Mystery of the Ghost Plane
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The mystery of the ghost plane has puzzled aviation experts for decades. Flight XYZ-645 took off from JFK Airport on a clear summer night, heading for its destination across the Atlantic. But it never arrived. Despite an extensive search and rescue operation, no trace of the plane or its passengers was ever found.
Some say it was a tragic accident, while others believe it was something more sinister. The ghost plane remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of aviation history, leaving many to wonder what truly happened on that fateful flight…
In a world where air travel is so commonplace, there are whole magazines dedicated to it – not just in the USA but all over the planet – you can understand why this particular case captured the popular imagination. It was a hot, sweltering August evening when the last passenger boarded the ghost plane at JFK Airport.
A young man with curly blond hair and bright blue eyes, he checked in his bag and headed up to board the plane before anyone else had even got out of their cars.
He looked around nervously as he approached the ticket counter. This wasn’t the first time he’d flown. In fact, he flew all over Europe, taking trains wherever he couldn’t fly. His parents were wealthy businesspeople who owned a huge factory in France.
They didn’t like him traveling too much though, and they certainly weren’t going to let their only son go flying all alone on a transatlantic flight by himself. So they paid for him to stay in New York City until the day before the plane left; then he would catch the early morning shuttle to LaGuardia Airport, spend the day shopping and sightseeing, and head home that afternoon.
This was going to be his last day of the holiday, he realized. He was supposed to head back to Paris tomorrow to work at the factory during the week, but his parents hadn’t sent any money to pay for train tickets to get me across the ocean, which meant I had to wait until after the bank opened Monday morning.
Then I could take care of everything, buy some extra tickets and be back in Paris next weekend instead of waiting two weeks.
But right now, he was sitting at the gate looking at his watch anxiously. It was almost 7:45 PM Eastern Standard Time, and the airport security people had already locked the gates behind them. There weren’t any planes coming into JFK anymore tonight because of Hurricane Carol.
Even if I got a flight out before it hit, the weather service said the airports might shut down, making it impossible to get home.
The airline’s ticket agent was busy helping someone else as Eric watched, his heart sinking with each passing minute. When she finally turned away from her computer screen and looked at the clock on the wall, he thought for sure she wouldn’t help him at all.
She was a short plump woman wearing glasses, and her black hair was pulled back tightly in a severe bun. Her voice sounded loud and authoritative, and Eric wondered how he’d ever talked her into letting me board. But somehow, he’d convinced her.
“Mr. Grosbard?” The agent nodded as she stood and came around from behind her desk. “Yes, this is your ticket.”
She handed him a boarding pass with the same number as the one he showed her. The numbers matched, and the date and time on both were correct.
“Thank you,” he said politely. “How long does it take to get there? Can I make my connecting flight if I leave now?”
Her tone didn’t change at all. “I’m sorry, Mr. Grosbard. We don’t have any flights leaving New York tonight. You’re stuck here until the storm passes over.”
“You’ll be okay here in the airport?” he asked worriedly.
“Sure. We’ve got food services and coffee shops inside, and lots of places to stay warm. And we’ve got the television tuned to the news. Everyone will know soon enough what’s happening with the hurricane.” She smiled. “We’re going to be fine.”
Eric thanked her again before moving closer to the gate. The last passenger was still standing outside, and there was no sign of the crew. “What happens if the airport closes?” I might have to spend another night sleeping in one of those awful airport terminals, he thought.
That was bad news, considering the way the heat in the city had been creeping up these days. He knew he’d sleep better in an airport lounge than on a bench somewhere, so I should probably try and find a place to stay overnight.
There didn’t seem to be much point in trying to find a hotel room when he’d be gone before sunrise, so he decided to ask a guard where I could rent a bed or get something to eat for less than five dollars. He walked through the crowd heading toward the main entrance as he tried to think about what he might do.
As he reached the end of the corridor, he saw a man leaning against the glass frontage of a souvenir shop, talking on his phone while holding up his index finger, signaling for silence. A little farther along, another man leaned against a pillar reading a newspaper. They both seemed completely oblivious to the passengers waiting in line to be processed by the security guards.
Eric went past them and stopped at the end of the queue, just behind the two men who were being checked for weapons and other suspicious items by a uniformed officer.
“Excuse me!” he called out to the guy at the front of the line. His voice echoed off the walls of the terminal building, and he waited patiently for the officer to look up. “Do you know where I can rent a bed or maybe stay for the night?”
When the officer finished checking the man on the right side of the queue and nodded in Eric’s direction, the first man put down his phone and stepped forward. “I don’t think there are any hotels in the area that would let you stay for free, Mr. Grosbard.
The economy has taken such a hit lately that they won’t give away rooms, even for one night. And I imagine that most hotels in Manhattan would be booked up anyway. If you want a safe place to hang out with no questions asked, we have a couple of benches over here where people go to wait out the storms.”
Eric thanked the man and moved down to join the queue as it slowly snaked its way forward. When he reached the front, he presented his boarding pass to the officer and asked if I could rent a bed in the airport’s lounge for the night. The officer pointed across the corridor to a door marked Dormitories.
He took the stairs, climbed two floors, and passed through several hallways before coming upon a large space that appeared to be filled with rows of cots lined together, covered with blue blankets. As Eric entered, he noticed there were two doors opposite the entrance, one labeled Women’s Lounge and the other Men’s, but they both had signs on them stating: Closed for Repairs Until Further Notice.
A young black woman with dark hair, wearing a pink sweater and jeans, came into the hallway as he stepped in, looking around nervously. She saw him and smiled.
“Is there a bathroom on this floor?” Eric asked.
The woman hesitated for a moment and then shook her head. “No, sir. It’s the only public restroom in this part of the building. But I heard the ladies’ one downstairs is open, though.”
With a shrug, Eric headed back toward the stairs as the woman moved deeper into the dormitory. “Sorry, ma’am,” I said as I left. “Can you tell me what happened? Are they renovating or something?”
She shook her head, not seeming too interested in explaining anything. “They shut ’em down because someone tried to break into the women’s restroom on the ground floor last week and cut his hand on a toilet seat.”
That made sense. Even the best-run airport would make a mistake like that. But why close down all the restrooms in the building? Maybe they’re working on something important and needed to clear everything out, he thought. Or maybe they don’t care much about how things look as long as nothing goes missing. There must be plenty of places where people are desperate enough to break in.
As Eric reached the bottom of the stairs, a middle-aged woman with blonde hair came hurrying through the corridor toward the restrooms, pushing past the young black woman without saying a word. I followed the woman downstairs and found her at the front desk, filling out some papers as she talked on the telephone.
She didn’t pay much attention to anyone else in the lobby except when she had a question about which room had been cleaned since yesterday. Then she’d look at whoever was closest and ask their name. After she hung up the phone, she turned to me again and gave me a smile. “I’m sorry, Mr. Grosbard. We have a problem with rats in the building.”
“What kind of rats?”
“Rats. Like the ones you see every once in a while on the subway platforms. I guess one of them got through our rat traps, because there were three dead ones floating in the water tank this morning.” She paused to look up at the ceiling. “And now there are more.”
“How did they get inside?”
“It doesn’t really matter how—they’re here. And they’re everywhere. Every time we find one, there’s another hiding in the ceiling somewhere.”
There weren’t any rats hanging from the rafters above the desk, but I could see how easily it might have happened. A gap in the insulation or even a loose board in a wall would do the job. The building wasn’t exactly spotless.
“Well, what do you suggest?” I asked as I looked around at the walls. Heated tiles ran along the floor, but not so much in the hallways and rooms as to heat up all those corners where mice and bugs might hide. The only light came from bare bulbs strung on cords, and most of those were out.
“You can sleep wherever you like,” she said. “But please keep the lights off. If you have your cell phone or an MP3 player on, they’ll get confused.”
Eric nodded. His cell phone was tucked under his shirt. He’d left his MP3 player plugged into one of the outlets by the door to his room. He’d probably already charged up the batteries on both devices before coming down this morning.
“Are there any restaurants around here?” he asked. “I don’t suppose it matters much for me if they’re open or not, right? But if I want to eat tomorrow…”
“I know just the place,” she said. “Downstairs in the food court, there’s a diner that opens at six and closes at midnight. There’s also a little convenience store a few blocks away—”
“We’re allowed to bring food in, aren’t we?”
“Yes, but we prefer you don’t.”
“Why not?”
The woman hesitated for a moment and then spoke slowly as if trying to make sure no one overhears what she says next. “We can’t guarantee your safety outside the building.”
“Really?”
She frowned at me. “Not really, but that’s how we feel.”
With a nod, Eric thanked the woman and headed upstairs to his room. As he walked out the door, Eric looked back over his shoulder and gave me a small wave. He’d figured out what I wanted to know about, and he seemed pretty confident there wouldn’t be any problems sleeping here.
He didn’t say much on the way back, either, just listened to his music and occasionally glanced at the passing traffic as he walked. When he entered his room, I took a minute to take in the space before speaking, just as he had earlier in the day. It smelled musty, and the windows were boarded up with plywood.
Someone had taped newspaper along the seams, which probably kept out most of the drafts, but it couldn’t stop the worst of the rain and snow. I didn’t think Eric cared very much about how warm the room was going to be, anyway.
Once he’d put the luggage on its side, Eric sat down on a stool and unzipped his jacket. He opened up the top part of his bag to show me the computer he’d bought online before taking off.
“How’s the keyboard?” he asked. “Is everything working okay?”
“Everything looks good,” I said. “The only thing is—”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it,” he interrupted. “There’s not enough memory. That’s why I ordered you another one. They should arrive in two days.”
“Good,” I said. “So…?”
“Now the question is whether you’re really going to give me the password or not,” he said.
“You’re not serious.”
“Don’t worry, I’m being serious. You can change everything as soon as you get home—but not until you tell me.”
That made sense to me, so I told him the truth. “Your mother has a copy of my phone book on her laptop—with my work number and address and all.”
He smiled. “Oh, yeah, that’s smart.”
“No kidding. What’s the point of having a private investigator without a private line?”
Eric laughed. “Well, you don’t need to worry about them. I’ll take care of that when I get home. I know what you mean though—I’d rather not leave any trail. But I’ll need to get in touch with you while you’re gone, won’t I?”
“If there’s trouble, absolutely.”
“Right.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and scribbled something on it. Then he tore off the bottom half of the sheet and handed it to me. “Can we meet tomorrow afternoon?”
“Yes, yes, I’ll call you after lunch.” I slipped the paper in my coat pocket as Eric closed the lid to his computer case and turned toward the window.
“Hey,” I said, “where are you going?”
“I thought we could go downstairs for dinner. We might run into someone we know. Or maybe we won’t.”
Eric reached into his jacket and pulled out a small notebook he’d taken from his bag. He flipped through it looking for something to jot down, then held it up between us. There were a lot of numbers written across the page in neat handwriting.
“You got my phone number,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, I did.” He held the note up again. “But you still haven’t given me yours.”
It made perfect sense to me, even if it meant revealing where I’d be staying for the night. Eric had been very careful about protecting his identity since we met, and now that we were alone together in a building full of people who knew nothing about him, he wanted to stay that way.
A quick check on my watch told me that I could easily wait until the evening for a meeting—and hopefully get some information about David’s murder out of Eric too. So I told him to have dinner with me and walked back downstairs.
Once we were back in the lobby, Eric looked around and saw a sign on a desk near the elevators. In bold black letters, the sign read: NO DOGS ALLOWED UNLESS STAYING IN ANOTHER ROOM AND PERMITTED BY MANAGEMENT.
The words were accompanied by a sketch of a man holding a dog’s leash and another one of a woman carrying her own dog. Eric grinned when he noticed the drawing.
“What’s this? Another rule that applies to rich white guys like me?”
The manager behind the counter looked up, surprised at Eric’s tone. She was an older Asian woman whose skin was pale, her eyes bright and alert beneath bushy eyebrows. Eric didn’t notice anything unusual about her because she was wearing a thick pair of gloves.
When she looked up again, her expression softened. “Sorry, sir,” she said. “We’re a pet-friendly hotel. I didn’t know you had a service dog.”
“… no.” Eric waved the notebook at the desk. “Nothing like that.”
The manager nodded once, then put away her phone and began taking fingerprints and asking a series of questions that included the names of my colleagues at work, their phone numbers, and my home address.
After the manager finished her list of inquiries, Eric asked her how long the security check would take, but she shook her head and said she hadn’t gotten clearance yet and couldn’t say. “It depends,” she admitted, “on what we find.”
I watched as Eric stood in front of the desk waiting to talk to the manager. The place wasn’t busy at all, as far as I could tell, so he was probably just delaying the inevitable. I wondered what kind of trouble he’d gotten himself into now, and how long the manager would keep him waiting before calling me. If anything happened…
I decided I’d better do some damage control before that ever happened. I went around the corner, found a pay phone in the hallway, and dialed the number I’d jotted down earlier. The call went directly to voice mail and I left a message. “Mr. Treadwell, it’s Angela Tredwell. It’s about your daughter. Please call me. And call me right away.”
The End