"But how obvious was it? And don't forget it was just shut down. Maybe it didn't have anything to work from. Maybe it was starting from scratch, and it seemed perfectly reasonable that two planes had changed positions."

"It should have been obvious."

"Well," he said, with a sigh, "it would have been obvious to the new computers, which wouldn't have gone down in the first place."

I looked at him for a while, and for a while he kept chewing on his hot dog, which seemed tougher than any hot dog had a right to be.

"You're saying the new computers could have handled this?"

"Damn right they could have. They do it every day. The ones we've got in place. Hell, there were computers around seven or eight years ago that wouldn't have got into the bind this one did."

"We should have pushed harder."

"How much harder can you push?"

He was talking about a meeting six months before. Because of a computer overload in the Boston area there had been a situation that had been brought to our attention. In this case the planes didn't hit, they just sort of played chicken with each other until one pilot pulled up in time. So once again we brought up the subject of computer replacement.

Most of the FAA computers were bought and installed in 1968. Somebody had what must have seemed like a good idea at the time, which was to buy the hardware instead of lease it.

So the U.S. Government soon owned many millions of dollars worth of computers, which they operated and maintained themselves.

Years went by.

If you know anything about the computer field, you know that a computer built ten years ago might as well come from the stone age. It doesn't matter that the thing has been well maintained, that it works wonderfully at what it was designed to do: it's worth nothing at all.

If you can sell it for scrap metal you're lucky, because who wants to buy a big mainframe computer that can't do half the stuff that can be done better nowadays by a machine a hundredth the size? The FAA computers were now white elephants. They worked -- though they were approaching the limits of their design load and as a result suffering a lot of downtime. We were in the process of replacing them, but it's expensive and budgets are tight It would take a while.

And what the hell? In that business, about the time you take the dust-covers off and plug them in, somebody's got something twice as good on the market at half the price. We find ourselves always looking down the road at what'll be available next year and wondering if it might not make more sense to wait just a little longer.

I'd been opposed to the slow schedule. I wanted to get them all replaced within a year, and the hell with next year's models. But it wasn't something worth losing my job over.

If you look hard enough, you'll find the person responsible.

When we got back they were ready to play the copy of the tape from the 747 CVR.

We all gathered around again -- more people this time; I don't know how it happens but an investigation accumulates people like a dog picks up fleas -- and the tape was started.

There was a bad hiss that came and went, but we were able to hear most of it.

There were four people in this cockpit. They were having a good time, chattering back and forth, telling jokes.

Gil Crain, the pilot, was the easiest voice for me to place. I'd known him, and besides, he had a strong Southern accent. A legitimate accent, by the way. Half the commercial airline pilots in the sky affect a West Virginia drawl over the radio, pretending they're Chuck Yeager, who staffed the whole thing back in the "50s. The rest of them use a bored sing-song patois I've started to call Viet-Nam jet jockey. Sometimes you'd think you were listening to a lot of interstate truckers on the CB's. But Gil Crain was born and raised on Dixie soil. He'd soon be buried in it He spent a lot of his time talking about his kids. That wasn't easy to listen to, considering what was about to happen to him. I recall the cockpit tape from the San Diego crash. They were discussing life insurance, little knowing how badly they'd need it in a few minutes.

The guy with the giggle was Lloyd Whitmore, the engineer. John Sianis, the co-pilot, had a faint foreign accent -- something middle-eastern, I thought -- and a crisp, precise way of talking.

The last guy up there was Wayne DeLisle. He was listed as an observer, but it would be more accurate to call him a deadhead. He was a Pan Am pilot hitching a ride in the cockpit jumpseat. He'd been due to take a flight out of San Francisco the next day, bound for Hong Kong. He hadn't been too close to the mike and his voice wasn't very distinctive, but he talked so much I soon had no trouble picking him out from the rest.

The trouble started in pretty much the same way. Captain Crain tried to protest Janz's order, since it didn't make any sense to him, but I knew he wouldn't have hesitated long. He had to assume the ground controller looking at his radar display knew a lot more about the situation than he, Crain, flying through a cloud layer with nothing but fog outside his windshield.

The cockpit got quiet and businesslike instantly.

Crain said, "I wonder what he's got in mind?" He started to say something else, and stopped. It got noisy as the planes hit. Apparently the cockpit crew never even got a glimpse of the other plane, or at least they never mentioned seeing it.

Somebody shouted something, then they got down to the business of flying the disabled plane.

We listened to the activity as three of them went to work. It was by the book. Crain was testing to see what he had left, reporting everything he did, and gradually began to sound optimistic. The aircraft was still going down but he was wrestling the nose up and thought he still had enough control to get it level. I agreed with him, from what I knew, but also knew something he didn't, which was that he didn't have any rudder left at all and that there was a mountain down there waiting for him that he couldn't turn away from. Then I heard DeLisle.

"Back it up a minute," I said. "What did he say?"

"Sounded like 'see the passengers,'" somebody suggested. The tape started again, and we heard Gil talking about rudder function. I was leaning forward to catch the next line, which would be DeLisle's, when a voice spoke close to my ear.

"Would you like some coffee, Mr Smith?"

I had missed it again. I turned, furious, ready to shout something about getting this bitch out of here ... and found myself looking into the face of my movie star/stewardess from the hangar. She had a beautiful smile, and it was as guileless and innocent as a saint's. I thought it a little odd for somebody who'd run like a thief the last time I saw her, no more than a few hours ago.

"What are you doing over -- "

"He said 'I'm going to see to the passengers,'" Jerry said at my other side. "Why would he ... Bill? Are you listening?"

Part of me had been, but the rest had been wrapped up in the woman. I was torn two ways. I looked at Jerry, then back to the woman and she was already walking away with her tray of coffee.

"Why do you think he'd say that?" Jerry repeated. "Things must have been pretty grim in there."

"You'd think he'd be afraid to unstrap," somebody else contributed.

My attention was back on the problem.

"There's not much point in asking why he'd leave," I said. "He didn't have any duties in the cockpit, so we can't fault him for it. He was dead weight, but maybe he thought he could help out the flight attendants in the cabin."

"I'm just surprised he thought of it so soon," Craig said.

"I'm not," said Carole. "Think about it. He's a pilot in a cockpit and he's useless.

Everything in his training is telling him to do something, but that's the Captain's job. So he's been trained to save the passengers, so he gets out of the cockpit where he can't do anything to help and goes back into the cabin where maybe he can."