Airframe

"Okay," Richman said, "but the captain shouldn't have lost his power in the first place."

"No, that was a designed-in safety feature," Casey said. "Douglas had designed and built the aircraft to survive those failures. When the left engine tore off, the aircraft deliberately shut down the captain's power line, to prevent further shorts in the system. Remember, all aircraft systems are redundant. If one fails, the backup kicks in. And it was easy to get the captain's instrumentation back again; all the flight engineer had to do was trip a relay, or turn on emergency power. But he didn't do either one."

"Why not?'

"No one knows," Casey said. "And the first officer, lacking the necessary information on his display, intentionally reduced his airspeed, which caused the plane to stall and crash."

They were silent for a moment, walking.

"Consider all the ways this might have been avoided," Casey said. "The maintenance crews could have checked the pylons for structural damage after servicing them improperly. But they didn't. Continental had already cracked two pylons using forklifts, and they could have told American the procedure was dangerous. But they didn't. Douglas had told American about Continental's problems, but American didn't pay any attention."

Richman was shaking his head.

"And after the accident, Douglas couldn't say it was a maintenance problem, because American was a valued customer. So Douglas wasn't going to put the story out. In all these incidents, it's always the same story-the story never gets out unless the media digs it out. But the story's complicated, and that's difficult for television… so they just run the tape. The tape of the accident which shows the left engine falling off, the plane veering left, and crashing. The visual implies the aircraft was poorly designed, that Douglas hadn't anticipated a pylon failure and hadn't built the plane to survive it. Which was completely inaccurate. But Douglas never sold another DC-10."

"Well," Richman said. "I don't think you can blame the media for that. They don't make the news. They just report it."

"That's my point," Casey said. "They didn't report it, they just ran the film. The Chicago crash was a kind of turning point in our industry. The first time a good aircraft was destroyed by bad press. The coup de grace was the NTSB report. It came out on December 21. Nobody paid any attention.

"So now, when Boeing introduces their new 777, they arrange a complete press campaign to coincide with the launch. They allow a TV company to film the years of development, and at the end there's a six-part show on public television. There's a book to go with it. They've done everything they can think of to create a good image for the plane in advance. Because the stakes are too high."

Richman walked along beside her. "I can't believe the media has that much power," he said.

Casey shook her head. "Marder is right to be worried," she said. "If anybody in the media gets onto Flight 545, then the N-22 will have had two incidents in two days. And we're in big trouble."

NEWSLINE /NEW YORK

1:54 p.m.

In midtown Manhattan, in the twenty-third-floor offices of the weekly news show Newsline, Je

Je

"Al Pacino just dumped."

"When?"

'Ten minutes ago. Blew Marty off, and walked."

"What? We shot four days of B-roll on the set in Tangier. His picture opens this weekend-and he's slated for the full twelve." A twelve minute segment on Newsline, the most-watched news show on television, was the kind of publicity that money couldn't buy. Every star in Hollywood wanted on the show. "What happened?"

"Marty was chatting with him during makeup, and mentioned that Pacino hadn't had a hit in four years. And I guess he got offended, and walked."

"On camera?"

"No. Before."

"Jesus," Je

"Yeah, well. He did."

"What's Marty say?"

"Marty is pissed. Marty is saying, What did he expect, this is a news show, we ask hard-hitting questions. You know, typical Marty."

Je

Marty Reardon was a notoriously abrasive interviewer. Although he had left the news division to work on Newsline- at a much higher salary-two years before, he still viewed himself as a hard-hitting newsman, tough but fair, no-holds-barred-though in practice he liked to embarrass interviewees, putting them on the spot with intensely personal questions, even if the questions weren't relevant to the story. Nobody wanted to use Marty on the Pacino shoot, because he didn't like celebrities, and didn't like doing "puff pieces." But Frances, who usually did the celeb pieces, was in Tokyo interviewing the princess.

"Has Dick talked to Marty? Can we salvage this?" Dick Shenk was the executive producer of Newsline. In just three years, he had skillfully built the show from a throwaway summer replacement, into a solid prime-time success. Shenk made all the important decisions, and he was the only person with enough clout to handle a prima do

"Dick is still at lunch with Mr. Early." Shenk's lunches with Early, the president of the network, always lasted late into the afternoon.

"So Dick doesn't know?"

"Not yet."

"Great," Je

"Nothing. Mother Teresa's being recut. Mickey Mantle isn't in yet. All we have is that wheelchair Little League segment."

Je

"I know," Deborah said. "It sucks."

Je

JAA DELAYS CERTIFICATION OF N-22

WIDEBODY JET CITING CONTINUED

AIRWORTHINESS CONCERNS

"What's this?" she said, frowning.

"Hector said give it to you."

"Why?"

"He thought there might be something in it."

"Why? What the fuck's the JAA?" Je

"Apparently," Deborah said, "it's the same plane that caught fire in Miami."

"Oh. Hector wants to do a safety segment? Good luck. Everybody's seen the tape of the burning plane already. And it wasn't that good to begin with." Je

Deborah went away. Alone, Je

Je