Airframe (Page 36)

"Yes."

"Why just this one, Casey?" he said.

"I don’t know."

"Find out," he said.

"Why? What good will that do?"

Amos threw up his hands. "Casey. Come on, now. Think it through. You have a problem with slats on 545. That’s a wing problem."

"Correct."

"Now you’ve found a part that’s been replaced on the wing."

"Correct."

"Why was it replaced?"

"I don’t know…"

"Was that wing damaged in the past? Did something happen to it, so that this part had to be replaced? Were other parts replaced as well? Are there other bad parts on the wing? Is there residual damage to the wing?"

"Not that you can see."

Amos shook his head impatiently. "Forget what you can see, Casey. Look at the ship’s record and the maintenance records. Trace this part, and get a history of the wing. Because something else is wrong."

"My guess is you’ll find more fake parts." Amos stood, sighing. "More and more planes have fake parts, these days. I suppose it’s to be expected. These days, everybody seems to believe in Santa Claus."

"How’s that?"

"Because they believe in something for nothing," Amos said. "You know: government deregulates the airlines, and everybody cheers. We got cheaper fares: everybody cheers. But the carriers have to cut costs. So the food is awful. That’s okay. There are fewer direct flights, more hubs. That’s okay. The planes look grubby, because they redo the interiors less often. That’s okay. But still the carriers have to cut more costs. So they run the planes longer, buy fewer new ones. The fleet ages. That’ll be okay – for a while. Eventually it won’t be. And meanwhile, cost pressures continue. So where else do they cut? Maintenance? Parts? What? It can’t go on indefinitely. Just can’t. Of course, now Congress is helping them out, by cutting appropriations for the FAA, so there’ll be less oversight. Carriers can ease up on maintenance because nobody’s watching. And the public doesn’t care, because for thirty years this country’s had the best aviation safety record in the world. But the thing is, we paid for it. We paid to have new, safe planes and we paid for the oversight to make sure they were well maintained. But those days are over. Now, everybody believes in something for nothing."

"So where’s it going to end?" she said.

"I got a hundred bucks," he said, "they’ll reregulate within ten years. There’ll be a string of crashes, and they’ll do it. The free marketeers will scream, but the fact is, free markets don’t provide safety. Only regulation does that. You want safe food, you better have inspectors. You want safe water, you better have an EPA. You want a safe stock market, you better have the SEC. And you want safe airlines, you better regulate them, too. Believe me, they will."

"And on 545 …"

Amos shrugged. "Foreign carriers operate with much less stringent regulation. It’s pretty loosey-goosey out there. Look at the maintenance records – and look hard at the paper for any part you’re suspicious of."

She started to leave.

"But Casey …"

She turned back. "Yes?"

"You understand the situation, don’t you? To check that part, you’ll have to start with the ship’s record."

"I know."

"That’s in Building 64. I wouldn’t go there, right now. At least not alone."

"Come on, Amos," she said. "I used to work on the floor. I’ll be okay."

Amos was shaking his head. "Flight 545’s a hot potato. You know how the guys think. If they can mess up the investigation, they will – any way they can. Be careful."

"I will."

"Be very, very careful."

BLD6 64

11:45 A.M.

Running down the center of Building 64 was a series of one-story chain-link cages that housed parts for the line, and terminal workstations. The workstations were placed inside small partitions, each containing a microfiche reader, a parts terminal, and a main system terminal.

In the parts cage, Casey bent over a microfiche reader, scrolling through photocopies of the ship’s record for Fuse 271, which was the original factory designation for the aircraft involved in the TPA accident.

Jerry Jenkins, the parts flow control manager on the floor, stood beside her nervously, tapping his pen on the table and saying, "Find it yet? Find it yet?"

"Jerry," she said, "take it easy."

"I’m easy," he said, glancing around the floor. "I’m just thinking, you know, you could have done this between shifts."

Between shifts would have drawn less attention.

"Jerry," she said, "we’re in kind of a rush here."

He tapped his pen. "Everybody’s pretty hot about the China sale. What do I tell the guys?"

"You tell the guys," she said, "that if we lose that China sale, then this line will shut down, and everybody will be out of a job."

Jerry swallowed. "That true? Because I hear – "

"Jerry, let me look at the record, will you?"

The ship’s record consisted of the mass of documentation – a million pieces of paper, one for every part on the aircraft – used to assemble the aircraft. This paper, and the even more extensive documentation required for FAA type certification, contained Norton proprietary information. So the FAA didn’t store these records, because if they did, competitors could obtain it under the Freedom of Information Act. So Norton warehoused five thousand pounds of paper, running eighty feet of shelf space for each aircraft, in a vast building in Compton. All this was copied onto microfiche, for access at these readers on the floor. But finding the paper for a single part was time-consuming, she thought, and –