The First Casualty

55

Colonel William Hasty always spent the night before a presidential flight at the bachelor officers’ quarters on base. The Boss liked to get an early start, like, say, five a.m., which meant, leaving from home, Hasty would wake his wife, Eugenia, in the wee hours. He would also disturb Tiny Tim, the 200-pound Newfoundland who howled most piteously whenever Hasty left the house with a suitcase, which would, in turn, wake little Jeannie, his granddaughter, staying with them during the last three months of her daddy’s deployment in Afghanistan so Mommy could finish her MBA course at the University of Maryland.

Besides, he could sleep a little longer on base without the drive.

Of course, it wasn’t technically night yet, and he hadn’t had time to check into the BOQ, but there was still enough to keep him busy and still allow a few hours’ sack time before takeoff for the approximately ten-and-a-half-hour flight.

He got up from the desk in his office, went out into the hall and into the adjacent office. A black man with the brass oak leaves of a major on the epaulets of his uniform was hunched over a desk running numbers on a calculator.

Jim Patterson.

Major was a relatively junior rank for the copilot of Air Force One, particularly the service’s youngest major. Patterson had been promoted with unusual speed. But then, he was an unusually talented pilot.

Eighteen months ago, he had been a captain, transporting combat support material from Ramstein Air Base. It had been a cold March night, the rural Rheinland-Pfalz district in Germany shimmering white with snow and more forecast. The Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules had a load of ninety-four paratroopers prepared for a night training exercise.

Clumsy on the runway, the aircraft climbed into the ragged sky with grace, its four turbo prop engines at full throttle as it was swallowed by low clouds. The problems started when the pilot, Patterson, eased back the throttles to climb power.

As is often the case in aviation, things happened all at once: The stall warning horn beeped frantically, the plane yawed violently to the left, and a red light was blinking from somewhere in the cluster of engine instruments.

“Sir, we’ve lost the number-two engine,” the flight engineer’s panicked voice would later be heard on the cockpit voice recorder.

Patterson lowered the nose of the climbing aircraft to regain airspeed, postponing, if not ending, the possibility of a stall. He quickly feathered the prop on the dead engine to present minimum resistance to the air. What happened next was best described by replaying the tape:

Captain Patterson made a gear-down landing, coming to a stop not fifty feet from a grove of very large oak trees. The only damage was large trenches in the wet ground of a potato field. The only injuries were the badly lacerated face and the broken ankle of two paratroopers who didn’t buckle up quickly enough. The other ninety-two received only a bad scare. Patterson’s skill and judgment had saved their lives, as well as those of his crew.

The ensuing inquiry found that one of the switches used to change fuel tanks after takeoff had jammed between tanks, starving both left engines. Although the problem could have been discovered in flight, the plane’s low altitude and certain collision with ground obstacles did not leave time to do a thorough checklist of possible culprits.The ultimate result of the hearing was the red bar of the Legion of Merit Patterson wore among other decorative ribbons above his left breast pocket.

Patterson was definitely the man Hasty wanted in the right seat of any plane he flew.

Patterson looked up from his calculator, started to rise. Hasty waved him back into his seat.

“Colonel?”

“Weight and balance calculations?” Hasty asked.

Patterson nodded. “Almost everything except passengers and the president’s personal baggage is aboard — food, fuel, oil, press’s luggage, et cetera.”

The aircraft must be loaded not just according to weight, but where that weight is placed so that the plane is balanced. A pound at the rear of the plane is given more significance than, say, the same pound at the center of gravity, usually right over the main wing spar. An improperly loaded ship will not handle properly and could become dangerous in turbulence.

“Be sure the president’s golf clubs come off first.”

Last year, the clubs had been misplaced. America’s chief executive had played Scotland’s St Andrews with borrowed equipment.

“I wasn’t aware golf was on the agenda for this trip.”

“It isn’t but if the opportunity arises…”

Becoming serious, Hasty held up some papers in his hand. “When you get it all inside the envelope, take a look at this. I got a discrepancy in the fuel burn depending on whose winds-aloft forecast I use.”

“Different winds, different air, and ground speed.”

Hasty dropped the papers on Patterson’s desk. “I’d take it as a favor if you’d take a crack at it.”

Major Patterson suppressed a smile. He knew the colonel redid every calculation every crew member did. The man was a perfectionist. His job demanded it.