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identification procedures . The flight-deck crew emerged from the Airbus, pointedly declining help . The captain, a grizzled four-striper, looking around him at the injured and already knowing of the many dead, was openly crying. Guessing that despite the casualties the pilots would be acclaimed for bringing the airplane in, Minh held the captain's grief-stricken face in closeup. It proved to be Minh's final shot as a voice called, "Harry! Minh! Ken! Stop now. Hurry! Bring what you've got and come with me. We're feeding to New York by satellite .”
    The voice belonged to Rita Abrams, who had arrived on a Public Information shuttle bus. Some distance away, the promised mobile satellite van could be seen. The van's satellite dish, which folded like a fan for travel, was being opened and aimed skyward . Accepting the order, Minh lowered his camera. Two other TV crews had arrived on the same shuttle bus as Rita--one from KDLS, the CBA affiliate-along with print press reporters and photographers. They and others, Minh knew, would carry the story on. But only Minh had the real thing, the crash exclusive pictures, and he knew with inward pride that today and in days to come, his pictures would be seen around the world and would remain a piece of history.
    They went with Vernon in the PIO station wagon to the satellite van. On the way Partridge began drafting the words he would shortly speak. Rita told him, "Make your script a minute forty-five. As soon as you're ready, cut a sound track, do a closing standup. Meanwhile, I'll feed quick and dirty to New York .”
    As Partridge nodded acknowledgment, Rita glanced at her watch: 5:43 P.m. , 6:43 in New York. For the first-feed National Evening News, there was barely fifteen minutes left of broadcast time . Partridge was continuing to write, mouthing words silently, changing what he had already written. Minh handed two precious tape cassettes to Rita , then put a fresh cassette in the camera, ready for Partridge's audio track and standup close . Vernon dropped them immediately alongside the satellite van. Broderick, who had come too, was going on to the terminal to phone his own report to New York. His parting words were, "Thanks, guys. Remember, if you want the in-depth dope tomorrow, buy the Time& “ O'Hara, the high-technology buff, regarded the equipmentpacked satellite van admiringly .” How I love these babies !”
    The fifteen-foot-wide dish mounted on the van's platform body was now fully open and elevated with a 20-kilowatt generator running. Inside, in a small control room with editing and transmitting equipment tightly packed in tiers, a technician from the two-man crew was aligning the van's uplink transmitter with a Ku-band satellite 22,300 miles above themSpacenet 2 . Whatever they transmitted would go to transponder 21 on the satellite, then instantly by downlink to New York to be rerecorded . Inside the van, working alongside the technician, Rita expertly ran Minh's tape cassettes through an editing machine, viewing them on a TV monitor. Not surprisingly, she thought, the pictures were superb . On normal assignments, and working with an editor as an extra team member , producer and editor together would select portions of the tapes, then, over a sound track of a correspondent's comments, put all components together as a fully edited piece. But that took forty-five minutes, sometimes longer, and today there wasn't time. So, making fast decisions, Rita chose several of the most dramatic scenes which the technician transmitted as they were-in TV jargon, "quick and dirty .”
    Outside the satellite van, seated on some metal steps, Partridge completed his script and, after conferring briefly with Minh and the sound man , recorded a sound track . Having allowed for the anchorman's introduction, which would be written in New York and have the story's up-front facts, Partridge began: "Pilots in a long-ago war called it comin'in on a wing and a prayer. There was a song with that