Murder in Foggy Bottom - Margaret Truman [13]
“Another aircraft accident. In Idaho.”
“Not a good day for the airline industry. Or for a lot of people. Any details on that one?”
“Only a few. Just happened. About the same time. Commuter, too.”
“Frank, Washington on the line,” Lazzara’s secretary said.
He returned to his office and picked up the phone: “Lazzara.”
His supervisor said, “Send everybody you’ve got out to the scene of this airline accident near you.”
“Everybody? Okay. Special instructions?”
“Yes. Put a clamp on everybody there. No statements to the press. No statements to anyone.”
“Yes, sir. I just heard another commuter plane went down in Idaho.”
“You heard right, but no comments on that, either.”
“Criminal acts involved?” Lazzara asked, trying to determine whether his agency would be in charge of the investigation.
“Let’s assume there are until we know otherwise.”
Lazzara called the four special agents who were on duty that morning into his office.
“What’s up?” Pasquale asked.
“The plane accident. Get a fix from the locals where it went down.”
“State police just called in, Frank,” his secretary said. She handed him a piece of paper on which she’d written information on the downed plane’s location.
“Let’s go,” Lazzara said.
Notification of the downed Dash 8 in Westchester County had come through earlier via the communications center at the National Transportation Safety Board’s headquarters at L’Enfant Plaza. It was forwarded to their Office of Aviation Safety, where that day’s standby instant-response team, known as a “go team,” which included experts on airframe and power-plant analyses, human performance, radar data, fires and explosions, and witness statements, was alerted to make ready to fly to Westchester County airport. Other calls were made simultaneously to NTSB’s Northeast regional office in Parsippany, New Jersey; the de Havilland Corporation in Ontario, Canada, the Dash 8’s manufacturer; the airline; the Federal Aviation Administration; and to FBI headquarters. The NTSB public affairs duty officer was brought into the loop to be ready to handle media and public queries. The initial team that would rush to the accident scene would soon be augmented by designated parties not directly affiliated with NTSB, but who could give the lean-and-mean agency needed expertise. With only four hundred employees, the chairman of NTSB had proudly testified at a recent congressional budget hearing, his agency was “one of the best buys in government.” They investigated more than two thousand aviation accidents each year, as well as five hundred other transportation mishaps, and had issued more than ten thousand safety recommendations since NTSB’s inception in 1967, “at an annual cost of fifteen cents per American citizen.”
The team flying to Westchester would be led by Peter Mullin, one of eight NTSB vice chairmen and a thirty-year veteran of aircraft accident investigations, a commercially rated pilot with thousands of hours in the cockpit, and whose reputation for running a tight ship at accident scenes was well known. His team assembled at Hangar Six at Reagan National, where NTSB maintained its own fleet of aircraft. Mullin, a tall, angular, balding man who walked slightly hunched to accommodate a bad back, grimaced as he took the right seat in the Learjet 45 twin-engine jet aircraft with NTSB markings. A full-time bureau pilot slipped into the left seat. Seated behind them were six members of the initial instant-response team. The engines had just come to life when Mullin was called on a radio channel linking the aircraft to NTSB headquarters.
“Peter, there’s been a second accident.”
“Where? Commercial? A jumbo?”
“Boise. Another commuter flight.”
Mullin set his jaw, turned, and told the others of the news, then got back on the radio: “What’s the status in Boise?”
“Vague. Denver’s got a team ready to go.”
“Good. Keep me posted.” To the pilot he said, “Let’s move!”
They were given priority takeoff clearance ahead of a string of commercial jets and were airborne within minutes. They’d reached their cruise altitude