It was badly damaged. The force of the impact had broken the bolt and the mechanism, and the intensity of the fire, right there by the fuel tanks, had blackened and distorted the remnants. An easy thing to miss if a person hadn’t seen something like it before and known to look.
He used the lens to get a magnified close-up, taking several frames from multiple angles. Then he picked up one of the pieces and took more photos. He brought the magnifying glass close, examining the shear plane of the broken bolt and the telltale marks on its remaining thread. He compared it to the remains of the matching bolt on the other side of the mechanism. He looked carefully around the nearby floor, verifying that the missing piece wasn’t there somewhere.
He had a thought, and walked over to a rectangular painted area where the reconstruction team had laid out pieces of wreckage they weren’t able to identify, and he sifted through each piece, just to be sure. It wasn’t there, either.
The pitch-rod holding nut was missing.
Without it, the pilot wouldn’t have been able to control the helicopter. As the nut loosened, the helo would have felt sloppier and vibrated more, but as soon as the nut popped off, the pilot would have lost pitch and roll control. Evidence of the rotors hitting the tail boom was obvious. The crash was inevitable.
But why had the nut come off? Critical components like this one were cinched to a specific torque and then lock-wired into place. The nut on the other side, though damaged, was still secure.
His examination with the magnifying glass had told him the answer, and the photos would verify it. The lock wire wasn’t there. And the speed with which the nut had backed off revealed that it hadn’t been torqued properly into place to begin with.
Fernandez looked around the tidy, professional NASA hangar, at the blue and white T-38s on stands and the technicians in white coveralls purposefully doing their maintenance work.
He saw two possible causes.
The first. Someone had skipped key steps in their procedures while installing the nut, and the confirming integrity check and sign-off had also missed it. Very unlikely. Both NASA and the Air Force used independent checks as part of standard procedure to keep just this sort of thing from happening.
The second cause. Someone had deliberately removed the lock wire and loosened the bolt. Someone with access to the helicopter after it had passed its daily inspection. Someone who was trusted inside the NASA organization.
That was much more probable—and the sabotage had led to death.
NASA had hoped he’d give them a simple answer so they could deal with it and get on with flying in space. But this was manslaughter at the very best, and homicide at the worst. Also, it crossed the jurisdictional boundaries of NASA, the Air Force and the NTSB, not to mention the local police. Once it came under the public scrutiny of a media fascinated by astronauts, it was going to get even uglier.
Fernandez had done his job and was sure of his conclusions. He mentally reviewed his reporting chain, deciding who to phone. He sure as hell wasn’t going to tell anyone here. Time to hand this mess over to the powers that be.
The rest of it was above his pay grade.
21
Astronaut Crew Quarters, Kennedy Space Center
“Steak, eggs and toast? You sure about that, Boss?” Michael eyed Chad’s full plate, willing himself not to picture what that food would look like if it came back up.
“I’ve never been motion sick in my life, and I’m not going to start today.” Chad slid a sunny-side egg onto the steak, lifted both onto the buttered toast, cut a large bite and forked it all into his mouth. “Last decent meal we’re gonna get for a while,” he said, chewing.
Luke shrugged. “A wise old chief petty officer at sea once told me it’s best to eat smooth food; makes it easier when you vomit.” As Navy men, he and Michael had breakfasted on a banana each, water and coffee.
Al Shepard bemusedly watched Luke pour himself another cup. “Go easy on that, Marine. On my first flight I drank so much coffee I had to piss in my pressure suit, then lie on my back in the puddle, waiting for launch.” He smiled at the memory. “A glorious first in space history.”
Luke set the cup back down.
Kaz checked his watch. “About time to get dressed, fellas.”
Luke and Michael pushed back from the table, then leaned into the kitchen to shake hands with the staff. Chad took one last forkful, and got up and followed them down the hall.
Al tapped Chad on the shoulder as he walked past. “Get your guys to take one last leak before they suit up.”
A spaceship is, in essence, a bubble of Earth’s air in the empty vacuum of space. The thin aluminum hull holds the internal pressure against the nothingness, so the crew can work comfortably wearing normal clothes, without oxygen masks. But during the riskier parts of flight, like launch and landing, when a sudden jar could pop a hull seal loose, astronauts need an extra layer of protection. Ever since Al Shepard’s first flight, they’d worn a pressure suit, just in case—a form-fitting personal bubble of oxygen.