“You got it, Bill, vector southwest arrivals south of Tunica, D.L.,” Latimer replied. “Talk at you later. ’Bye.”
“D.G., ’bye.” Gayze took a sip of coffee, laced with a little fat-free chocolate milk this time to boost the caffeine level. Things didn’t calm down in the tower until after one A.M., nearly four hours away, and it was looking like a busy night. He needed to stay sharp.
“He wants to take me over to runway two-seven,” the young pilot in the right seat of the Shorts 330–200 cargo plane said. “I said okay. He sounded like he was trying to help me out.”
Henri Cazaux was in the back of the Shorts, inspecting his deadly cargo, when he heard the call over his wireless intercom. He raised his microphone to his lips: “Follow his vectors, but do not accelerate,” Cazaux said. “I’ll be up there in a minute.” He then continued his inspection.
Although boxy and rather odd-looking, the Northern Ireland-built Shorts 330–200 was a popular short-range turboprop commuter/cargo plane — it had even been purchased by the U.S. Air Force, Army, and National Guard as a short-range utility aircraft. Over two hundred had been built for small airlines or major airline partners, carrying up to thirty passengers or 7,500 pounds of cargo. The twenty- year-old plane no longer flew for the U.S. military, and was now flown only by a handful of commuter and cargo services around the world. The used-airplane market was full of them, and it was easy and relatively inexpensive to build a small fleet of them and to train pilots to fly the small “trash-hauler.” Cazaux’s bird was a freighter version of the Model 300–200, called a C-23B “Sherpa” in the U.S. Air Force, modified with a rear cargo ramp and integral load rollers in the floor.
Tonight, the Shorts was a bomber.
Cazaux was inspecting three LD3 cargo containers, standard airline-use baggage, cargo, or mail containers, each filled with two thousand pounds of a mixture of waste ammonium nitrate rocket propellant, stolen from an industrial- waste storage facility in western Massachusetts, and TNT. The three containers were chained together, and the forward container was chained to a quick-release lever attached to the forward cargo-bay deck. A fourth pallet in the rear of the plane carried a six-foot-diameter pilot parachute and a forty-foot-diameter main cargo parachute, cabled to the LD3 containers.
This setup comprised a functional and tested parachute- extraction system, similar to the kind used by many tactical transport planes, including the Shorts 300. At the appropriate time, the pilot parachute would be released and inflated in the aircraft’s slipstream, applying tension to the three LD3 containers. Once over the target, the pilot parachute would be allowed to release the main parachute, and as soon as the main ’chute fully opened, it would drag the containers out of the Shorts’ cargo bay. Deceleration or G- sensors were installed in each container to set off the explosives one second after hitting the target, which would allow the containers to break through the roof of the target before detonating.
Satisfied that all was ready, Cazaux made his way back up to the cockpit and put on a headset. “Say again your last, Roberts?”
“I’m using the Universal call sign you gave me, Captain,” the young pilot responded, “and I asked for vectors to runway three-six right, as ordered. Approach Control asked me if I wanted the Universal runway instead, two- seven…”
“You should have replied no,” Cazaux said. “I ordered you to approach on three-six.”
“Sir, in my judgment it would have appeared very suspicious to not accept vectors to two-seven,” the pilot said. “Approach Control said I would be number two for landing on two-seven, but number eight on three-six right. The winds are calm, so all runways are in use tonight. I felt I had no choice.”
“Get a clearance back to three-six right immediately, Roberts,” Cazaux hissed. “You are not paid to exercise your judgment, you are paid to fly as you are directed. Now get a clearance back on course.”
As Roberts got back on the radio, Cazaux checked the portable GPS satellite navigation receiver’s moving-map display. They were many miles off course now, almost beyond the extended centerline of three-six right. It might be too late to get two-seven now, and their mission timing was way off. “You had better check your timing, and do whatever it takes to get back on course and back on time,” Cazaux warned his young pilot. “I want no more errors in judgment or you’ll be a dead man.”
A few moments later, the interfacility interphone came alive again: “Bill, Doug, Sierra-12. Universal-107 changed his mind again and now wants three-six right.”
“Bless him,” Gayze said impatiently, being careful (after listening to his controller tapes many times with a supervisor present) not to swear. This was not the time for new pilots to be messing around with multiple requests and weird clearances. “Send him over to me. I’ll give him three-six left and try to fit him in on the right. At least I’ll get him out of your hair, B.G.”
“Thanks, Bill, I owe you. Here he comes. D.L. ’Bye.”
A few moments later, the pilot of the Universal Express Shorts 300 checked in: “Memphis Tower, Universal Express-107, with you descending to two thousand, crossing Arkabutla, requesting vectors ILS three-six right.”
“Express-107, radar contact,” Bill Gayze responded, double-checking the radarscope. “Turn left heading zero- four-zero, descend and maintain two thousand, slow to one- six-zero, vectors for the GPS three-six left approach course, repeat, left. I’ll work on a sidestep to the ILS three-six right.”
“Express-107, roger, zero-four-zero on the heading, leaving six for two.”
The pilot sounded dejected, maybe even pissed off, but he brought it upon himself. Gayze didn’t recognize the voice, but the pilot must be a new guy and the old head flying with him must not be paying attention. Most Universal Express flights didn’t jam themselves into the normal inbound traffic flow, but overflew or circumnavigated the Memphis Class B airspace direct to Holly Springs VOR or the Loosahatchie NDB, then got their radar vectors to runway two-seven. Even with a stiff crosswind, most Universal pilots took runway two-seven because it cut down on taxi time, and those guys at Universal had to account for every gallon of jet fuel.
Things were going along smoothly for the next few minutes, but a bottleneck was beginning to develop — no surprise who was causing it. The pilot of Universal 107 was still flying over two hundred nautical miles per hour groundspeed and was starting to overtake the slower traffic in front of him. “Express-107, I need you at your final approach speed,” Gayze radioed. Airspeed glitches like that would create a ripple effect for the next three hours, Gayze thought sourly. Express-107 would slow to one-twenty, which meant that planes behind him would be overtaking him, so Gayze would have to slow everybody down to avoid a “deal,” or a busted separation. This kid had probably just ruined what could have been a pretty good night, and Gayze punctuated his instructions with a curt “Acknowledge” to accent his displeasure.
“107 correcting, slowing to one-two-zero knots,” the pilot replied.
This guy sure sounded overly green, Gayze thought, and he wasn’t getting too much help from his captain. Maybe he better put a bug in Universal’s ear about him. Gayze hit a telephone button marked UNIV DISP on his communications console, and a moment later he heard: “Universal Express, dispatcher, Kline.”
“Hey, Rudy — Bill Gayze up in Memphis Tower.”
“Hey, Bill how’s it goin’ tonight? What’s up? Not with any of our birds, I hope.”