tough and experienced. They just aren’t ready for the
scale
of the thing.
I saw several firemen stumbling around like sleepwalkers. One guy in a CHP uniform was sitting down, crying like a child. He’d probably come out of it okay. It was the guys who held it in, who played it tough to the end, that would eventually need help.
At least we didn’t have any zombies around. I saw some at San Diego, where the plane came down in the middle of a neighborhood. There was no way to keep people away at first, and some really sick cases were drawn to the site before the police could get it cleared. Some of them picked up pieces of bodies for souvenirs, if you can believe that. I didn’t want to believe it, but a guy at PSA swore to me it was true. He said a cop came within an inch of shooting one of these guys who was making off with somebody’s leg.
And why should it be such a surprise? Nothing draws a crowd like a big disaster. If a freeway smash-up was fun, an airplane crash ought to be a hundred times as much fun.
* * *
Crashes are like tornadoes. They play ugly tricks. I’ve seen severed heads, unmarked, hanging from tree branches at eye level. Sometimes there are hands clasping each other, a man’s and a woman’s, or a woman’s and a child’s. Just the hands, still hanging on when the rest of the bodies have been thrown elsewhere.
I looked where Tom had been looking when he had finally turned green. There was a woman’s arm, cut off pretty neatly. The trick the crash had played with this arm was to arrange it on the ground, palm up, fingers curling as if beckoning. There was a wedding ring on one finger. It would have been a sexy gesture in another context, and I guess that’s what got Tom.
It was going to get me in a minute if I didn’t look away, so I did.
* * *
Roger Keane’s the perfect man to head the Los Angeles office of the NTSB. He looks a little like Cary Grant in his younger days, with just a touch of silver in his hair, and he buys his suits in Beverly Hills. He’s not a guy to get his hands dirty, so I wasn’t surprised to find him back by the spotlight, supervising the crew who had clambered up the precarious tail section with cutting torches to get at the flight recorders. He had his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his trench coat, the collar turned up, and an unlit cigar clenched in his teeth. I got the impression that the biggest annoyance he faced in that landscape of carnage was the fact that he didn’t dare light his cigar with all the kerosene fumes still in the air.
He greeted me and Tom, and a few moments were passed in polite pleasantries. You’d be surprised how much they can help. I suspect I could carry off a reasonable imitation of polite conversation in the middle of a battlefield.
When that was done he took us off for a guided tour. There was a proprietary air about him. This had been his site, for better or worse, and until we were filled in on what he’d found out it still was, in a sense. This is not to say he was delighted withwhat he’d found. He was grimfaced, like the rest of us, probably taking it harder because he didn’t see it as often.
So we trudged through the devastation like solemn tourists, stopping every once in a while to puzzle out what some of the larger chunks were all about.
The only really important thing for me here were the CVR and the FDR. The famous black boxes. Eventually we got back to the tail section. We were just in time to see the Cockpit Voice Recorder lifted free and handed carefully down to someone on the ground. Roger looked happy.
I was, too, but the other one is more important.
The Flight Data Recorder, in the newer aircraft, is one hell of a piece of equipment. The old ones recorded just six variables, things like airspeed, compass heading, and altitude. The readings were inscribed by needles on rolls of metal foil. This 747 had one of the newer FDR’s that recorded forty different things on
scale
of the thing.
I saw several firemen stumbling around like sleepwalkers. One guy in a CHP uniform was sitting down, crying like a child. He’d probably come out of it okay. It was the guys who held it in, who played it tough to the end, that would eventually need help.
At least we didn’t have any zombies around. I saw some at San Diego, where the plane came down in the middle of a neighborhood. There was no way to keep people away at first, and some really sick cases were drawn to the site before the police could get it cleared. Some of them picked up pieces of bodies for souvenirs, if you can believe that. I didn’t want to believe it, but a guy at PSA swore to me it was true. He said a cop came within an inch of shooting one of these guys who was making off with somebody’s leg.
And why should it be such a surprise? Nothing draws a crowd like a big disaster. If a freeway smash-up was fun, an airplane crash ought to be a hundred times as much fun.
* * *
Crashes are like tornadoes. They play ugly tricks. I’ve seen severed heads, unmarked, hanging from tree branches at eye level. Sometimes there are hands clasping each other, a man’s and a woman’s, or a woman’s and a child’s. Just the hands, still hanging on when the rest of the bodies have been thrown elsewhere.
I looked where Tom had been looking when he had finally turned green. There was a woman’s arm, cut off pretty neatly. The trick the crash had played with this arm was to arrange it on the ground, palm up, fingers curling as if beckoning. There was a wedding ring on one finger. It would have been a sexy gesture in another context, and I guess that’s what got Tom.
It was going to get me in a minute if I didn’t look away, so I did.
* * *
Roger Keane’s the perfect man to head the Los Angeles office of the NTSB. He looks a little like Cary Grant in his younger days, with just a touch of silver in his hair, and he buys his suits in Beverly Hills. He’s not a guy to get his hands dirty, so I wasn’t surprised to find him back by the spotlight, supervising the crew who had clambered up the precarious tail section with cutting torches to get at the flight recorders. He had his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his trench coat, the collar turned up, and an unlit cigar clenched in his teeth. I got the impression that the biggest annoyance he faced in that landscape of carnage was the fact that he didn’t dare light his cigar with all the kerosene fumes still in the air.
He greeted me and Tom, and a few moments were passed in polite pleasantries. You’d be surprised how much they can help. I suspect I could carry off a reasonable imitation of polite conversation in the middle of a battlefield.
When that was done he took us off for a guided tour. There was a proprietary air about him. This had been his site, for better or worse, and until we were filled in on what he’d found out it still was, in a sense. This is not to say he was delighted withwhat he’d found. He was grimfaced, like the rest of us, probably taking it harder because he didn’t see it as often.
So we trudged through the devastation like solemn tourists, stopping every once in a while to puzzle out what some of the larger chunks were all about.
The only really important thing for me here were the CVR and the FDR. The famous black boxes. Eventually we got back to the tail section. We were just in time to see the Cockpit Voice Recorder lifted free and handed carefully down to someone on the ground. Roger looked happy.
I was, too, but the other one is more important.
The Flight Data Recorder, in the newer aircraft, is one hell of a piece of equipment. The old ones recorded just six variables, things like airspeed, compass heading, and altitude. The readings were inscribed by needles on rolls of metal foil. This 747 had one of the newer FDR’s that recorded forty different things on
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