LACKING VIRTUES Read Online Free
Author: Thomas Kirkwood
D.C.
Summer 1999
Frank Warner, the NTSB’s head of air crash investigations, had an ambivalent relationship to his telephone. On the negative side, he could never escape the bugger. It was set up to ring simultaneously in his Georgetown home and Washington office. If no one answered, the call went looking for him like a blood hound. He had a phone in his government car, a tiny cellular for public places and a water-proof beeper for the beach. The previous summer a call had nailed him on the first day of his vacation while he was scuba diving in 20 feet of water off the Bahamas.
In the last quarter century, the wounds his personal life had sustained at the hands of his telephone were enormous. If he had been the type to discuss such things, he might have offered as an example the failure of his first marriage and his resultant childless state; or the failure of his second marriage and his present wifeless state. The calls had a way of coming at dinner parties his former spouses had planned for weeks, or during rare and wonderful moments of intimacy. And they could always be counted on to sniff out vacations 5,000 miles away . . .
His close-cropped hair was mostly gray. When exhausted, which was often, the bags beneath his attentive brown eyes grew heavy and their whites became badly bloodshot. The rest of him, however, showed few signs of aging. He was 6ʹ2ʺ and built like a tight end. Except for an occasional cigar he did not smoke, and he carefully monitored what he ate and drank. The stress of his work took care of any excess calories.
At age 57 Warner drove himself and his staff without regard for anyone’s personal comfort. He demanded superior performance and got it, even when an investigation required 20-hour days and uninterrupted weeks on the road. In spite of this, he was a well-liked boss. It was clear to everyone that he wasn’t in the thing for self-aggrandizement, a rare quality in official Washington.
Warner kept two packed bags by the front door of his home, one for warm climates, the other for the cold. An identical set of bags waited in his office. It was his policy to be en route five minutes after a call, day or night, and he required the same preparedness of his staff.
He reached for his warm weather bag, the same tattered valise he carried to Brazil the trip his second wife had left him. Claire, his new companion, accompanied him out the front door and waited with him at curbside. She was an M.D., specialty trauma: she knew what it meant to be on call. She stood with him in silence until his ride came.
He drove with his assistant, Tim Simmons, to Reagan Airport. In less than an hour he and 10 members of his Go Team were aboard an NTSB Gulfstream II, climbing through 20,000 feet. They were en route to the Peach Tree-DeKalb Municipal Airport on the north side of Atlanta.
Warner opened the briefing in the conference area at the back of the plane. “Simmons, please bring us up to date.”
Simmons, 35, an engineer with youthful good looks, had gone from being Warner’s goat when he joined the NTSB fresh out of graduate school to his most trusted investigator. He said, “I roused Delta Operations during the drive to the airport. A Seven-Six, outbound for Frankfurt, two-hundred-eighteen on board. No information yet on survivors, but the prognosis is doubtful. The aircraft lost an engine shortly after take-off, visual confirmation from the tower. The engine landed on airport property, which will simplify our task.”
Simmons lit a cigarette, and the non-smoking contingent let him get by with it this once. “All indications are that the pilot kept the aircraft under control. In other words, no violent maneuvers to regain control after the engine broke loose that would explain later events.”
Simmons politely blew his smoke behind him. “The pilot radioed the tower for clearance to land on runway Two Six Right. Clearance was granted. No
Summer 1999
Frank Warner, the NTSB’s head of air crash investigations, had an ambivalent relationship to his telephone. On the negative side, he could never escape the bugger. It was set up to ring simultaneously in his Georgetown home and Washington office. If no one answered, the call went looking for him like a blood hound. He had a phone in his government car, a tiny cellular for public places and a water-proof beeper for the beach. The previous summer a call had nailed him on the first day of his vacation while he was scuba diving in 20 feet of water off the Bahamas.
In the last quarter century, the wounds his personal life had sustained at the hands of his telephone were enormous. If he had been the type to discuss such things, he might have offered as an example the failure of his first marriage and his resultant childless state; or the failure of his second marriage and his present wifeless state. The calls had a way of coming at dinner parties his former spouses had planned for weeks, or during rare and wonderful moments of intimacy. And they could always be counted on to sniff out vacations 5,000 miles away . . .
His close-cropped hair was mostly gray. When exhausted, which was often, the bags beneath his attentive brown eyes grew heavy and their whites became badly bloodshot. The rest of him, however, showed few signs of aging. He was 6ʹ2ʺ and built like a tight end. Except for an occasional cigar he did not smoke, and he carefully monitored what he ate and drank. The stress of his work took care of any excess calories.
At age 57 Warner drove himself and his staff without regard for anyone’s personal comfort. He demanded superior performance and got it, even when an investigation required 20-hour days and uninterrupted weeks on the road. In spite of this, he was a well-liked boss. It was clear to everyone that he wasn’t in the thing for self-aggrandizement, a rare quality in official Washington.
Warner kept two packed bags by the front door of his home, one for warm climates, the other for the cold. An identical set of bags waited in his office. It was his policy to be en route five minutes after a call, day or night, and he required the same preparedness of his staff.
He reached for his warm weather bag, the same tattered valise he carried to Brazil the trip his second wife had left him. Claire, his new companion, accompanied him out the front door and waited with him at curbside. She was an M.D., specialty trauma: she knew what it meant to be on call. She stood with him in silence until his ride came.
He drove with his assistant, Tim Simmons, to Reagan Airport. In less than an hour he and 10 members of his Go Team were aboard an NTSB Gulfstream II, climbing through 20,000 feet. They were en route to the Peach Tree-DeKalb Municipal Airport on the north side of Atlanta.
Warner opened the briefing in the conference area at the back of the plane. “Simmons, please bring us up to date.”
Simmons, 35, an engineer with youthful good looks, had gone from being Warner’s goat when he joined the NTSB fresh out of graduate school to his most trusted investigator. He said, “I roused Delta Operations during the drive to the airport. A Seven-Six, outbound for Frankfurt, two-hundred-eighteen on board. No information yet on survivors, but the prognosis is doubtful. The aircraft lost an engine shortly after take-off, visual confirmation from the tower. The engine landed on airport property, which will simplify our task.”
Simmons lit a cigarette, and the non-smoking contingent let him get by with it this once. “All indications are that the pilot kept the aircraft under control. In other words, no violent maneuvers to regain control after the engine broke loose that would explain later events.”
Simmons politely blew his smoke behind him. “The pilot radioed the tower for clearance to land on runway Two Six Right. Clearance was granted. No
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