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Chapter XII

Record Destruction

Patricia Blakely was astonished. The FAA Academy Air Traffic Superintendent had just gotten off the phone with FAA Deputy Administrator Lawrence Evans. He had given her a heads-up on an upcoming “surprise” visit by a facility evaluation team from Washington Headquarters. It seemed one of the main items the evaluation team would be focusing on was document retention procedures, checking to see if “old” records had been properly destroyed rather than retained to cause mountains of useless paper occupying valuable file space. Blakely was to verify that all student records, five years and older, were destroyed. Evans had commended her on the great job she was doing and assured her that the information he had given her concerning the evaluation team was quite within bounds.

“After all,” Evans had said, “the academy has to maintain its stellar public image as being the premiere institution for turning out only top-quality graduates from their training program. No point in not checking to make sure there are no minor ‘bookkeeping’ errors for the team to uncover that might blemish the academy’s sterling reputation.”

Blakely was pleased. She would have her people and the academy ready. Two weeks later she would be told the evaluation had been cancelled due to insufficient travel funds.

Carolyn Flores, Air Traffic Manager, New England Approach Control, and Roberta Alston, Director of the Federal Records Center, received similar calls from Gary Dennison acting under Evans’s direction. Within twenty-four hours of receiving those calls, most of Melissa Jason’s academic and training records ceased to exist, all of them destroyed in accordance with FAA Order 1350.15.

Oddly, those surprise evaluations were also cancelled.

*****

Wednesday, September 21

Lawrence Evans, George McCormick, Gary Dennison, and the other Service Directors were back in the sixth-floor conference room. It was eight-thirty Wednesday morning.

“She doesn’t remember what she said to the Centurion. According to our investigation team, she’s pretty rattled and doesn’t remember much of anything at this point.” It was McCormick speaking. “She hasn’t the faintest idea what the unintelligible words are.”

“Do we place a suggestion in her head, or let it alone?” Evans was deliberately thinking out loud.

“What kind of suggestion?” The comment sort of popped out of McCormick’s mouth. Normally he wouldn’t have taken the lead in a discussion with this group, but he was uneasy with the deputy’s direction.

“Perhaps she said, maintain one one thousand, that’s perfectly plausible.”

And perfectly convenient, McCormick thought. He had the feeling Evans knew, or suspected something about the unreadable part of the transmission, but McCormick wasn’t sure. Still, he was sure there was no such thing as a one-word clearance; in fact, most clearances took several sentences to issue. Perhaps he was being suspicious for no reason. “Maintain one one thousand,” was plausible; on the other hand, there was no reason for Jason to say that, and the elapsed tape time seemed too short to accommodate that phrase. Things did not add up.

McCormick spoke. “What about the cockpit voice recorder from the Brasilia? The NTSB finally found it. Maybe the controller’s transmissions on the C-V-R are clear?”

Evans responded. “The NTSB’s transcript also shows it as ‘unintelligible,’ meaning whoever transcribed the C-V-R data did not understand what was said either. The tape from New England Approach is fine for our purposes. Get out to the TRACON and go over Jason’s transmissions with her. We need to make sure she has a valid reason for everything she said and did, her extraneous comments notwithstanding. Leave the FAA and DOJ lawyers out of it for now. If she doesn’t remember what that ‘unintelligible’ word was, she doesn’t remember. If we can’t demonstrate what it was, neither can anyone else.”

McCormick thought, Why exclude our own lawyers unless the Deputy Administrator wanted Jason thinking along certain lines before they actually met with her? Lawrence Evans, however, hadn’t suggested McCormick tell Jason anything, just to make sure she had valid reasons for what she did. McCormick wondered if he was expected to provide her with some if she didn’t.

McCormick decided to “remind” the Deputy of certain facts. “Our conversations with her won’t be privileged without counsel present. We can be asked by opposing counsel what we discussed with her, not to mention our lawyers are going to be upset at not being present when we talk with her. They are going to want to know what was discussed and why.”

Evans shot back. “We’ll deal with that when the time comes. In the meantime, remind Ms. Jason that ‘I don’t recall’ is a perfectly good answer to a lawyer’s question.”

Evans ended the meeting and told the others he’d be in close touch. As McCormick got up to leave, Gary Dennison pulled him to one side and whispered something to him. No one noticed. The rest of the group couldn’t wait to get out of the room. McCormick responded with two quick nods and quickly left.