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Chapter III

The Deputy Administrator

Sunday, September 18

“What happened!? What the hell happened!?”

For a moment George McCormick pictured Steve McQueen in the last scene from the movie The Sand Pebbles. Lawrence Jamal Evans was not Steve McQueen. McCormick had flown back to Washington Saturday night. He recognized the tirade in Evans’s raspy voice. He knew it would continue.

“We’ve got thirty-three dead bodies, two dead airplanes, and nobody knows what the hell happened,” Evans ranted on.

Lawrence Evans was the FAA Deputy Administrator. He was six feet three, black, and weighed two hundred and twenty pounds—a large, rotund man who seemed to be forever trying to catch his breath. McCormick thought it somewhat unusual for someone as high in the food chain as Evans to be personally involved with a preliminary crash investigation. Normally, the NTSB and FAA field investigators gathered crash information and reconstructed what happened without any assistance from the higher echelon. Preliminary reports were normally presented to the “FAA gods” days, if not weeks, after the crash. Even more unusual had been the early-morning texts from the Deputy Administrator summoning all of them to this meeting. The entire building was deserted except for security personnel.

It was now nine o’clock. Along with McCormick and Evans, three FAA Service Directors also sat in the headquarters’ conference room; Sharon Doell from Evaluations, Gary Dennison from Air Traffic System Effectiveness, and Eric Jarutz from Airspace and Procedures. A lot of firepower for a supposedly routine investigation, McCormick thought.

“Senator Alread’s wife was on that plane, and he wants answers yesterday,” bellowed Evans.

“Which plane?” questioned Jarutz.

Evan practically screamed at him. “The Brasilia, you moron!”

Lawrence Evans wasn’t known for his tact or people skills. He had grown up in the inner city of Baltimore, and much of the street was still in him. McCormick couldn’t help but wonder if Evans would have had the nerve to address Sharon Doell in the same tone and manner if she had asked the question. Doell was also black. She was a slender forty-two-year-old and had a reputation for having a short fuse and being politically correct. Doell joined the FAA after graduating from college with a BS in Management Information Systems. Within three years she was only one of two people selected nationwide to attend Stanford to obtain her master’s degree, all expenses paid, courtesy of the FAA’s Long-Term Training Program. Doell rose through the ranks quickly. In her thirteenth year with the organization, after sailing through all the required interviews, she was promoted to Service Director of Evaluations.

Gary Dennison had spent nine years as a controller and three as a first-line supervisor at what was once called the “New York Common I.” The radar approach control facility handled all the air traffic for Kennedy, La Guardia, and Newark, most of it operating under Instrument Flight Rules, thus the name. Dennison eventually worked his way into the FAA’s Eastern Regional Office where he spent eight years learning the organizational structure and how its parts interacted. He was more than well acquainted with the schematic organizational flowcharts that defined the respective functions of each of the branches, sections, and divisions that comprised the entire region. He knew how every one of them worked, and he knew how to make them work the way he wanted them to. Dennison eventually was offered the National Air Traffic System Effectiveness Service Director’s job at FAA Headquarters. He took it. A year later he lost his wife to cancer. Three years later he was happily remarried—that was more than he could say for his relationship with his eighteen-year-old daughter. She resented her father’s new wife, moved out, and kept her contacts with her dad short and curt. Dennison’s personal and professional life was a mixed bag. He had fostered solid relationships with others on his way up the career ladder and had acquired a reputation for being a “can do” guy. Dennison was the “gamesman” in the group. His organization was in charge of everything that had to do with investigating crashes from the air traffic control side of the equation. The investigators who worked for him carried their own specially designed badges. They also carried their own authorization to the flight deck of any commercial air carrier and could fly wherever and whenever they wanted. That kind of authority was necessary. The minute a plane went down there wasn’t time to go through normal channels to get inspectors to the crash site. Gary Dennison was forty-six, fairly young for a Service Director.

Eric Jarutz, at sixty-one, was the senior statesmen of the group. He was six feet one inch tall and two hundred and twenty pounds, almost as large as Evans. His ruddy complexion was accentuated by the deep creases, which lined his face, giving him a very rugged and worn look. Jarutz had spent most of his career in the Alaskan Region. He was a man born for the wrong time. Jarutz belonged in the Alaskan frontier of the 1800s. He loved to hunt with black powder, made his own fishing lures, and knew how to throw a tomahawk with deadly accuracy. Unfortunately, none of these traits served him very well when it came to dealing with people. Jarutz’s managerial style was that of a “jungle fighter”—do what I say, or else. Most people feared him; few respected him. Evan’s remark had no effect on him.

McCormick now understood. A VIP with political muscle, a US senator no less, had a personal interest at stake. George McCormick had no doubt that this investigation was going to be placed on “fast track” and would move quickly.

Evans pounded his fist on the small lectern seated atop the end of the table in a slow, steady rhythm. “I want information as fast as we can get it—transcripts, radar plots, voice tapes, controller statements, supervisor statements, and whatever else you can get your hands on. Find out if there was a Conflict Alert? If not, why not? If a Conflict Alert was generated, did the controller issue it to the pilot? If not, why not? Get me background on the controller who was working. I want to see the last two full facility evaluations. Ms. Doell, I believe that’s your area. Jarutz, I want you to review New England TRACON’s airspace with a fine-tooth comb and make sure it’s designed according to specs. Dennison, the transcripts, data plots, and anything else you deem pertinent, I want them as soon as possible. Have your people work overtime if you have to, but get that information to me ASAP, and while you’re at it, find out which lawyers from the Department of Justice and the FAA General Counsel’s Office are going to be assigned to this crash. If it turns out New England ran these two planes together, we’re going to be crucified. The press will have a field day making minced meat out of us if we’re in any way responsible, not to mention that any court-awarded damages will be astronomical. Senator Alread has been pushing hard to privatize the air traffic system. If we fucked up, this will be all he needs to restructure everything and pull it out from under our control. I don’t have to tell you how drastically that will change the way we do business. I don’t want any surprises. As soon as I hear from all of you that you have what you need, we’ll meet back here in a few days to discuss our options. Any questions?”

No one said a word.

“Okay. Get going and make sure we’re clean!”

McCormick, Doell, Jarutz, and Dennison had the same thought: What do we do if it turns out we are at fault? No one asked.