two hours"
"We have to sit here for two hours?"
Singleton looked at her "You wanted to co?"
Click "Oh, we&039;ll try to amuse you, Ms Malone," the pilot said "We&039;re now at twenty-two thousand feet and cli It&039;ll be another few hty-seven KIAS and ill stabilize at three forty KIAS which is point eight Mach, eighty percent of the speed of
sound That&039;s the usual cruise speed for commercial aircraft Everybody comfy?"
Jennifer said, "Can you hear us?"
"I can hear you and see you And if you look to your right, you can see me"
A monitor in the cabin in front of them came on Jennifer saw the pilot&039;s shoulder, his head, the controls arrayed in front of hih that full sunlight streah the s But the ulterior of the plane was still cold Because she was sitting in the center of the cabin, Jennifer could not see the ground out the s
She looked at Singleton
Singleton sht level three seven zero, Doppler clear, no turbulence, a beautiful day in the neighborhood Would you ladies please unbuckle your harnesses, and coleton was already taking hers off, standing up in the cabin
"I thought we couldn&039;t walk around"
"It&039;s okay right now," Singleton said
Jennifer clih first class, to the cockpit She felt the faint vibration of the airplane beneath her feet But it was quite stable The door to the cockpit was open She saley in there, with a secondwith soleton just outside the cockpit looking in
"Now Ms Malone," Rawley said "You interviewed Mr Barker, didn&039;t you?"
"Yes"
"What did he say was the cause of the accident?"
"He said the slats deployed"
"Uh-huh Okay, please watch carefully This is the flaps slats handle here We are at cruise speed, cruise altitude I a to deploy the slats" He reached his hand forward to the thing between the seats
"Wait a et strapped in!"
"You&039;re perfectly safe, Ms Malone"
"I want to sit down, at least"
"Then sit down"
Jennifer started back, then realized that Singleton was re foolish, Jennifer went back and stood by Singleton
"Deploying slats now"
Rawley pushed the lever down She heard a faint ru else The nose tilted, steadied
"Slats are extended" Rawley pointed to the instrument panel "You see the speed? You see the altitude? And you see that indicator that says SLATS? We have just duplicated the exact conditions that Mr Barker insists caused the death of three people, on this very sa happened The attitude is rock solid Want to try again?"
"Yes," she said She didn&039;t knohat else to say
"Okay Slats retracting This time, maybe you&039;d like to do it yourself, Ms Malone Or s, see what actually happens when the slats extend It&039;s kind of neat"
Rawley pressed a button "Ah, Norton station, this is zero one, can I have a monitor check?" He listened a moment "Okay, fine Ms Malone, move a little forward, so your friends can see you on that ca of the cockpit "Give &039;e foolish
"Ms Malone, how many more times would you like us to extend and retract the slats to satisfy your cato seee would ment look ridiculous It would make -
"We can do this all day, if you like," Raas saying "That&039;s the point No proble the slats at cruise speed on the N-22 Plane can handle it fine"
&039;Try it once htly
"That&039;s the handle there Just flip that little metal cover up, and pull it down about an inch"
She knehat he was doing Putting her in the shot
"I think you&039;d better do it"
"Yes, ma&039;am Whatever you say"
Rawley pulled the lever down The ruhtly Exactly as before
"Now," Rawley said, "we&039;ve got the chase plane getting views for you showing the slats extending, so you&039;ll have exterior angles showing all the action Okay? Slats retracting"
She watched impatiently "Well," she said "If the slats didn&039;t cause this accident, what did?"
Singleton spoke for the first ti has it been now, Teddy?"
"We&039;ve been up twenty-three h?"
"Maybe Could happen any minute now"
"What could happen?" Jennifer said
"The first part of the sequence," Singleton said, "that caused the accident"
"The first part of the sequence?"
"Yes," Singleton said "Nearly all aircraft accidents are the result of a sequence of events We call it a cascade It&039;s never one thing There&039;s a chain of events, one after another On this aircraft, we believe the initiating event was an erroneous fault reading, caused by a bad part"
With a sense of dread, Jennifer said, "A bad part?&039;
She was i around this aard point Singleton had said it was the initiating event That didn&039;t have to be emphasized, especially if it was just a link in the chain of events The next link in the chain was equally important - probably more i and spectacular, it involved the whole airplane, and it was surely unreasonable to blame it on a bad part
"You said there was a chain of events"
"That&039;s right," Singleton said "Several events in a sequence that we believe led to the final outcome"
Jennifer felt her shoulders drop
They waited
Nothing happened
Fiveat her watch "What exactly are aiting for?&039;
"Patience," Singleton said
Then there was an electronic ping, and she saw amber words flash on the instrument panel It said SLATS DISAGREE
"There it is," Rawley said
"There what is?&039;
"An indication that the FDAU believes the slats are not where they&039;re supposed to be As you see, the slats lever is up, so the slats should be stowed And we know they are But the airplane is picking up a reading that they are not stowed In this case, we know the warning is co The proximity sensor should read the presence of the retracted slat But this sensor&039;s been daets cold, it behaves erratically Tells the pilot the slats are extended, when they&039;re not"
Jennifer was shaking her head "Proxi you What does this have to do with Flight 5457&039;
Singleton said, &039;The cockpit on 545 got a warning that sos like that happen fairly frequently The pilot doesn&039;t knohether so up So the pilot tries to clear the warning; he runs out the slats and retracts them"