Kathryn was supposed to be finishing her quarterly wing safety reports, but instead she was standing at the big window in her office watching the planes fly around the traffic pattern. She never got tired of looking at all the aircraft in the crazy, organized chaos of the busiest airport in the world.
The radio brick on her hip crackled to life. “Flight Safety, this is the Control Tower.”
Her insides clutched and she keyed the mike button. “Tower, this is Flight Safety, go ahead.”
“Albuquerque Center is declaring an emergency for a T-37 aircraft, call sign Hook 21 Solo.”
“What’s the nature of the emergency?”
“They are reporting Hook 21 Solo as a missing aircraft.”
“When did they last have any radio contact?”
“Their last contact with Hook 21 Solo was when the aircraft entered the low-altitude practice area at 1545 hours. Time now 1605 hours.”
“Are there any search and rescue aircraft in the area?”
“They report Sage 85 is inbound to the practice area. ETA ten minutes.”
“Has the fire department at the auxiliary field been notified?”
“Affirmative.”
“Roger, Tower, I copy all. Is there anything else?”
“Sage 85 just reported a column of smoke southwest of the practice area.”
“Copy, Tower. I’m responding now. Flight Safety out.”
Oh, God, please give me a student pilot with a successful ejection on this one.
With that unspoken prayer, she ran as fast as she could to the blue Air Force pickup truck.
Kathryn raced across the desert to the coordinates of the smoke column as memories of another terrible aircraft accident five years earlier flooded her mind like a dam breaking. She had just finished flight safety school after eight weeks of training in aircraft accident investigation at the University of Southern California. The intensive training and getting a new job on the wing staff was good for her career, but she’d been very lonely for Marie.
Kathryn never believed in “love at first sight” until she laid eyes on Marie in pilot training. They were in different flights, but they noticed each other immediately. Marie was cute, smart, and funny, and everyone liked her. They started out studying together, but things quickly progressed to a physical relationship. They’d been very happy together, especially in bed, then they ran into a major hurdle.
Kathryn was doing well with flying, but Marie struggled right from the beginning. She tried to help Marie learn the huge volume of material, but Marie got flustered when she was in the sim or the airplane. She would make minor errors, get mad at herself, then fall apart and not be able to fly the jet. She couldn’t pass the first check ride because of her nerves, and she washed out of pilot training. Marie had done well academically, so she was offered a slot in navigator training. They parted tearfully when Marie got sent to a different training base but vowed to stay together despite where the Air Force sent them.
Kathryn excelled in pilot training, and at the time she was graduating in 1983, women were very restricted with the airplanes they were allowed to fly. She was fighter qualified because of her skills but women weren’t allowed to fly fighters, attack aircraft, bombers, or even reconnaissance jets. They could only fly air refueling tankers, big airlift transports, or training jets, because the men didn’t want those jobs. She was asked to stay on at the pilot training base as a T-38 instructor pilot, which was a great honor, but she requested to fly the old KC-135 tanker so she could be stationed with Marie. Her class commander was baffled but gave her the assignment she wanted.
Kathryn breezed through KC-135 school and was in lesbian bliss when she finally got to Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, Washington. Her life with Marie was perfect. She upgraded from copilot to aircraft commander as soon as she could, Marie was her navigator, and they flew around the world together.
Kathryn loved Marie with her whole heart, she thought Marie was her soul mate, and they planned their future together. When she was offered the job as a wing flight safety officer, she jumped at the chance to advance her career. She was optimistic when she got home from training and was looking forward to flying with Marie again. Little did she know the first accident she would be tasked to investigate would be the death of the love of her life.
“This isn’t the same accident. Stay focused on the present. The student might have gotten out.” She tried convincing herself as she drove faster through the desert.
She mentally assessed her emergency response kit—camera, maps, flags to mark debris, evidence bags. She had everything. She just had to steel herself to the possible scene that awaited her. The memories of that first accident scene came rushing back to her, and she couldn’t stop them.
It started the same way with the radio brick calling her to an accident scene. A KC-135 tanker had gone down at night in the traffic pattern at the Fairchild practice field. They were practicing instrument approaches with touch-and-go landings. It was a cold, clear night in Spokane, but the fire from the wreckage could be seen for miles. Kathryn had been focused, and scared, responding to her first real accident. The tanker had a midair collision with a light aircraft that flew right through the traffic pattern. They didn’t have a chance. The flaming debris was scattered over a relatively small area, but it was clear there were no survivors. Kathryn remembered that fateful radio call like it was yesterday.
“Flight Safety, this is Operations.”
“Go ahead, Ops.”
“We have the crew manifest for the mishap aircraft.”
Kathryn’s blood ran cold before she even heard the names. Somehow she sensed Marie’s name would be on the list.
“Stop it, Kath. This isn’t Marie. This is a student pilot who may still be alive,” she told herself.
As she rounded the corner in her safety truck, she saw the column of black smoke and the flashing lights of the fire trucks. She drove up to the accident scene slowly, staying out of the way of the emergency response vehicles. She got out of her truck and went up to the on-scene commander.
“Any survivors, Chief?”
“Sorry, Captain Hardesty, no news yet. We’ve almost got the fire out. I’ll clear you to go to the site in a few minutes.”
She walked around the perimeter of the accident site and started taking photos. The crash site was fairly contained, without a lot of wreckage strewn about, indicating the aircraft didn’t break up in flight but hit the ground intact. She looked up into the sky—perfect blue skies, no clouds, no thunderstorms.
“Flight Safety and Medical, this is the on-scene commander. The fire is out and the accident site is now safe. You are cleared to enter.”
“Flight Safety copies. Proceeding to the site now.”
As she slowly walked among the smoldering pieces of metal that used to be a beautiful airplane, she consciously put her emotions in check. There was an important job to do, and she was the officer to do it. She needed to know if the student got out. She went first to the smoking cockpit section.
Most of the airframe was gone, having burned up in the post-crash fire, and there was a scorched outline of the plane on the desert floor. It was a black shadow of a T-37 with only a few big pieces left—both engines, the tail section, and the cockpit section with a melted canopy. Oh, no.
Bile started coming up her throat, but she forced it down. She continued to take evidence pictures as she approached the black mass in the center of the wreckage. Then she saw what she’d prayed she wouldn’t see—the charred remains of the student pilot in the left seat. It was all she could do not to hurl the contents of her stomach when she inhaled the unmistakable smell of burning flesh. Keep it together, Kath. Keep it together.
She took pictures—the lap belt, the ejection seat handgrips, the parachute, the flight instruments—it was all there. The student had made no attempt to eject. Her job would be to figure out why. The flight surgeon came up and tapped her shoulder.
“Sorry you have to see this, Doc. This is your first aircraft fatality, isn’t it?”
The young doctor nodded, but he couldn’t speak. He looked like he was about to faint.
“Master Sergeant Gutierrez knows the drill. They’ll remove the remains, then have the body sent to Wilford Hall Medical Center for autopsy and toxicology testing. You just have to sign the death certificate when it’s ready.”
The aircraft maintenance team showed up to haul out the pieces and analyze the aircraft systems for any mechanical malfunctions.
“How’s it look, Captain Hardesty?” asked the team leader, Chief Master Sergeant Rand.
“Nothing obvious at this point, Chief. It looks like the plane was in one piece when it hit the ground, but we’ll look at everything. I want your best techs on the engines, flight controls, and avionics.”
“You got it, ma’am. We’ll figure out if anything was wrong with this jet.”
“Have you impounded the aircraft maintenance and service records?”
“Already done, ma’am.”
Kathryn finished marking the crash site on her maps and completed her accident photos. The medical and maintenance specialists had everything else under control, and the security police had the site secure, so Kathryn returned to the base to start the next phase of her investigation—the part she dreaded most—determining the identity of the dead student.
As she drove back across the desert to the base, she was struck at how beautiful the sunset was. The sky was streaked with soft shades of pale lavender blending into subtle hues of salmon and silver on the clouds. She loved the sunsets in the desert sky, but this one just made her sad. That student pilot will never see this again.
The crackle of her radio brick snapped her out of her thoughts.
“Flight Safety, this is Squadron Ops.”
She recognized the voice of the squadron commander. “Go ahead, sir.”
“Come up on secure channel seven.”
“Safety is on secure seven, sir.”
“We heard about the fatality. We’ve identified the student, and the class commander has impounded the grade book and training records. They’re in my office when you get back here.”
She reached for her pencil in her left sleeve pocket. “I’m ready to copy, sir.”
“The student pilot is First Lieutenant Casey Tompkins, Good Grief flight, call sign Hook 21.”
Kathryn dropped her pencil, stunned by the news.
“Safety, did you copy?”
“Yes, sir, I copy,” she answered softly. “Sir, I believe she lives on base in the bachelor officer quarters. I’ll head over there now to examine her personal effects.”
“After you’re done at her quarters, report to my office. We need to get the preliminary press release together. This one’s going to get a lot of attention.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Squadron Ops out.”
Kathryn had to stop driving. She struggled to breathe as tears blurred her vision. Oh, my God, Casey.