My own name was a little further down the list in the space marked 'Aviation Duty Officer/IIC,' followed by my beeper number and the number of my second home phone. 'IIC,' by the way, is not to be read as 'two-C,' but as 'Investigator In Charge.'

C. Gordon Petcher was the newest of the five members of the National Transportation Safety Board. As such, he was naturally a little suspect. Those of us hired for our expertise always wonder about new Board members, who are appointed for five-year terms. Each has to go through a trial period during which we decide if this one is to be trusted or endured.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Bill."

"That's okay, Gordy." He wanted us to call him Gordy.

"I was just talking to Roger. We have a very bad one in California. Since it's so late and the accident is so big, we've decided not to wait for available transport. The JetStar is waiting for the go-team to assemble. I'm hoping it can take off within an hour. If you -- "

"How big, Gordy? Chicago? Everglades? San Diego?"

He sounded apologetic. That can happen. Breaking really bad news, you can feel that somehow you're responsible for it.

"It could be bigger than Canary Islands," he said.

Part of me resented this new guy speaking to me in agency shorthand, while the rest of me was trying to digest an accident bigger than Tenerife.

Outsiders might think we're talking about places when we mention Chicago, Paris, Everglades, and so forth. We're not. Chicago is a DC-10 losing an engine on take-off, killing all aboard. Everglades was an L-1011, a survivor crash, bellying into the swamp while the crew was troubleshooting a nose-gear light. San Diego was a big, grinning PSA 727 getting tangled up with a Cessna in Indian Country -- the low elevations swarming with Navajos, Cherokees, and Piper Cubs. And Canary Islands ...

In 1978, at the Tenerife Airport, Canary islands, an unthinkable thing happened. A fully-