"So," he said. "That the OEM or what?"

"Yeah, it's the OEM." Hoffman was the original equipment manufacturer. The part had come direct from them. No distributor was involved.

Jerry was looking out through the chain link at the factory floor beyond. Nobody seemed to be paying any attention, but Casey knew that they were being watched.

Jerry said, "You leaving now?"

"Yes, Jerry. I'm leaving now."

She headed across the floor, staying on the aisle that ran by the parts cages. Away from the overhead cranes. Glancing up at the overhead walkways to be sure nobody was up there. Nobody was. So far, they were leaving her alone.

What she had learned so far was clear The original installed part on TPA 545 had come direct from a reputable supplier. The original part was good; the part Doherty found on the wing was bad.

So Amos was right.

Something had happened to that wing, causing it to be repaired, sometime in the past.

But what?

She still had more work to do.

And very little time to do it.

If the part was bad, where had it come from? She needed maintenance records, and they hadn't arrived yet. Where was Richman? Back in her office, she flipped through a stack of telexes. All the FSRs around the world were asking for information about the N-22. One from the Right Service Rep in Madrid was typical.

FROM: S. RAMONES, FSR MADRID TO: C. SINGLETON, QA/IRT

PERSISTENT REPORTS VIA MY IBERIA CONTACT B. ALONSO THAT DUE TO MIAMI INCIDENT JAA WILL ANNOUNCE CONTINUED DELAY OF CERTIFICATION OF N-22 AIRCRAFT CITING "AIRWORTHINESS CONCERNS" 

PLS ADVISE.  

She sighed. What the FSR was reporting was entirely predictable. The JAA was the Joint Aviation Authorities, the European equivalent of the FAA. Recently, American manufacturers had had a good deal of difficulty with it. The JAA was flexing new regulatory muscles, and the agency had many bureaucrats who didn't clearly distinguish between negotiated trade advantage and airworthiness issues. For some time now, the JAA had been making special efforts to force the American manufacturers to use European jet engines. The Americans had resisted, so it was logical that the JAA would take advantage of the rotor burst in Miami to put greater pressure on Norton, by withholding certification.

But in the end, it was a political problem, not her area. She went to the next telex:

FROM: S. NIETO, FSR VANC TO: C. SINGLETON, QA/IRT

FIRST OFFICER LU ZAN PING UNDERWENT EMERGENCY SURGERY FOR SUBDURAL HEMATOMA AT VANC GEN HOSPITAL 0400 HRS TODAY. F/O NOT AVAILABLE FOR QUESTIONS AT LEAST 48 HRS. FURTHER DETAILS TF.

Casey had been hoping for an interview with the injured first officer sooner than that. She wanted to know why he was in the back of the plane, and not in the cockpit. But it seemed an answer to that question would have to wait until the end of the week.

She came to the next telex, and stared in astonishment.

FROM: RICK RAKOSKI, FSR HK TO: CASEY SINGLETON, QA/IRT

RECEIVED YOUR REQUEST MAINTENANCE RECORDS FOR TPA FLIGHT 545, FUSE 271, FOREIGN REGISTRY 098/443/HB09 AND PASSED IT ON TO THE CARRIER.

IN RESPONSE TO FAA REQUEST TRANSPACIFIC RELEASED ALL RECORDS FROM REPAIR STATION KAITAK HK, REPAIR STATION SINGAPORE, REPAIR STATION MELBOURNE. THESE UPLOADED TO NORTON ONLINE SYSTEMS AS OF 2210 LOCAL TIME. STILL WORKING ON CREW INTERVIEWS. MUCH MORE DIFFICULT. DETAILS TF.

A smart move by the carrier, she thought. Since they didn't want to grant crew interviews, they had decided to provide everything else, in an apparent display of cooperation.

Norma came into her office. "Records from LAX are corning in now," she said. "And Hong Kong already delivered."

"I see that. Have you got the storage address?"

"Right here." She handed her a slip of paper, and Casey typed it into the terminal behind her desk. There was a delay for the call to the mainframe, and then a screen flashed up.

MAINT REC N-22 / FUSE 271 / FR 098/443/HB09

DD 5/14 AS 6/19 MOD 8/12

«RS KAITAK - MAINT REC (A-C)

«RS SNGPOR - MAINT REC (B ONLY)

«RS MELB - MAINT REC (A, B ONLY)

"All right," she said. She went to work.

It was the better part of an hour before Casey had her answers. But at the end of mat time, she had a good picture of what had happened to the slats locking pin on the Transpacific aircraft.

On November 10 of the previous year, on a flight from Bombay to Melbourne, the Transpacific aircraft had experienced a problem with radio communications. The pilot made an unscheduled stop on the island of Java, in Indonesia. There, the radio was repaired without difficulty (a blown circuit panel was changed out), and Javanese ground crews refueled the plane for the continuing flight to Melbourne.

After the aircraft landed in Melbourne, Australian ground crews noted that the right wing was damaged.

Thank you, Amos.

The wing was damaged.

Mechanics in Melbourne noted that the fuel coupling was bent on the right wing, and the adjacent slats locking pin was slightly damaged. This was thought to have been caused by ground personnel in Java during the previous fueling stop.

The fuel line couplings on the N-22 were located on the underside of the wing, just behind the leading edge. An inexperienced ground person had used the wrong power lift truck for the N-22 and had jammed the platform railing into the fuel hose while the hose was hooked into the wing. This bent the hose bracket into the wing coupler, bent the coupler plate, and damaged the nearby slats pin.

Slats locking pins were an infrequent change item, and Melbourne repair station did not have one in stock. Rather than delay the aircraft in Australia, it was decided to allow the plane to continue to Singapore and change the part there. However, a sharp-eyed maintenance person in Singapore noticed that the paper on their replacement locking pin appeared suspect. Maintenance crews were uncertain whether the replacement pin was genuine or not.

Since the part already in place functioned normally, Singapore elected not to replace it, and the aircraft was sent on to Hong Kong, the home terminal for Transpacific, where a genuine replacement part was assured. Hong Kong Repair Station-fully aware they were located in a world center for counterfeiting-took special precautions to insure their spare aviation parts were genuine. They ordered parts directly from the original equipment manufacturers in the United States. On November 13 of the previous year, a brand-new slats locking pin was installed on the aircraft.

Paper for the part appeared to be proper; a photocopy came up on Casey's screen. The part had come from Hoffman Metal Works in Montclair, California-Norton's original supplier. But Casey knew the paper was fake, because the part itself was fake. She would run it down later, and find out where the part had actually come from.

But right now, the only question was the one Amos had posed:

Were other parts replaced, as well?

Sitting at her terminal, Casey scrolled through the maintenance summary records for Hong Kong Repair Station for November 13, to find what else had been done to the aircraft mat day.

It was slow going; she had to look at photocopies of maintenance cards, with scrawled handwritten notations after each checkbox. But eventually she found a list of work that had been done on the wing.

There were three notations.

CHG RT LDLT FZ-7. Change the right landing light fuse 7.

CHG RT SLTS LK PIN. Change the right slats locking pin.

CK ASS EQ PKG. Check the associated equipment package. This was followed by a mechanic's notation NRML. Meaning it was checked and normal.

The associated equipment package was a maintenance sub-grouping of related parts that had to be checked whenever a faulty part was detected. For example, if seals on the right fuel lines were found to be worn, it was standard practice to check' seals on the left side as well, since they were part of the associated equipment package.