Skyhook (7 page)

“Gracie! How’s my favorite surrogate daughter?”

“Well, I’m fine, Captain R, but how the heck are you and Rachel?

And what happened? You two scared us to death.”

Arlie chuckled, taking time to breathe before answering. April sensed motion and looked over to see two men, one in a business suit, the other more casually dressed, standing uncomfortably just inside the door.

“Gracie,” Arlie was saying, “I haven’t had time to go over this .

. . we lost the Albatross somehow.”

‘I

and

April yet, b 50 sorry, covered the

Captain,” Gracie replied, as April got to her feet small distance to the two men. “May I help you?”

April asked, already aware that the taller of the two, a man in his early thirties, was fumbling with something that looked like a wallet. The leather case opened, and she read the words “National Transportation Safety Board” before realizing that the other man was holding up a similar wallet with the familiar logo of the Federal Aviation Administration.

“George Mikulsky, NTSB field investigator for Alaska,” the young man was saying. She took his offered hand without enthusiasm, acutely aware that her father’s voice was filling the room as he began to describe the accident to Gracie.

The FAA inspector appeared to be in his fifties and humorless, a severe expression on his face. He offered his hand as well. “I’m Walter Harrison,” he said, without changing expression.

“Gentlemen, let’s step out in the corridor and give my father some privacy for a few seconds here,” April said, ushering them out and pulling the door closed behind her, muting Arlie’s words.

“What can I—can we—help you with?”

Mikulsky and Harrison glanced at each other without expression before the NTSB investigator broke the brief silence.

“Well, there’s apparently been an aviation accident here involving your father and mother, and the loss of their aircraft, and the NTSB is required to investigate all air accidents.”

“I’m aware of that,” April replied, her voice flat and cautious, her demeanor automatically protective. “And you want to interview my father, right?”

“Yes, ma’am. Dr. Swift said he was physically able to be interviewed.”

“This is a routine thing, Miss Rosen,” Harrison added a bit too forcefully.

“You know, I just got here myself,” April said. “I’ve hardly had time to hug him, and I haven’t even seen my mom yet. Couldn’t this wait?”

Harrison was shaking his head as Mikulsky answered. “If he was physically unable to talk to us, of course it could, but we’ve got some basic questions we need to have answered, and the sooner the better.

After all, this involved a major Coast Guard search-and-rescue operation. We’d appreciate your cooperation.”

April glanced at the nurses’ station, sharing a brief nod with the nurse who had first greeted her before turning back to the two men.

“Okay, you know what? Let me go talk to my dad for a few minutes and make sure he feels up to it. I shouldn’t be making the decision for him.”

“We’ll wait out here,” Harrison replied.

She pushed open the door and let it close behind her, waiting for a lull in the conversation between her father and Gracie.

“Dad … Gracie, hold it a second,” April interjected, explaining who was waiting and what they wanted to do.

“I should be there,” Gracie said immediately from Seattle.

“Why, Gracie?” Arlie asked.

“It’s the feds, complete with enforcement authority, Captain, that’s why. Maybe we should call the Air Line Pilots Association to send someone.”

“It’s not an airline matter, Gracie, and I didn’t do anything wrong. So, hey, it’s our government, and I pay most of their salaries, so I’ll talk to them.”

“Ho-kay, Captain. But if you need me, I’m right here. And if they ask you when you stopped beating Rachel, clam up and call me.”

Arlie chuckled. “I’m sure it will be just a pro forma thing, Gracie. But I appreciate your being cautious.”

“April, you there?” Gracie asked.

April turned off the speakerphone and pulled the cell phone to her ear. “Yeah.”

“Monitor that interview, lady, and cut it off if there’s anything you don’t like in their tone. Take notes, too.”

“Should I tell them to go away?”

“No, that just antagonizes. I just don’t trust the FAA to be fair.”

“That’s an awful commentary.”

“I know. And it was your dad who taught me that.”

The fact that George Mikulsky of the NTSB had produced a small tape recorder and asked permission to tape the interview prompted April to pull a tiny five-hour digital recorder from her purse and do the same, a move that sparked a clear flash of anger from the FAA inspector.

“Do you object to my recording the interview?” April asked Harrison. “Especially since you’re recording it, too.”

The FAA inspector forced his expression back to neutral.

“No. Not a problem. No reason you shouldn’t,” he said, his conciliatory tone too forced.

They gathered in the hospital room with Harrison and Mikulsky sitting on gray metal chairs by the right side of Arlie Rosen’s bed, and April sitting on the other side. Both men had shaken hands with Arlie before sitting, Mikulsky making more of an effort to smile and be friendly.

“Okay, Captain Rosen,” George Mikulsky began, “this is not a deposition, it’s an informal interview, but it is on the record, which is why I’m recording it, with your permission. Now, would you just

take us through what you recall of last night, beginning with takeoff, and including route, altitude, flight plan, radio calls, et cetera.”

“I’ll do my best, fellows. I’m still pretty fuzzy.”

“Your plane’s tail number was November Three Four Delta Delta, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And it was current on all airworthiness certificates, inspections, airworthiness directive items?”

“She certainly was. I’m also a licensed A and P mechanic. All logs are current, but they’re in the plane—wherever it is.”

Mikulsky made a note and nodded. “Sorry, Captain. Go ahead. How did the flight start?”

Arlie described a routine takeoff from the smooth surface of Anchorage’s Lake Hood, just north of Anchorage International Airport. He remembered a lazy climb to six thousand feet as they flew down the channel known as Turnagain Arm and crossed a low ridge of mountains to fly over Whittier and out to sea.

“It was dusk, and my intention was to make Sitka, and the weather report was favorable for visual flight. In other words, clearly VFR. That was true until we were about sixty miles east of Whittier. Then I had to start descending and cutting more to the south over Montague Island on more or less a direct GPS course toward Middleton Island in order to avoid the cloud layers lying more to the north. Once we’d cleared Montague, I decided to keep stepping down over the water until we were cruising at a thousand feet. I’ve got a great… had a great moving map GPS, so I knew we were clear of any land. But by the time we’d passed Middleton, I realized we were in a sort of trap, and I told Rachel this wasn’t going to work and began trying to raise Anchorage Center for a pop-up instrument clearance.”

“You’re instrument-rated?” Mikulsky asked, drawing a puzzled frown.

“You’re asking if I’m instrument-rated?” Arlie replied incredulously.

“Yes, I believe that’s what I asked you,” Mikulsky said, a slightly officious tone bleeding into his words.

Arlie chuckled. “Son, I’m a Boeing 747 captain for a major airline, with thirty thousand hours and an airline transport pilot rating. Last time I checked, you couldn’t get an ATP

without having an instrument ticket.”

“Oh. Yeah,” George Mikulsky said, his face reddening.

“How long have you been with the NTSB, George?” Arlie asked.

April could feel the rising tension in the room as the inspector shifted in his chair and Mikulsky drew back. “I’ve been with NTSB

for four months now.”

“Are you a licensed pilot?”

“Captain Rosen, why don’t you let me ask the questions here?”

Mikulsky said, his voice taut.

Arlie smiled the characteristic smile Gracie always described as irresistible. He readjusted himself on the bed as if girding for a small battle before replying. “George, the reason I asked you that question is because there are certain things I need to explain in more detail if you’re not a pilot than I would need to explain if you were. I’m sorry you take offense at the question.”

“No, I’m not a pilot yet, but that doesn’t matter,” Mikulsky snapped, making an exaggerated note before continuing. “I’ll tell you if I’m unfamiliar with something. Let’s please get back to your narrative.”

April and Arlie exchanged a cautionary glance.

“Okay,” Arlie said, resuming the narrative. “I’m at a thousand feet, I’m not getting a response from Anchorage Center, the clouds are getting lower ahead, and it’s almost dark. I’ve only got a few coastal lights way off to my left, and I have only one choice left other than turning around, and that is to pull out my satellite phone and try to call Anchorage Flight Service by phone. But the visibility is deteriorating too fast, so I told Rachel we’d better turn around and divert back to the northwest into Valdez, and she agreed. I—”

“You had your sectional maps out and available?” Walter Harrison asked, interrupting.

“Yes,” Arlie replied carefully, fixing Harrison with a none-too friendly look. “I characteristically use maps when I go flying, in addition to my dash-mounted moving map GPS system, and my backup handheld GPS. Do you want me to list the charts?”

Harrison quickly shook his head no.

“Very well. I punched Valdez into both GPS units, which gave me a course of something like three three zero, which won’t work because of the mountains, so I headed northwest to fly up the channel and decided I was safe for about ten miles north before I’d have to either climb in clear conditions, or turn back to the west toward Anchorage to stay visual. Just to make sure I had the required clearance below the clouds, and since I was over open water, I descended to a hundred feet on the radio altimeter. The sea state was fairly choppy. I’d estimate the waves at five to seven feet, and I didn’t want to land in rough conditions like that in open water.”

“You could still see?” Mikulsky asked.

“Yes. It was still dusk, and I was in the clear beneath the cloud layer. That’s why I could see the waves below. This is open ocean, you understand, in international waters.”

“Okay.”

“So, we’re motoring along on a course of about two hundred ninety degrees and it looked a bit clearer to the right, so I came right to about three-twenty, and we’re getting close to the decision point, with a cloud deck still overhead, when all hell broke loose for no apparent reason.”

“How much fuel did you have?”

“Nine hours’, George. Fuel’s not an issue here.”

“Okay.”

“I’m holding the controls steady at a hundred feet and a hundred forty miles per hour when I unexpectedly run into a fog bank that seemed to come out of nowhere. Everything goes gray outside and I, of course, transition to the instruments and am just starting to climb and turn around to get out of it when there’s this loud metallic snap, or clang, or something, and I lose a prop blade on the right

side. At least, that’s what it felt like, because the ship instantly starts shaking, which it would with a missing prop blade. Not only that, it must have just missed the cockpit as it broke away, because there’s this incredible whooshing noise along with this instant, horrible shaking.”

April watched her father as he spoke, his eyes far away, his mind reliving that terrible moment as he talked.

“The controls suddenly feel like they’re going to beat me to death, they’re shaking and rattling so bad. Only a split second has passed, but it’s clear I’m going to be fighting for our lives. The old girl heaves to the right, and I yank the yoke back to the left and hit the left rudder, working to maintain my instrument scan at the same moment the right engine comes off its mounts. Somehow there’s a huge ball of flame on the right, probably from a breached fuel tank. I figure we’ll explode before I lose control, but there’s just this raging orange glow. I yank the feather knob for number-two engine and try to get the fuel cut off as Rachel yelps and turns to look. We’re on fire!” she reports to me like she’s trained to do, and I’m thinking it’s damned lucky she’s a pilot, too. I don’t need panic at a moment like this, I need all my efforts to keep the airplane in the air and level, which is getting to be a real challenge. I goose the left engine up to max power and I’ve got almost full left rudder, when we hit something … I don’t know … probably low-level mechanical turbulence off the mainland several miles to the northwest. Whatever it is, it’s the last thing I need because it just flips us to the right like a toy, despite full left aileron and full left rudder. I’m just hanging there in an impossible position with ninety degrees of bank and no lift, for just a heartbeat, but it’s enough to lose most of my hundred feet of altitude. I’ve almost got her back to wings level when the right wing or the right pontoon digs into the waves, and I can’t pull her out. Suddenly we’re cartwheeling and there’s water and cold and screaming metal and the most amazing noises. When the motion stops, I’m still conscious, and, incredibly, there are still lights glowing in the cockpit, although we’re filling with water.

I look to the right to find

Rachel, and thank God, she’s conscious, too, and wide-eyed and working to release my harness. It’s obvious the bird is sinking, not floating. I mean, I’ve got cold water to my knees. Somehow Rachel gets herself and me out of the seat belts and opens the hatch in the top of the cockpit, and we swim out just as the bird goes down.”

“You mean, sinks?” Mikulsky asked.

Arlie nodded. “I can tell you, the icy cold of that water is beyond description. We were both instantly wide awake. And there was another small miracle: One of the emergency life rafts had apparently worked as it was designed to do and popped out of the wing locker I’d engineered. The raft came up right next to us, and we pulled ourselves in and got the survival kit aboard—I bought the kind with the survival suits—and we somehow wiggled into them, soaking wet and freezing. I tried to find the emergency radio, but we were struggling and thrashing around so wildly to get the suits on, my guess is I knocked the damn radio overboard. The wind was cutting, the waves were mountainous…