CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

In the aftermath of the Flight 980 crash, but before the issuance of the Bolivian accident report, I had been researching Eastern’s South American operation as unobtrusively as possible, my studies only interrupted by the contract crisis and subsequent sale to Texas Air. As part of this, I held a number of private discussions with knowledgeable individuals from the pilots’ union and top management, as some of the latter were also concerned. From these conversations it became clear that there were serious South American flight safety shortcomings that needed to be addressed. But I had to wait until the Bolivian report was issued to see if any were mentioned because I wanted to see how the NTSB, FAA and top management would respond. But it turned out that the Bolivian report was worthless, meaning there was no reaction from any parties. I had compiled my data with the idea in mind that, if necessary, I would present my findings to top management and use my ALPA credentials to try to force them to take corrective actions, figuring they might listen. I was also prepared to take my case to the FAA or, if required, the public media.

An airline crash is rarely caused by a single problem. More frequently it’s the culmination of a seemingly unrelated series of decisions, circumstances, events or errors, which come together on a particular flight and which are usually set in motion some time in the past. If this potentially deadly chain can be recognized and broken, the disaster can be avoided. Numerous in-flight items can affect the pilot’s thought and decision-making process, making it impossible to say with any degree of certainty that, had any one decision or action not been changed, a crash would have occurred. Pinpointing with certainty when the chain of events is interrupted and a crash avoided is next to impossible. But when a crash does occur, a logical, step-by-step investigation is able to reverse the process— that is, to start at the crash and work backwards, uncovering each contributing factor.

This is why aviation accident investigators will first attempt to assemble all potentially related items and determine how they might affect a specific air disaster. NTSB investigators normally perform this work by first reading the information found on the flight data and voice recorders and then looking into related events, eliminating some, while attempting to uncover those that might be linked. To accomplish this in a competent manner, the inquiry must be well defined and disciplined, following a well thought out, step-by-step process. Since this meticulous process never took place with the Flight 980 crash, it left me at a disadvantage. But even without the benefit of a proper inquiry to fall back on, the first question I nonetheless had to attempt to answer was whether the crash was indeed Campbell’s fault. Or were Campbell, his crew and passengers all possibly innocent victims of a set of circumstances that culminated in the crash? My investigation showed that the stage was set in motion for the Flight 980 crash in 1978, when United States airlines were deregulated.

When airline deregulation became the new law of the land, it gave U.S. airlines the unprecedented opportunity to fly to any domestic city of their choosing. Harding Lawrence, then President of Braniff Airways, began to expand Braniff’s operations at breakneck speed, as he believed the larger the airline, the more resources it would have to insure its long-term survival under the new rules of the sky. A very simple example of this would be if a fare war in the deregulated American skies broke out over one route—for example, New York to Los Angeles—a large airline would have staying power created by raising fares slightly on its many other routes to offset the lower fares and lost revenue on this route. Through rapid domestic expansion, Lawrence attempted to make certain Braniff would be one of the survivors.

Braniff’s South American routes were unique and extremely valuable as they were still afforded regulated route protection, also meaning internationally agreed-upon higher airfares and little or no competition. Lawrence believed that Braniff had the best of both worlds, a deregulated marketplace at home with which to feed the high-earning South American routes. Although this thinking was correct, in his efforts to expand so hastily, Lawrence threw caution to the winds, and almost overnight, Bran-iff attempted to become a major carrier by invading a host of domestic markets. In the airline business, cash flow is the name of the game and monetary problems quickly arose that were caused, in part, by growing too rapidly. Braniff suddenly went from being the darling of Wall Street to teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. Lawrence thought that he could grow the airline even further to resolve these cash problems, but the airline’s Board of Directors disagreed and fired him, and put Howard Putnam in charge.

Braniff shared its main Dallas Fort Worth hub with American Airlines. Because Braniff didn’t have its own computerized reservation system, they were paying hefty sums to use American’s highly sophisticated, state-of-the-art SABRE computer reservations system. No one knew at the time that American Airlines, through the use of the then-new technology contained in this system, had taken a number of questionable actions against Braniff. For example, American biased its own flights over Braniff’s, or passengers were redirected to American fights. Other times, if a prospective traveler telephoned Braniff’s reservations number to inquire about a flight or fares, instead of being placed on a Braniff they were bombarded with information on American’s schedules and fares. At times, potential Braniff passengers weren’t even informed of a Braniff flight and were instead placed on American, at a lower price. These questionable actions resulted in steadily shrinking passenger loads and revenue for Braniff. In effect, Braniff could have been destroyed in part and its passengers stolen by the very system it was paying to use. Braniff management couldn’t comprehend what was happening and although they tried to attract travelers with a host of different marketing gimmicks and lower fares, these were not successful. Only after Braniff had been placed in bankruptcy proceedings and declared insolvent were American’s actions discovered. This was an act so unsettling that the United States Congress subsequently passed laws to prevent a recurrence. Unfortunately, the legislation came too late to save Braniff.

Many of Eastern’s domestic and international routes were flown out of its large Miami hub, as were almost all of Braniff ’s South American routes. Therefore, it was a natural fit for a cash-hungry Braniff to sell these routes to Eastern.

The South American routes were especially valuable because they were bestowed through bilateral treaties negotiated between the various South American countries and the United States government. Many of these nations had their own government-subsidized airlines and didn’t want to lose their share of this revenue. As a result, the number of airlines that were allowed to provide service was very limited. Not only was access closely guarded, so was the number of flights, insuring high passenger loads. Very high airfares were also charged, assuring maximum profits.

There was another priceless asset that went with the Braniff routes. When Braniff merged with PANAGRA, they were also granted invaluable fifth freedom rights, the exceptional privilege of not only flying passengers between South America and the United States, but also taking on and dropping passengers off in the different South American countries. The aviation rules in the United States are very different, expressly prohibiting any foreign airlines from flying passengers domestically. So, for a fraction of their true value—a mere $30 million—Eastern picked up Braniff ’s routes, along with these fifth freedom rights.

There were, however, some potential snags, the most glaring of which was Eastern entered into this purchase without any narrow-bodied aircraft properly equipped to fly in and out of South America’s geographically diverse areas. As a result, even though the passenger loads didn’t warrant it, the routes were initially serviced with Lockheed L-1011 jumbo jets. These were utilized until Eastern retrofitted three smaller stretched Boeing 727-200 aircraft with more powerful engines. One of these was the aircraft used for Flight 980.

Top management also requested relief from sections of the Eastern pilot contract, purportedly so the new South American routes could be immediately flown, claiming there wasn’t enough manpower to do the flying under the current work rules. If the pilots would agree to a relaxation of these work rules, in exchange management vowed to hire additional pilots and revert back to the prior work rules at a later date; the “carrot,” and the “stick” approach. The “stick” was if the pilots didn’t agree, top management threatened to sell off or even give the routes away. As a result, these contractual changes were subsequently adopted.

As I examined the ALPA crash-related materials in depth, it came into clear focus that on January 1, 1985, while the trusting, innocent passengers and crew on Eastern Flight 980 believed they were simply flying to their destinations, in reality I determined that they were caught up in a potentially deadly crossfire; a complex web involving various high ranking U.S. government officials and agencies, Eastern top management and Latin American functionaries, with a host of criminals and unsavory characters thrown into the mix. From the information I secured, it appeared as though the NTSB’s lack of action was connected to the other possible cause of the Flight 980 crash: sabotage.

While developing the timeline leading up to the sale of Eastern to Texas Air and after assembling the diverse yet related pieces, I unearthed a carefully orchestrated scheme to dispose of Eastern by delivering it into the outstretched, eagerly waiting hands of a corporate raider. Under Texas Air’s control, employees would be far too busy with other matters to pay attention to a crash that occurred in a strange, exotic land in which relatively few people were killed. Digging even deeper, I tried to dismiss the common denominators as being too incredible, too similar to a James Bond thriller. But there were far too many “coincidences,” meaning I believe that the destruction of Eastern Airlines must have been brought about by design. The scheme had taken but one year and fifty-five days from the date of the Flight 980 crash to complete. Eastern’s passing was the final step to insure that the reason for these twenty-nine deaths would never be scrutinized.

The directive not to investigate the Flight 980 crash must have had the support of, or been initiated by, some very powerful Washington politicos in order to succeed. In fact, this decision went so high up that I believe President Reagan and a few of his closest operatives were involved, that their power and backing was required to put a stop to any substantive investigation. The cornerstone of this plan could only succeed if there was no investigation of the Flight 980 crash, meaning everything leading to the demise of Eastern had to seemingly be related to labor management economic warfare. The icing on the cake would be to place as much blame as possible on the back of IAM union leader, Bryan, a misrepresentation that was widely carried throughout the media. Speaking of the media, Borman was quite adept at utilizing it to his full advantage. The press quickly grabbed at this all-too-obvious, spoon-fed information and never did the necessary digging to uncover the underlying reason for the airline’s tremendous losses and its subsequent sale. Eastern went so far as to provide an office and other communications equipment for several weeks leading up to the Texas Air takeover to the New York Times reporter covering unfolding events at the airline. What additional perks might have been afforded other media outlets? Because of our meeting with Borman, only Copeland and I knew that the acquisition by Texas Air was finalized under totally false pretenses, as Bryan had offered to cave in to all of Borman’s demands well before that night’s Eastern Board of Directors meeting, without any stipulations attached. Yet Borman falsely claimed, and the media echoed, that it was Bryan’s unwillingness to throw in the towel and his subsequent requirement that Borman step down that was responsible for the sale and subsequent demise of the airline.

Particularly ironic was that while Nancy Reagan was preaching the pitfalls of drug abuse to young Americans in the very same media outlets, her husband and some of his staff, through their now-documented illegal actions pertaining to the Iran Contra affair, were allowing untold billions of dollars of illicit drugs to flow freely across our borders. While she was urging young Americans to “just say no,” some within the Reagan administration were “just saying yes” to the Latin American despots who, along with their relatives, trusted generals and others, were getting rich beyond anyone’s wildest imagination shipping illegal drugs to America. Each part of this chain was controlled in a businesslike fashion. After the coca was grown in South America, it was manufactured into cocaine and then exported to the American market. Drug use certainly wasn’t new to American society, but the sheer amount appearing almost overnight on the streets indicated the products had to be smuggled into the United States with almost total impunity and, as it turned out, with official protection.

The size, scope, and ruthlessness of the operation is well described in the book The Cocaine Wars by Paul Eddy, Hugo Sabal and Sara Walden (W.W. Norton & Company, New York). This book recounts the sad spectacle of this drug trafficking as it unfolded and how an aging American president, intent on “stopping communism” throughout Latin America at any price, either knowingly or through neglect, created a situation for which American society continues to pay a very high price.