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Airlines flight that tossed some thirty passengers and crew “like rag dolls,” injuring some seriously, officials indicated to Newslead.
    More than once the Richlon-TitanRT-86 rolled to a ninety-degree angle, causing some passengers to prepare final messages to their loved ones.
    â€œIt doesn’t look good. The plane’s in trouble and I don’t think we’re going to make it,” Diane Wilson told her children and husband in a farewell video she’d recorded on the stricken flight...
    After she’d sent her story to Reeka, she went to the washroom to freshen up. Upon returning, she was glad the updated story had been issued with a solitary byline on top: “Kate Page.”
    She thought of Diane Wilson, the mother from Brooklyn, and her goodbye video. Then she looked at the faces of her daughter and sister smiling back at her from the framed photo next to her computer monitor. Grace and Vanessa.
    What would I say to you in the final moments of my life?

Six
    Washington, DC
    J ake Hooper kept pace with the rhythmic jingling of the leash as he and his German shepherd, Pax, trotted alongside the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool at the National Mall.
    Pax panted happily. He loved running here. But Hooper was running with a heavy heart. His dog was getting on and his arthritic pain and bone spurs had taken a toll. The vet didn’t give Pax much time before the pain would be unbearable and he’d have to be put down.
    Hooper and his wife, Gwen, couldn’t have children. For them, Pax was a cherished family member who gave them nothing but unconditional love. Hooper was thinking about what life would be like without him when his phone rang and he stopped cold.
    It was from the National Transportation Safety Board duty officer.
    â€œJake, it’s Crawley at the comms center. We got one at LaGuardia, an EastCloud Richlon-TitanRT-86. More than two dozen injured. No fatalities. Landed without incident.”
    â€œThank God for that. Do we have a suspected cause?”
    â€œCrew reports a flight control computer malfunction.”
    â€œA computer malfunction?” Hooper considered it.
    â€œThe RT-86 is a new model. That’s why we’re traveling on this one. I’m sending you a ticket now.”
    â€œOkay. I’ll get home, grab my bag and get to National.”
    Hooper cupped Pax’s head in his hands, reading the question in his big eyes.
    â€œThat’s right. I gotta go, pal.”
    They caught a cab home to their porch-front row house in Glover Park. Hooper took a quick shower, called a cab and set out bowls of fresh water and food for Pax, who whined a goodbye as Hooper shouldered his prepacked bag and locked the house.
    In the cab to the airport, he texted Gwen, who was at her sister’s in Georgetown. Then he digested the information coming in about the aircraft and the occurrence.
    EastCloud Flight 4990 had originated in Buffalo, bound for LaGuardia, with eighty passengers and five crew aboard. The plane had been twenty-seven thousand feet over the Catskills when it suddenly rolled ninety degrees right, then ninety degrees left, then dropped seven thousand feet before the crew regained control. Result: twenty-eight passengers and two attendants injured, some of them seriously. There was damage to the cabin.
    The crew reported a flight-management systems problem. But there are safety features to guard against that.
    Hooper’s years as an NTSB investigator had taught him that initial information on the circumstances of an incident was often incomplete. He always regarded preliminary data with caution. They had a long way to go yet and a lot to do, like analyze the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, and talk to the crew.
    He considered the plane.
    The RT-86 had come on stream about two years ago with few problems. The new model had a good safety record with no incidents with significant implications. Bottom line, Hooper thought the