Total Control by David Baldacci Page B

that had brought together a damned near airtight case culled from what bordered on microscopic evidence unearthed from the shattered remains of Pan Am Flight 103. With plane bombings there were usually never any "big" clues. At least Special Agent Sawyer had thought so up until now.
    His observant eyes swept over the wreckage before they came to rest on the NTSB man. "What's your best list of possible scenarios right now, George?"
    Kaplan rubbed his chin, scratching absently at the stubble.
    "We'll know a lot more when we recover the black boxes, but we do have a clear result: The wing came off a jetliner. However, those things don't just happen. We're not exactly sure when it happened, but radar indicates that a large part of the plane--now we know it was the wing--came off in-flight. When that occurred, of course, there was no possibility of recovery. The first thought is some type of catastrophic structural failure based on a faulty design. But the L500 is a state-of-the-art model from a top manufacturer, so the chances of that kind of structural failure are so remote that I wouldn't waste much time on that angle. So maybe you think it's metal fatigue.
    But this plane barely had two thousand cycles--takeoffs and landings--it's practically brand-new. Besides that, the metal fatigue accidents we've seen in the past all involved the fuselage because the constant contraction-expansion of cabin pressurization and depressurization seems to contribute to the problem. Aircraft wings are not pressurized. So you rule out metal fatigue. Next, you look at the environment. Lightning strike? Planes get hit by lightning more often than people think. However, planes are equipped to deal with that and because lightning needs to be grounded to do real damage, a plane up in the sky may suffer, at worst, some burning of the skin.
    Besides, there were no reports of lightning in the area on the morning of the crash. Birds? Show me a bird that flies at thirty-five thousand feet and is large enough to take off an L500's wing and then maybe we'll discuss it. It sure as hell didn't collide with another plane. It sure as hell didn't."
    Kaplan's voice was rising with each word. He paused to catch his breath and to look once more at the metal remains.
    "So where does that leave us, George?" Sawyer calmly asked.
    Kaplan looked back up. He sighed. "Next we look at possible mechanical or nondesign structural failure. Catastrophic results on an aircraft usually stem from two or more failures happening almost simultaneously.
    I listened to the transmission record between the pilot and the tower. The captain radioed in a Mayday several minutes before the crash, although it was clear from what little she said that they were unsure what had happened. The plane's transponder was still kicking the radar signals back until impact, so at least some of the electrical systems were working up until then. But let's say we had an engine catch on fire at the same time a fuel leak occurred.
    Most people might assume fuel leak, flames from the engine--wham, you got yourself an explosion and there goes the wing. Or there might not have been an actual explosion, although it sure as hell looks like there was. The fire could've weakened and finally collapsed the spar and the wing gets torn off. That could explain what we think happened to Flight 3223, at least at this early stage." Kaplan did not sound convinced.
    "But?" Sawyer looked at him.
    Kaplan rubbed at his eyes, the frustration clear in his troubled features. "There's no evidence that anything was wrong with the damned engine. Except for the obvious damage caused from its impact with the terrain and ingesting debris from the initial explosion, nothing leads me to believe that an engine problem played a role in the crash. If there was an engine fire, standard procedure would dictate cutting off the fuel flow to that engine and then turning off the power. The L500's engines are equipped with automatic fire detection and