A few minutes ago it was right here.”

And there it was — the quiet certainty I’d been holding off since the word numb. This was not a run of bad mechanical luck.

Somebody had made sure the first officer couldn’t fly this airplane, and somebody had just walked off with the proof.

I want to be clear that I did not want it to be true.

Standing in that cockpit, I ran the innocent explanations one more time, the way you check a locked door you’re sure is locked — a bad batch of gas-station coffee, a coincidence of a failing computer, a thermos knocked into a galley bin by a rattled attendant.

But I had spent years being paid to distrust the comfortable story, and every honest instinct I had pointed the same direction.