I had such a fascinating (and non-political) experience regarding the downing of his plane that I thought I'd share it just for the fun of it.
I was at a very different kind of conference this week. For a future Miranda Chase book (coming this winter), I wanted to get my team over toward Sweden, but not on an investigation. Wondering how to do that, I asked myself, "Huh, do they ever go to conferences?"
It turns out they do: ISASI, the International Society of Air Safety Investigators annual conference. It was in Nashville, so I simply had to go. 335 investigators from 45 countries, utterly fascinating. I got to sit with Boeing, Gulfstream, Delta, UK military, Iceland, Australia, NZ, FAA, NTSB, US Navy and Air Force (and an Air Force materials lab guy who I totally geeked out with) and a myriad of others. Holy wow, utterly amazing 4 days.
But back to Prigozhin. By chance, I was the one who caught the breaking news at our table during a break. I spun the screen to show the investigators around my table. Their very first question? "What air frame?" We each tossed out ideas. And after about 3 minutes (ridiculously fast unless it was preplanned, which Russia is now denying) someone found that it was an Embraer Legacy 600. We all nodded like that was about right and we should have guessed that one. (I had offered the very similar Gulfstream and the dissimilar Antonov An-24 turboprop.)
Embraer Legacy 600
Then they all turned to me. "You're the guy who follows headlines with your geopolitical series, why do you think it took Putin so long to knock him out?" LOL!
My answers were:
- Putin had to wait to get any Wagner troops who wouldn't sign with the Russian Army out of the country to avoid another rebellion. Once they were in Belarus, he was safe from that.
- Also, Putin had to consolidate power at home. I felt it was clear how shaky his grasp is as he had to fire/disappear 3 major folks from the Russian government/military before he dared to move.
That discussion ended abruptly when the video popped up. They're crash investigators after all, so the analysis of that ranked as far more interesting. "Dead stick." "Missing wing." Spin rate. Verticality of descent rather than arcing flight path. And a ton of other factors I'd never have gleaned from the image. Far more interesting to them than any mere politics. LOL!
So, yeah, a very interesting place to be on hearing the news.
Typical of a 4-day immersion conference, I'm heading home with reams of notes and a very full brain. [grin] The key to my success there? The depth of my research. I could ask those next level questions. When they talked about reading the black box from this crash or that, I didn't have to ask "What crash?" or "What kind of plane is that?" But having studied it, I was easily accepted. And being at that technical conference hopefully will give my future adventures with Miranda even more depth!
7 comments
What an awesome experience to have! Talk about being in the right place at the right time to get that news. So glad you got additional information to continue bringing Miranda Chase stories to us.
An amazing “be in the right place with the right people “experience!
I need help . I read your story of Delta Senior Officer Michael …climbing his favorite Redwood tree with the woman he layers marries ….. cannot remember the title ….may have it on my Kindle but have had no luck in locating it ..Darn secretive Michael !!
Help please … would love to read …. Thanks …
Rita A. Collard
racollard@gmail.com
You’re looking for “Bring on the Dusk” Night Stalkers #6. Also, for future reference, the Complete Bibliography / Printable Booklist has the couples noted for most of my romances. https://www.mlbuchman.com/bibliography/
As to what the team is doing in Sweden, I’ll offer a hint. The unannounced Miranda Chase #14, coming in the winter, is named Griffin for the Swedish JAS-39E Gripen fighter jet. [grin]
Yep, being a lone writer in the midst of so much military, commercial aviation, and engineers was a fascinating experience. Curiously, I was far more comfortable with them than at Thrillerfest (How do I even speak to Brad Thor or Michael Connelly? Or the beginner so full of themselves? All those pre-qual questions to figure out who you’re talking to and if they are a waste of space or actually interested in learning, or utterly dismiss you because they’re in a drastically different genre or…). These folks ate, slept, and breathed one genre and a half dozen subgenres and I knew a fair bit about each one.
Air Safety Investigation:
General – private stuff (I used to fly small planes)
Commercial – the big jets, safety culture and risk mitigation from my project management days
Military – I’ve been researching and writing that for 15 years
Space – I LOVE space flight news and follow it avidly
Actual Investigations – Project Mgmt along with 14 Mirandas worth of research
“The Lab” – they loved that I was tech geek at heart
The conversations, and my careful side comments often elicited funny remarks. One looked at me and said, “Wow, you’ve read more NTSB reports than most people in the room.” I totally geeked out with a lab guy, dragging up my geophysics degree (about the first time I’ve directly used it since college) as we discussed high-pressure acrylic flexion and the glassing effects of engines ingesting volcanic particulates from ash clouds.
Because I go to so much trouble to research everything, I was often the voice of cross-knowledge. That was perhaps the strangest of all. Talking to Delta (they have a whole culture I could ask and learn about, but if it was smaller than a passenger jet, it was often a blank to them, and vice versa for the military guys). To the deep military guys, I could talk about most of the airframes flying, including the oddballs like the Swedish Gripen, the Chinese Chengdu, and the Antonov and Sukhoi fighters.Or the various rotorcraft from my Night Stalkers days.
A really fun (and only moderately exhausting 4 days). 340 people, 45 countries, and every word was about some aspect of air safety investigation.