“CITS said they did,” Long told him. CITS, the Central Integrated Test System, was a monitoring, recording, and troubleshooting device on the B-1 bomber that acted like a flight data recorder. The CITS was heavily armored and designed to withstand a crash. They had recovered the stricken bomber’s CITS module, and its memory was successfully retrieved and analyzed by the Air Force.
“I think something happened, something that prevented the speedbrakes from retracting, or retracted them too late,” Rinc insisted. “The smoky SAMs were all around us — it’s possible one of them got stuck in the spoiler wells. In that case, CITS would report them retracted even though they were still deployed. But that’s the only way that crash makes any sense.”
All he saw were blank faces staring back at him hostilely.
Seaver knew his arguments were falling on deaf ears. Since he had initiated the ejection sequence and punched everybody out long after the Bone had departed coordinated flight, they were putting the blame squarely on him.
Several long awkward moments passed. Then Rebecca Furness turned to the systems officers and simulator operators behind them and said, “Excuse us for a minute, guys.”
Seaver got to his feet. “If you’ll excuse me for a minute, boss, I’m going to take a leak, and then I’m going to get all the sim data together and upchannel it to Air Combat Command. We’ll need to independently verify what we found and give this information to the accident board.”
“Save your own butt by blaming the dead, huh, Seaver?” Long said under his breath, but loudly enough for the other squadron members to hear. Furness scowled.
Seaver inwardly winced at the remark but simply said, “It happened, John. It was some kind of technical malfunction. We can prove it.” Looking about, he saw no sympathy in the faces around him.
Within a few moments, everyone had departed but Furness, Long, and Seaver. “So. You saw the flight surgeon today?” Furness asked. “What did he say?”
Seaver proudly produced a sheet of paper. “He signed me off for flying,” he replied. “I know the squadron is getting ready for the pre-D. I realize I have a bunch of training to catch up on, but I know I can get back up to speed in time to recertify along with the rest of the squadron.”
Furness examined the paper with a rueful shake of her head. The flight surgeon had given Seaver full medical clearance for flight duties, even though he was still undergoing physical therapy. The sign-off usually meant that the crew member was off all medications and was observed to be free of any apparent psychological or emotional difficulties as a result of the crash. More important, for Seaver, was the sign-off that allowed him to train for the predeployment certification, or pre-D.
The pre-D was the unit’s biggest gauge of its combat effectiveness. Air National Guard bomber squadrons were “replacement” units, not frontline combat-ready units. In the event that the bombers were needed, the squadron would be “federalized,” or transferred from the command of the Nevada state adjutant general to the Air Force and “gained” by an active-duty bomb wing. The Guard aircrews would be tasked to ferry the aircraft to the deployment base, either in the United States or overseas; and the best crews might fly actual combat missions if there was a shortage of active-duty crews. In order to prove they were ready for full integration into the active force, twice a year the squadron was sent either to Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota or Dyess AFB in Texas to undergo a grueling two-week drill to demonstrate their combat readiness.
Fail the pre-D, and you could be dismissed from the squadron. If too many crews failed, the entire unit could be decertified. The unit already had one big black mark against it — Seaver’s crash. Having even one crew fail a pre-D could bring the entire squadron down.
Furness put the paper aside, glancing at Long. “You know you’re not supposed to go to the flight surgeon or ask him for any sign-offs without asking me first,” she said to Seaver.
He narrowed his eyes quizzically. “No, I didn’t know that, boss. I must’ve filed that piece of info in the ‘Like I give a shit’ folder when the President briefed it.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass, Seaver.”
“But I didn’t go to the doc to ask for a sign-off — I went for a scheduled rehab follow-up. He asked me how I felt, poked and prodded, and then said I looked okay enough to go back to work. He did the sign-off. I didn’t ask him for shit. If he’s out of line with you, that’s his problem, not mine.” He looked hard at his squadron commander, then asked, “It sounds like maybe you don’t want me flying or participating in any pre-D work-ups. There a problem here, boss?”
“I don’t know, Seaver,” Furness said. “I don’t like seeing you in here when you’re supposed to be recuperating, that’s all.”
“I’m all right, Beck,” Rinc said. “I’m ready to get moving.” He looked at her, then at Long’s scowl. “What else, guys?”
“Start by telling us the
“Excuse me?” Seaver asked incredulously. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You heard me, Seaver,” Long retorted. “The wreckage and the bodies are still warm and you already want another crew and another plane…”
“Those ‘bodies’ were my
“They were my friends too,” Long said. “But I for one don’t think you deserve another chance until you fully explain what
“Like I told you and the accident board,” Seaver said, “we were in trouble. We were scramming away from the SAMs. I popped speedbrakes to get us down to cornering velocity. I admit I went over forty-five degrees of bank, but I had the TERFLW paddled off and I was flying it visually — if we were in the clouds, I would’ve kept TERFLW on and done forty-five. But we were under attack, dammit! I tried to roll out but couldn’t straighten her out. I knew something was wrong, so I gave the command to eject—”
“Bullshit you did,” Long said.
Seaver looked angrily at Long and finally nodded. “Okay, maybe I didn’t give the command,” he said. “But the plane was in a bad skid, a high angle-of-attack, a steep bank, and we were still at two hundred hard ride with TERFLW doing an inverted fly-up. I was trying to fly it out, but I lost it. When I couldn’t get it back, I didn’t think. I just reacted.”
“You’re damned right you didn’t think. You screwed up,” Long shot back. “Did you ever think to give us a yellow light?” There was a yellow PREPARE TO EJECT and a red EJECT light that were manually activated by the pilots in a controlled ejection situation. Normally during a flight, the crew’s ejection mode switches were set to AUTO, which allowed either the pilot or the copilot to eject the rest of the crew. Even on the ground, Long and most other crew members couldn’t actually say the word “eject,” as in the “red EJECT light.” He and every other flier knew it was a command that demanded an instantaneous response. Seeing the red EJECT light was the same as issuing the “Eject! Eject! Eject!” order verbally.
“No. There was no time.”
“There could have been, if you didn’t have your head so far up your ass,” Long said angrily.
The memory of his dead fellow crewdogs hit Rinc Seaver hard, and the anger welled up out of his body like air out of a popped balloon. Seaver had been training both Chappie and his wife, Daphne, to fly — Daphne had already soloed and was just a night cross-country from her check ride. Rinc was godfather of one of their kids, even though none of them were very good Catholics. They were the closest friends — no, the closest
“You’re damned right. No one else went. No one else even initiated the sequence,” Long said bitterly. “You know what I think, Seaver? I think you couldn’t handle it. You were getting hosed by the Navy, you were confused, you were disoriented, and you were scared, so you panicked and hit your handles!”
“We were in a skid, we were headed down, and I thought I could save it.”
“That crash was
“No it wasn’t,” he cried out. “I proved what happened. I tried to fly it out, but the left bank was still in and we never leveled out. I knew I lost it, and I went. I did the best I could.”
“You caused that accident, Seaver! There was no reason for that crash except for
“John…,” Furness said softly, as if trying — not very convincingly — to tell Long to stop arguing.
“You oughta be grounded, Seaver,” Long dug in, jabbing a finger at the OSO. “You oughta be kicked out of the Guard. You oughta be kicked in the fucking