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A story I began one day when I was daydreaming about flying... just remember, I'm not a "real" pilot, so be kind!!!
"On doit des egardes aux vivants; on ne doit aux morts que la verite."
"We owe respect to the living; to the dead we owe only truth."
- Oeuvres (1785) -Voltaire
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Anne Ryder's gaze followed the twin contrails of the 767 passing overhead as her husband unlocked the passenger door of their Chrysler, the roar of the powerful engines barely audible at the high altitude of the aircraft. There was never a day that she didn't tire of the sight of a plane gracefully crossing the blue sky overhead. Her love of flying from an early age made sure of that. She settled into the passenger seat, carefully placing her briefcase at her feet before fastening her seatbelt. Glancing across at her husband, she smiled. He always looked so handsome in his uniform; the blue coat with the gleaming buttons and four captain's stripes on the sleeves only emphasizing the sense of power that he usually exuded.
"Ready?" he asked, smiling back at her. At forty-eight years old, Captain Jonathan Ryder was ten years older than his wife. He was considered very attractive by the majority of the women he worked alongside; with brown hair, blue eyes and a strong jaw line Jonathan was the glossy magazine ideal of an airline pilot brought to life.
"Ready," Anne said, brushing a piece of lint from his shoulder. "This is going to be one hectic day." She busied herself selecting a radio station as they turned onto the freeway that led to the airport. Both husband and wife flew for the same company, but never together. As captains, they each worked with at least one co-pilot. They had flown together once or twice to departure points but never professionally. Their working together seemed not to cause any problems in their relationship as it had with other couples in the airline; conversely it seemed to be a factor that helped them stay close to the other, without suffocating the marriage. Although they had never discussed the matter, each knew that the other had often received offers of companionship from other crew members on long-haul flights, but had unshakable faith in the other's integrity.
Anne brushed a stray lock of hair off her face, fixing it with a pin. Her shoulder-length red hair was swept back into a chignon, perfectly fitting under her peaked pilot's cap. "So," she queried," glancing at her pager," this will be your last flight before you go on leave."
"Yeah. I'm really looking forward to our holiday, honey," said Jon enthusiastically. "It's going to be great to spend some time with you." He patted his wife's knee affectionately, the momentary distraction eliciting a staccato blast from the horn of the car beside them as the Chrysler slowly meandered into the left lane. Jonathan waved a sheepish apology to the man in the black sedan, who rudely replied with a gesture of his own.
"Idiot," muttered Ryder, looking at his wife. Anne merely shook her head. "You were distracted, Jon. Can you blame him?"
"I guess not."
"Anyway, I don't want to waste our few minutes on some impatient guy. I want to talk to you." Anne glanced across at Jon again, wishing that neither of them had to work and they could spend the day lounging together; talking and perhaps taking a walk by the beach. Still, she thought to herself, they had three weeks in which to lose themselves in each other's company. One more day of work and then it would be over for at least a while.
Jon smiled as he waved his pass card at the toll man, swinging the car into the company lot and deftly finding an available space. With two weeks to Christmas, it was the peak season and most of the lot was full. He was glad he'd managed to dodge the Christmas slot this year. Some poor new guy had scored that duty.
He locked the car and tossed the keys to the waiting attendant. "Morning Fred."
"Morning Jon, Anne," replied the smiling, slightly tubby valet. "Hope you guys have a great holiday."
"Thanks Fred," replied Anne, hefting her roll-on bag from the car. "You have a nice Christmas if we don't see you before."
"Sure will. Enjoy your flight."
The two pilots made their way to the Chevron Air terminal, Anne smiling to herself as she watched a group of children turn to gape at her and Jonathan.
One of the kids, a girl of about nine, clutched a book on planes and sported about five different airline badges. "Wow, Mum!" she called. "A lady pilot!"
Anne pointed out the excited child to Jon and they stopped to say hello, the kids' eyes getting even rounder at the sight of the two captains.
"I'm a lady pilot, alright," she said to the now awestruck little girl. "My name's Captain Anne, what's yours?"
"Rebecca," said the girl shyly.
"And I bet you like planes a lot, huh?"
"Yup," replied Rebecca, warming to the subject. "But seven forty sevens are my favorite."
"Mine too," said Jon, smiling at her. "And hers as well." He pointed at Anne.
Anne smiled at the children's mother. "You folks going on a trip?"
"Oh no," replied the young mother. "It's Rebecca's birthday. It's always her treat to come to the airport on her birthday."
"I tell you what," said Anne, looking at her husband," how would you like to come visit the flight deck of a 747, Rebecca?"
The little girl's eyes lit up, her pigtails bobbing wildly as she nodded vigorously. "I sure would!"
"Well, if your mum says it's okay, we can take you for a visit right now. And if you like, we can even sign your book for you."
* * *
Forty minutes later, the excited children now taken on a tour by the terminal manager, Anne had just finished filing the day's flight plan in Ops. Karen Daly, the forty-three year old despatcher, smiled wearily at her colleague of five years. "I bet you're glad to be going on holidays after today."
"Sure am," replied Anne, depositing a load of silver coins into the coffee machine. "You got any big plans for the holidays?"
"Not really. I may go visit my daughter and her kids over the break. I hadn't really planned on much."
"Probably easier that way," said Anne, thumping the coffee machine, hoping to persuade it to dispense the coffee for once. She'd long ago given up on actually getting any sugar with it - the machine wasn't that good.
"Well, I hope you have a nice break, Karen, whatever you end up doing."
"Thanks, Anne. Have a good flight."
"I will." She took the stairs to the observation lounge near the ready room, knowing that Jonathan would have to leave for his plane soon. The multitude of pre-flight checks and walkaround examination of the plane took up a good deal of time before the actual flight left.
He was standing before the large plate-glass window, hands in pockets, watching the early-morning flights preparing to leave. The sun had come up some ten minutes ago, the soft pink light reflecting on the large variety of aircraft parked on the tarmac.
Anne smiled to herself, remembering that she'd first seen Jon in much the same pose. It was a habit he had, this early morning ritual of watching the planes take off for their various destinations around the world. She placed her coffee and papers on a nearby table and walked over to her husband, linking her arm through his and leaning her cheek on his shoulder. "Beautiful dawn, isn't it?" she said softly.
He covered her small hand with his and squeezed it. "Not as beautiful as you." He was rewarded with a small chuckle. It was a long-standing joke to see which of them could come up with the most cliched compliments.
"That would have to be the oldest one in the book," laughed Anne, looking up at him.
Jonathan merely shrugged and looked back out of the window. "You were great with those kids this morning, Anne. They really liked you."
"I'm a sucker for a kid who's nuts about flying. That kid reminded me of myself at that age. A hopeless aviation freak."
"Well, you just may have helped her choose her career."
"I hope so. We need more girls up the front of a plane."
Jon smiled at his wife. "I'm glad she won't be the first. Or I'd never have met you." He slid his arm around her shoulders.
Anne smiled back, content to spend just a little while in her husband's embrace.
* * *
They walked together towards his gate, sharing a quick kiss before they came out of the corridor into the terminal. As always, in public sight they were careful to keep things strictly professional. They had never been faulted for their conduct yet. Jon greeted the gate agent with an infectious smile, his jovial mood making the young girl smile in return.
"Good morning Captain Ryder, everything is all set and ready for you. Ops says pushback is still on schedule, pending your inspection."
"Thanks Rita." Captain Ryder turned to wave goodbye to his wife. "See you tonight, honey. Same time, same place."
Anne smiled back. "Sure thing, Jon," she said, before discreetly kissing her hand at him. She watched him walk down the aerobridge until, as usual, he stole one quick glance behind him, then disappeared around the corner.
* * *
Anne watched from the observation deck as the Chevron Air 747 slowly backed out from the boarding ramp, the tug driver disengaging from the nose wheel of the aircraft. She saw Jon flash the driver a thumbs-up from the cockpit window before he bent to concentrate on the pre- take off checklist. Right now he and his copilot would be running through the challenge-and-response litany of the list before requesting clearance and taxi-ing to the holding point at the end of the runway.
The multitude of vehicles that had serviced Flight 75 now scuttled away like brightly colored bugs running for cover. No doubt the last items on the list were being covered, clearances were being requested and safety demonstrations being given as the large jumbo started to slowly move forward under its own power.
Anne glanced quickly at her watch. She had time to wait and see Jon's flight depart. Her pulse quickened as it always did as she heard the immense whine of the four giant Pratt & Whitney turbofan jet engines reach their tremendous crescendo, moments before the large jet began its rush down the tarmac. She could feel the vibrations in her bones as the jumbo passed the terminal, swiftly gathering speed. She saw the nose lift slightly, the ever so subtle change as sheer speed gave way to the forces of lift.
"Rotate," she murmured to herself, as the gear ceased its caress of the pavement and the plane left ground effect and became airborne. "Positive rate, gear up." Anne knew intimately the low rumble that accompanied the retraction of the landing gear of a heavy jet.
This was the feeling that she knew Jon lived for, because she lived for it too. The exact moment when one became airborne; a creature of the sky. It was stronger than adrenaline, more powerful and addictive than any mere drug.
Her eyes followed the jet as it began to climb away from the field, gathering height, the huge expanse of its wings reflecting the majesty of a large bird in flight. She thought of Jon, at the controls, and loving every second of it.
That was when suddenly the plane ceased to exist, exploding into a million fragments as an immense, fiery flower bloomed from within the fuselage. The flower grew larger still, until debris and paper and white-hot shrapnel began raining from the sky. Thick black smoke now marked the place where seconds before, over three hundred and fifty passengers and twenty two crew had been effortlessly soaring into the sky.
Anne stood frozen, wanting but unable to move. She was aware of a strange wailing, unlike anything she had ever heard before. It was too unearthly to be any machine or vehicle. That was when she realized that the sound was coming from her own throat.
* * *
Anne awoke with a start, her hands out to steady herself as she sat up. She felt the momentary pang of realisation, as she always did, when she reached out and found the other half of the bed empty. It had never gotten any easier to know that Jon wasn't coming home. The emptiness was only made worse by the letter she had received that morning from the airline, her employer. It had felt like such a betrayal.
We are sorry to inform you that as of the 25th February, 1997, wages for Captain Jonathan Ryder are terminated permanently. No "We're so sorry about your husband." No waiting until Jon had even been buried for a month. Wiping away her tears, she turned to look out of the window of her bedroom. A sleek jet was outlined in the lightening dawn. Anne sank back down on the pillows and wept.
Part 2
Three weeks earlier
Rita Mason, the young gate agent who a week ago farewelled Captain Ryder on his last flight, now looked up at her supervisor, Karen Daly, her eyes red and swollen from crying. Karen reached out to the girl and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.
"It'll be okay, Rita. Now Anne can put him to rest."
Rita nodded her thanks as Karen went to sort out a mix-up on the third baggage carousel.
The complement of Chevron staff at the airport had been even more somber than they had since the crash, on being given the news that Captain Ryder's remains had been formally identified at last. It had been a week of hell for the airline's employees, who not only had to field calls from the angry relatives of dead passengers but also deal with the loss of twenty two of their own people, many of whom had worked for Chevron for decades.
What was most puzzling though, was the reaction of the National Transportation Safety Board. Their initial comment at the press release the evening of the accident was that they were nearly one hundred per cent sure that terrorism or sabotage had not caused the explosion. This puzzled both the media and the general public; given the eyewitness accounts of the explosion, including extremely accurate descriptions by pilots and controllers, they could not see how such an explosion was not a result of a criminal act.
Already other theories had surfaced; it was a fuel-tank explosion similar to the one likely to have brought down TWA 800 in 1996; a group of extremists had shot the plane down with a missile; hijackers blew it up; lasers had blinded the pilots. Most of the theories didn't even make sense given the nature of the crash. Hijackers would have made demands, or, at the worst flown the plane into a populated area. Blowing it up over the runway made no sense. Neither did the flash-blinding theory - how would blinding the pilots cause the plane to explode?
These were the stories being bandied about on the news channels. Chevron, as well as most of the other airlines in the terminal, had shut off the television sets in the lounges altogether. Speculation would have to wait until the plane's "black Box" had been found, if it ever was. Seeing as the explosion had taken place close to the ground, chances were better than usual that it would be. At the very least, the investigators had the recorded conversation between the tower and the pilots up until the moment of the crash.
Anne had been given paid bereavement leave and told to go home and rest, but she had returned to the airport the very next day, not talking to anyone most of the time apart from the inevitable commiseration and condolences from colleagues. After that first morning, most of the staff had decided that it was best to leave her alone, for the time being. Eventually they had found a disused office for her to occupy while there. She cut a sad figure, outlined against the large terminal windows, coffee in hand, just watching the endless parade of aircraft taking off and landing. The airport administration thought that she might unnerve the passengers, and had been the ones to prompt the gesture of providing the office.
Instead of making use of this, Anne merely shifted herself up onto the rooftop observation deck, a secure area where she was sure to bother no passengers. The strong easterly wind was bitingly cold, but she didn't notice. This was where she wanted to be, able to be by herself and watch the familiar goings on of a busy city airport. Immersing herself in routine meant that she didn't have to concentrate on other things.
"Captain Ryder?"
She turned upon hearing her name, to see a young woman in a Chevron uniform hurriedly approaching her. The girl was clutching a clipboard, and trying to hold onto her papers and stop herself being strangled by her scarf at the same time.
"Excuse me, Captain, but I've been told to ask you to come to the pilots' lounge." She had barely finished speaking when she started to turn and walk away, as though she expected to be obeyed immediately.
Anne stayed where she was, and the woman stopped and turned around. "Captain Ryder, please come with me."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"Well, unless I know why, I'm not going to come, and you can tell them that, whoever "them" is." Anne knew she was being childish, but didn't care.
"Please, Captain, don't waste any more time. Mr Hartley has been waiting a while already."
The mention of Chevron Air's CEO piqued Anne's interest. Whatever it was, it must be important. Reluctantly, she threw her coffee cup in the trash and followed the now relieved woman inside.
* * *
"Captain Ryder, it's good you can join us," said Evan Hartley, as Anne entered the pilots' lounge. He walked forward and embraced her, a gesture she could tell was forced. "Please accept my sincere condolences on behalf of everyone at Chevron Air," he said, smiling in sympathy.
"Thanks," said Anne, unable to manage anything else. If one more person so much as said the word 'sorry', she was going to scream.
"I'm sure you're wondering why we got you down here, so I'll get to the point." He turned to a small group of people behind him, mostly middle-aged men in shirtsleeves. The one exception was a strikingly beautiful Asian woman, about twenty five years old.
"This is the investigation team from the NTSB," Hartley continued. "As you know, the black box was found, and they have their initial findings. Normally we don't involve victim's families in the data analysis of the black boxes, but for you we're willing to make an exception. This way, if you please."
Evan led the way into an adjoining conference room, the many heated union vs airline disputes waged here earning it the nickname "War Room". They all took their seats, and Hartley began the introductions.
"Nick Maher, powerplant and electrical systems; Mike Long, avionics; Steve Shaw, airframe; and Ellen Wong, human factors, and Justin Tighe, Investigator In Charge."
They all nodded to Anne in greeting, Tighe taking the trouble to shake her hand, his eyes solemn. As well as the NTSB team, there were three other people present; a representative from ALPA, the airline pilots' association, one of the airport authority executives, and Evan Hartley's PA, Sharon Atkins, there to take a transcript of the meeting.
Hartley turned the floor over to Tighe, a man in his late thirties, wearing shirtsleeves, a loose tie and about three day's worth of stubble on his chin. He looked like he hadn't slept in as long, either. Obviously he'd come straight in from the scene, or wherever he'd been working.
"Thank you Mr Hartley. Ladies and gentlemen, let me cut to the chase. I'm sure you all want to know what we've come up with so far. The short answer is, not a lot. ASIO is still looking into the possibility of terrorism. Samples from the aircraft wreckage have been sent to Canberra for analysis. However, any results from those tests are still a few weeks away, a fortnight at best. What we do have, however, is the initial transcript from the cockpit voice recorder, and the data readout from the DFDR."
Justin paused as the airport exec whispered to Hartley's secretary, "What the heck is a DFDR?" She merely shrugged.
The IIC effortlessly picked up the slack. "A DFDR, Mr Browne, is a Digital Flight Data Recorder. It's a device which, simply put, records all inputs from the pilots and responses from the plane for the preceding twenty four hours of flight time. By using this, we can determine what problems, if any, occurred before and during the event."
Browne simply nodded and looked back to his notepad. Justin nodded to Ellen Wong, who now began her part of the presentation. "As our IIC has mentioned, we do have an initial transcript from the CVR." She glanced over at Browne, who was taking copious notes. "That's a Cockpit Voice Recorder, for the uninitiated." Anne had to suppress a smile. She hated these execs who didn't know a thing about aircraft, yet acted like they knew it all.
Wong continued, passing a computer printout to each of them. "As Mr Tighe said, this is still only an initial transcript. Also, I don't really think it's necessary to remind you that everything you hear on this tape must remain absolutely confidential. Those transcripts you hold must also be returned before you leave this room." She paused, her gaze shifting to each person in the room, though lingering longest on Anne.
"Before we begin, I must warn you that often, the conversation on these tapes can be quite distressing, especially for those who knew the pilots. If at any time you feel that you can't hear any more, you are welcome to leave the room and return once the tape has concluded. Is everyone okay with this?"
Having received the affirmative from all present, Ellen Wong, Human Factors Analyst for the NTSB, reached over to the black Sony tape deck and pushed the button marked Play.
* * * End Part 2
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