Volume 44, Number 1 · January 9, 1997
Between Planes
By Louis Menand
Airframe
by Michael Crichton
Knopf, 368 pp., $26.00
When Casey Singleton, QA (that's Quality Assurance rep) on the IRT (that's the Incident Review Team) at Norton Aircraft, gets a message on the beeper to meet in the War Room at 0700 hours BTOYA (that's Be There Or It's Your Ass), because TPA Flight 545 has reported passenger fatalities on a Norton N-22 thirty minutes out of LAX, she knows she'd better get there on the QT. The message is from the COO, John Marder, and he's a guy who expects just one thing: results, ASAP. He's used to getting them, too, because IRT is one dedicated group of professionals, from the QA right up to the MIS specialist. First reports on TPA 545 indicate a possible in-flight uncommanded slats deployment; but the FAA issued an AD on slats deployment on the N-22 four years ago, so until 545's DFDR is downloaded, the FDAU printout is examined, and a RAMS team can get in there to have a look at the NVMs, what went wrong is anybody's guess. IRT has got to turn this one around on a dime, though, because Norton has an $8 billion LOI from Beijing for fifty new N-22s with an option for thirty more, and bad publicity could kill the deal—and the company.
Review, 1970 words
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