A jet engine was so precisely machined – and operated at such enormous speeds – that the tiniest problems could become fatal flaws in the blink of an eye. The fan blade-tip speed could approach Mach 1 a mere one-eighth of an inch from the fan casing. The slightest imbalance …
The long silence across the miles was filled with their minds addressing a previously unconsidered problem, mentally dissecting the engine of a 737, stripping it down to its heart, then poring over every part of the assembly, probing for chinks in its armour.
‘Maybe the scoring’s a symptom, not a cause,’ he said. It was possible that something had gone wrong somewhere else and that the disc and the shaft had parted company as a result. In that case, scoring – and even deeper gouging – could easily have been caused as the two metal faces ripped apart.
‘Hmm,’ said Pam, sounding unconvinced. ‘Or maybe there was something wrong with the manufacture.’
That possibility was so frightening that Tom actually shivered. If there was a fault in the manufacturing process, then who knew how many planes might be in the skies right now with the same fault lying dormant in their engines, waiting to manifest itself in wholesale carnage? ‘Have you checked the trail?’
‘Yes. Everything’s properly papered.’
He sighed with relief. Every airline part imported into or made in the US was numbered, logged and had a paper trail stretching back to the manufacturer. That paperwork outlived the part it documented. Years after a part was destroyed, its paperwork still languished in old files. For some years the paper trail had been converted to computer records that could be printed off as required. But in many countries, when a plane was sold, the paperwork transferred with it was taller than a Harlem Globetrotter.
‘Where did the plane come from?’
‘Hold on.’ He could hear her shuffling papers. ‘It was a twelve-year-old jet bought by SAA six years ago from Avia Freight.’
‘Converted?’
Silence again while she checked. ‘QC.’
QC was Quick Change. The 737-400 QC could be quickly refitted for passengers or for cargo.
‘How about yours?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll check. I’ll get back to you.’
‘Okay.’
‘Hey, Pam, thanks.’
She laughed again, as if she had nothing better to do with her time than discuss downed planes with him half a world away.
Tom looked up Munro’s report online. It told him only that the Pride of Maine had been manufactured thirteen years before its untimely death. He called CalSuperior and asked for their operations department. When he identified himself to a chirpy-sounding man, all the chirp went out of his voice and he became sullen, as if the investigation into the demise of the Pride of Maine was a personal insult.
‘I thought this investigation was over.’
‘You thought wrong.’ Tom waited irritably while the guy got the information he needed. The Pride of Maine was a second-hand purchase – as so many cargo planes were. This particular 737 had been bought a mere three years before.
‘Where was it purchased?’
‘Purchased from …’ Again, the formerly chirpy man took a good long time to find the information for him, then told him so grudgingly that Tom wanted to reach down the phone line and throttle him.
‘… Avia Freight.’
Tom felt a little thrill up the back of his neck.
*
The Avia Freight offices in LA were on Sepulveda Boulevard, sandwiched between a Denny’s parking lot and the Sunny View Motel. The Sunny View, in turn, was permanently in the shadow of the neighbouring office block, making it quite possibly the only motel in LA without a sunny view – or a view at all, thought Tom, as he looked round at the eight lanes of traffic pumping smog just inches from the car-sized motel pool, which oozed under an opalescent slick.
The interior of Avia Freight had a clean, corporate look that made Tom feel immediately like a bum. He’d put on his badge and his NTSB jacket, but the pretty young clerk (actress-slash-clerk, no doubt) glanced at his sneakers and dismissed him out of hand. She asked him if she could get him anything – coffee, water, juice? – without smiling. Tom shook his head and picked up the first magazine on the table beside the leather couch. Embarrassingly, it turned out to be Hustler and, although he could feel his ears burning, he felt obliged to flick defiantly through it under the gaze of the girl, who had no doubt placed it there for her own amusement.
‘There’s a great article in there about paragliding,’ she said, barely able to keep a straight face.
‘That’s okay,’ he said. ‘I’m only looking at the pictures.’
The surprise in the actress-slash-clerk’s eyes was worth it. To hammer home his admittedly small advantage, he let the magazine drop open and carefully tugged the centrefold clear of the staples. He raised his eyebrows at her. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ She shook her head, clearly dumbfounded, as he folded it neatly into his back pocket.
A tall, bulky man with a Saddam moustache emerged from an inner office and walked over with his hand stuck out for Tom to shake.
‘Bruce Allway? Tom Patrick, NTSB. We spoke?’
Allway’s office smelt newly carpeted, although Tom noticed that the carpet was old and unravelling a little round the edges. Maybe it was a spray – like that new-car smell. Tom toyed for a moment with the concept of a world where nothing was ever renewed or replaced, just sprayed to make it smell as if it had been.
Allway could have done with a spray to clear his desk. Papers and folders spilled across it in thick, uneven piles; Day-Glo notes stuck seemingly randomly to things; an ironic desk-tidy overflowing with pens festooned with rubber bands.
‘’Scuse the mess,’ said Allway, with a hopeless shrug that seemed to indicate that if Tom had come on any other day things would have been pretty much the same. He held up a grey folder. ‘Found what you’re looking for.’
‘Really?’ said Tom, in genuine amazement.
*
Tom read the file in the debris of his Denny’s lunch. The Pride of Maine had gone into service with Avia Freight from new. Avia was a major cargo player, and the maintenance records were what he’d expected – regular and comprehensive. Every nut and bolt that had been checked or replaced on the 737 had been logged. Tom ran his poker glance down the pages, looking for information about the number-two engine. Nothing. According to the records, the compressor fan disc was the one the Pride of Maine had been born with, and the engine had been properly maintained up to the point of sale. No connection with the South African jet. If something had gone wrong with the fan disc, it was nothing to do with Avia.
Back to square one. Now he’d have to go back to the chirpy sonofabitch at CalSuperior and go through their maintenance records with a fine-tooth comb as well.
He sighed. He ran his hand across the stubble on his chin and felt a rare pang of embarrassment that he’d forgotten to shave. It was quickly subsumed by the more familiar burn of frustration at the way his career was trickling away, like sand in an hourglass.
