Free Fall

Twenty-Seven

Farnborough, England

Shikra Airlines Flight 418’s right wing disintegrated and the landing gear ripped away as the jet piled into the ground, scraping, lifting, cartwheeling, breaking into pieces, spilling passengers, catching fire.

Jittery footage of the crash had been captured by an amateur plane spotter, perched outside the perimeter of Heathrow’s southern runway.

Jake Hooper made notes as the video was replayed several times in slow motion by an engineer with the Air Accidents Investigation Branch. Hooper was among the investigators gathered at the AAIB’s headquarters, located amid lush woodland at Farnborough Airport, a forty-five minute drive southwest of London.

In keeping with international agreements, Hooper, Bill Cashill and other American experts, along with a contingent from Kuwait’s Aviation Safety Department and Shikra Airlines, were there to support the British investigation of Shikra Flight 418, which had crashed after its engines had shut down.

The people around the table viewed the tragedy on the flat-screen that covered one wall. The silence that fell over the room was broken by the flipping of pages and the impatient tapping of Bill Cashill’s pen.

“All right, colleagues, shall we continue, then?”

A slide presentation on the crash replaced the video on the screen as Evan Taylor, a lead AAIB engineer, continued. The AAIB’s overview included a timeline, the aircraft’s flight history, summaries of the readouts from 418’s flight data recorder and transcripts from the cockpit voice recorder, as well as the email sent to the Kuwaiti Embassy in London.

“Of course this is all unverified,” Taylor said. “We’ve yet to interview the crew, who are in serious but stable condition in hospital. You all have copies of the currently available information in your folders. Let’s go through it, shall we?”

The group studied every aspect of the preliminary data, looking for the key piece to point them to the cause. Hooper examined factors like the automatic flight control system, autopilot engagement and disengagement, all cockpit flight control input, the control wheel, control column and rudder pedal, and the computer failure indicator.

Other investigators concentrated on the performance of the crew. But they found nothing noteworthy on that front. All crew members were experienced with exemplary records. Blood testing showed no indication of drugs or alcohol. The crew was rested before the flight.

Nothing had emerged as a potential preliminary explanation of the jet’s sudden shutdown of its engines. No reports of wind gusts, no early evidence of a bird strike; a simultaneous dual-engine failure was highly unlikely. Investigators scrutinized readouts for the power plants, and key factors such as fuel levels, fuel pumps and fuel flow. No problems had surfaced, and no evidence had emerged pointing to a system failure or malfunction of the aircraft’s digital fly-by-wire system, an extraordinarily complex control system built by Richlon-Titan.

After several hours of intense work by the group, Taylor opened up the meeting and encouraged brainstorming on possible causes.

“We believe we must give serious consideration to the email received by our Embassy in London,” said Waleed Al-Rashid, lead engineer for Shikra Airlines.

“Why?” Bill Cashill’s head snapped up.

“We think it is a factor, this anonymous communication.” Al-Rashid read from the page: “ ‘Sorrow and pain for one of your planes -Z.’ We cannot rule out the possibility that somehow, someone interfered with the operation of the aircraft.”

“I think you’re grasping at straws,” Cashill said. “We’ve seen nothing to give this claim an ounce of weight, given it came after the incident.”

“But Mr. Cashill,” Al-Rashid said, “the message is signed clearly with an English letter, Z. It is our understanding that American authorities also received a similar email concerning the incident with EastCloud Airlines Flight Forty-nine Ninety, the so-called Zarathustra email. Given that both flights involve aircraft with Richlon-Titan flight systems, I think we have a commonality worth considering, an avenue of investigation worth pursuing, wouldn’t you agree?”

Hooper saw Cashill’s jaw muscles bunching.

“Absolutely not!” Cashill said. “Everyone in this room is aware that the air industry receives groundless ‘threats’ daily, both in-flight and on the ground. And in ninety-nine percent of cases, they are unsubstantiated. Make no mistake, I’m not being cavalier about this. Yes, the FBI, British officials and your own security authorities are investigating both emails but so far, to our knowledge, they’ve found nothing concrete. If they had, they’d be leading both of our investigations right now.”

“Mr. Cashill, I point you to line one twenty-three and those that follow in the transcript-the conversation between Captain Fahad Al-Anjari and copilot, Khalid Marafi, the line starting with Marafi.” Everyone turned to the transcript and read.

Copilot: “We’ve got a double engine failure! The engines have been switched off!”

Captain: “Switched off? How? We didn’t do that! Try restarting!”

“My concern,” Al-Rashid said, “is that aspect about the switching off of the engines-specifically when the captain says, ‘We didn’t do that.’ This might point to a problem linked to the threat.”

Cashill stabbed the table with the end of his pen.

“This is nothing but a distraction. Look, our preliminary review of EastCloud points to clear-air turbulence and a pilot disabling the flight-management’s safety features to deal with it, resulting in the overcontrol of the aircraft. The pilot had an antidepressant in his blood and was embroiled in a personal family crisis at the time of the flight. Those are facts, and an absurd claim by Zarathustra, Lord of the Heavens, to a reporter in an email has no bearing on them.”

“But, sir-” Al-Rashid said.

“Let me finish. These emails are a distraction diverting us from the real facts here with your airline. And let’s be candid, your maintenance history with this plane has been sloppy. For starters…” Cashill tapped his pen to the table to underscore each point. “Tools left in the aircraft. Rivets improperly replaced in the underbelly. Maintenance logs incomplete. And the topper here everyone seems to have missed-improper replacement parts used in the flight-management electrical system.”

“Mr. Cashill, without question, we-” Al-Rashid nodded to the other Kuwaiti experts “-accept and acknowledge your observations. However, my point, in relation to the two emails, is we must take into account the history of assertions by cyber experts that the computer systems used by new commercial jetliners can be hacked.”

Cashill shook his head.

“We’ve all been over this a hundred times. Those claims have been knocked down before by the NTSB, the FAA, the AAIB, the International Civil Aviation Organization, the European Aviation Safety Agency and many others, because it’s not possible to wirelessly interfere with flight-certified hardware. And we know the Richlon-Titan system has safety features that can be manually disabled, allowing the crew to manually direct the aircraft to perform beyond programmed safety limits. However, that system has some half a dozen safeguards to protect against a system failure, the loss of electrical power, or the malfunction of any of the onboard computers, which run on a stand-alone network. They can’t be hacked. We really need to move on here.”

In the tense moment that passed, investigators made notes or studied pages from their folders.

“Thank you, Bill and Waleed, for the informative debate. I think all points have to be considered as we move forward,” Taylor said.

The AAIB engineers turned to the topic of engines. As they debated theories, Hooper could not silence the alarm ringing in a back corner of his mind because he agreed one hundred percent with the Kuwaitis.

The threats raise real concerns.

And Hooper couldn’t dismiss them. With both the Shikra and EastCloud flights there had been a sudden malfunction and a sudden failure. In both cases, they appeared to have surprised the crew.

That formed the basis of a disturbing pattern.

Was it interference?

Hooper flipped through his folder, and began drawing circles on his pad, something he did as he fell into a deep thought.

What if, just for a moment, we consider that somehow, somewhere, someone discovered a point of vulnerability in Richlon-Titan’s fly-by-wire system? What if they found a wireless jump point or a back door into the system? Was it possible to override the plane’s security software and gain access to the flight-critical system?

Hooper felt a chill coil up his spine.

What if it is possible?