Ford jumped down off the truck and looked around. Pinky was standing close by and off to the side, and Ford waived her over. “Pinky, hey, grab this portable fire extinguisher with me. I’m going to climb up on the hood of the truck, and I need you to hand it to me.” Pinky was in a daze from the chaos of the fire. “PINKY! HEY, PAY ATTENTION! You understand?” Ford yelled.
Pinky was overwhelmed with the intensity of the fire, but understood enough to lend a hand. The fuel was now gushing with force out of the wing of the aircraft, most likely aided by gravity. Pouring out, flowing generously down the side of the truck where the sand was stored, and was now pooling on the ground. The top of the aircraft wing was on fire, most likely burning aircraft electrical wires, truck paint, and insulation, and the Crash, Fire and Rescue crews were still not there yet.
“After you give this to me, get everyone away. Got it? Take everyone away over there, and wait for CFR trucks to arrive,” Ford told her, pointing to the area closer to the flight line buildings. “Do it quickly.”
As Ford climbed up on the front hood of the snowplow, on top of the large Caterpillar Diesel engine, Pinky raised the fire extinguisher above her head and handed it to him. Ford lifted it up, then every ounce of his Notre Dame developed muscle and strength, smashed it into the laminated safety windshield of the truck. It bounced off the strengthened glass. Again, Ford hit it hard, as hard as he would hit when he was with Fighting Irish. Nothing.
“COME ON. COME ON. GET ME OUT! GET ME OUT OF HERE!” the driver was screaming. He was in full panic mode.
Ford smashed it again and again with full vigor and intensity. His face was scrunched up, wind burned, and cold, but Ford was determined. Again and again, he hit the windshield. And again. On the sixth or seventh try, the windshield cracked, but did not shatter. Ford worked it and worked it, until he was able to peel it back like a banana peel from the upper right corner and outwards.
Auto windshields were not panes of glass like a bay window at your house, which breaks into shards. On the snow plow truck, as in all automotive glass, the manufacturing process requires the front windshield to be what is called ‘laminated glass’ for safety reasons. Ford was experiencing the safety glass, with a flexible, clear plastic film called polyvinyl butyral, layered between two pieces of glass in the windshield. This plastic film was holding the snow plow windshield glass in place while Ford was breaking it, helping to lessen injuries from flying glass. Designed to be difficult to penetrate, as Ford was facing, was not helping in this time sensitive situation.
“Let me have your hand! LET ME HAVE YOUR HAND!” Ford yelled to the driver.
The flames were larger than a two-story building now and busting out heat on exposed skin like a summer day in Florida. The ramp area was full of thick smoke, which made it hard to both see and breathe. The fuel vapors were waffling up their sinuses, and was as dangerous as anything any of them had ever experienced. Ford knew enough from flight school staged accident demonstrations that this was a recipe for disaster.
Ford was able to grab ahold of the contract driver’s hand and arm. Ford laughed silently when he saw that the driver was a bit of a large man, and clearly overweight. “Aw, come on. A fat guy. Figures,” he quietly said under his breath. With Ford pulling, the driver was able to finally squeeze through the windshield, and had half his upper body through now. Just a little more now of the driver stepping on the steering wheel and dashboard, along with Ford pulling, and he would be through.
“Kick those legs off the dash. Come on, keep pushing,” Ford told him.
“I am. I am. My feet are pushing off the wheel.”
What wasn’t helping them was the wind speed, making it loud, and harder to communicate. Great for takeoff, not so great for talking, nor the fire triangle. The whipping wind was not only interfering with their hearing, but it was aiding the fire to expand. Ford was also concerned about the fuel flash point. Aviation fuel was different than auto fuel, in that it ignites at a much higher and different temperature, but in these weather conditions, there were enough vapors building in the atmosphere that it could ignite. The flash point was about 38 degrees Celsius, and a much higher 210 degrees Celsius, for autoignition temperature.
Ford and the driver were now both sitting and kneeling on all fours on the hood of the truck, respectively. Both men turned around on their stomachs and began sliding off the hood engine compartment feet first as fast as they could. The drop from the top of the hood was at least eight feet, and they would be free shortly.
As Ford and the driver both rounded the turn of the hood near the grill to hit the ground, an explosion hit. The JP-8 yellow kerosene-based fuel that was being used that day had just enough warmth to ignite the vapors. The fire science triangle at that moment became one.
WHOOSHHHH….BOOOOMMM! The fuel vapor cloud had ignited into a mammoth vertical fireball of flame, heat, and smoke. Ford and the driver came off the hood and were shoved to the snowy pavement with power, and both men were face down on the icy ground.
Mark and Robert jotted down the staircase, stopped in the bathroom first, and then walked over to the entrance of the DIA auditorium. Mark looked at his watch and saw he was at least a full five minutes early before their brief started, so he stopped to wait in line at the Starbucks kiosk. Robert rolled his eyes again, as he always did, when Mark wanted a Starbucks.
“You keep this place in business. The owners would be broke if it weren’t for you,” Robert commented. Mark nodded.
“Good morning, Judi,” Mark greeted the Barista, “the usual please.”
Robert turned to stare at Mark. “What’s the usual this month?”
“Venti, non-fat, extra hot, Cinnamon Dulce Latte, with two shots and one extra pump.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Are you freaking for real? I’m sorry I asked.”
Mark used Starbucks for walking the halls at DIA in between meetings or projects for three reasons. First, the caffeine kept him going, giving him the fuel for his job. Second, he used it to collect information from other teammates in the organization. Sometimes it was gossip, sometimes networking, but either way, it always helped in contributing to a hot project. The third and more important reason was the collection of information about adversarial militaries. The 9/11 Commission Report, formally named Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, is the official report of the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks, and a large criticism in the report was that the intelligence community was too private, too close hold, meaning that agencies did not talk to each other enough. The interagency did not network with each other as effectively as they could be, and if they only worked together as a team a bit more, they could help solve complex, volatile, uncertain and ambiguous problems. Mark knew it took a team of experts to tackle these problems, something he learned while working in the movie industry at Pixar, and especially on the movie Toy Story. Cartoon movies prior to Toy Story were made by hand, while Toy Story was the first one made by totally by computer. Mark learned that while technology was a welcomed tool, it also prevented people from interacting and communicating.
Judi made him his special drink and handed it to him. Mark dug out his loyalty card from a pocket full of receipts, notes, scrunched up cash, and old gum, and asked Robert again if he wanted his trademark black coffee. “Stop. No coffee. Let’s get going,” Robert grumbled. All paid for, and the green stirrer pulled out, they made for the rear doors for the brief. Mark turned around after a few paces.