Death On Autopilot

By Jodie Morse

Last Monday morning, pro golfer Payne Stewart awoke with the world on a string. He was to fly from his home in Orlando, Fla., eager to scout a site in Dallas that might be used for his fledgling golf-course-design business. Then on to Houston for the Tour Championship, a prestigious, season-crowning showdown among an elite field of the year's Top 30 money winners. Buoyed by a religious faith to which his young children had led him, Stewart, 42, was happier than friends had ever seen him. And thanks largely to a June victory at the U.S. Open, he was having the best year of his golfing career. Wouldn't it be great, he confided to a friend the evening before his trip, if he could cap it with another victory? Before leaving his house for the airport, he took a few moments for his daily Bible study, reading from John 3:8, in which Jesus reminds Nicodemus, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth."

Only a couple of hours later, on the way from Orlando to Dallas, Stewart's private jet went astray on a ghostly journey that ended some 850 miles to the northwest. The jet, carrying Stewart, his agents Robert Fraley and Van Arden, golf-course designer Bruce Borland and the jet's two pilots, plowed nose-first into a farm in rural Mina, S.D. The crash left their remains entombed in a 30-ft. by 40-ft. pit of muddy pasture. "It's like an archaeological dig," said Bob Benzon, the National Transportation Safety Board investigator leading the recovery. "We have to go down layer by layer." So far, the digging in the mud--and in the records of the jet and its flight--has only deepened the mystery of the tragedy.

Stewart's twin-engine Learjet 35 left Orlando International Airport promptly at 9:19 a.m. and 25 minutes later radioed that it had leveled off at 39,000 ft. Shortly afterward, though, air-traffic controllers noticed that the plane had climbed well above its assigned altitude. Controllers repeatedly tried to contact the pilots for an explanation but got no reply. At that point, the Federal Aviation Administration enlisted the help of the Air Force. Several F-16s were dispatched to check on the errant jet. It also missed the left turn it was scheduled to make toward Texas, and instead continued heading north. Though President Clinton was told about the situation and has the authority to order a "derelict airborne object" shot down if it threatens public safety, the attendant warplanes were unarmed.

At 11:09 a.m., with the plane soaring past 44,000 ft., Air Force Captain Chris Hamilton steered his F-16 within 50 ft. of the Lear, close enough to signal the pilots. Though the passenger jet's exterior appeared intact, its cockpit windows were obscured by what looked to be a "light coat of frost." Over the next two hours, four other F-16s shadowed the plane. By then, the roving aircraft had made the news. Stewart's Australian-born wife Tracey heard it on a TV news report and tried in vain to call her husband on his cell phone. At about 1:24 p.m., the plane fell to earth at 600 m.p.h. and disappeared from radar.

The official NTSB probe could take up to a year, but the unofficial-scenario spinning started almost immediately. Investigators concur that all passengers probably lost consciousness about the time of their last radio contact and that the plane logged 1,400 miles mostly on autopilot until its fuel tanks finally emptied. Initially, speculation centered on a so-called explosive decompression, or a sudden loss of cabin air pressure and oxygen supply, caused by a hole in the plane's skin or a malfunctioning valve. Above 40,000 ft., air as cold as -70[degrees]F would have instantly rushed in, frosting over the plane's windows. Pilots and passengers would probably have been alerted by alarms and flashing lights to reach for their oxygen masks, and would have had anywhere from five to 15 seconds to do so before losing consciousness.

Concerned about just such a scenario, the FAA in 1995 issued an airworthiness directive telling owners of the Learjet 35 to replace faulty outflow valves that could "fail in flight leading to depressurization." Maintenance records for the Lear on which Stewart was flying indicate that another valve, the left-hand modulator valve, was replaced just days before the crash.

The decompression theory raises questions of its own: Why didn't the pilots get to their oxygen masks in time? And why did the plane's skin appear unmarred to its F-16 escorts? "Oxygen deprivation hardly is the only way to crew incapacitation," cautions Benzon. "We're still in Stage 1, the fact-gathering stage." Late in the week investigators were looking at a pattern of three other Learjet crashes since 1980, in which all aboard mysteriously lost consciousness and control of the aircraft.

With Stewart's death, the golf world lost an original. Wearing his distinctive plus-fours, tam and silver-tipped alligator shoes, Stewart was one of the world's most recognizable golfers. He special-ordered the silk for his knickers from Italy and awoke early on the mornings of tournaments to press his colorful costume. But his game, and demeanor, didn't really catch up to his fame until recently. During his career, Stewart's play was often erratic, marred by several final-round chokes. He could be cocky and abrasive.

Lately, though, he had matured and mellowed, this year winning two tournaments for the first time since 1990. An unashamed patriot, Stewart was especially thrilled to help lead the U.S. Ryder Cup team to its recent comeback victory against Europe. He ranked third among the Tour golfers in money won this year and third in money won over a career.

A diagnosis of attention-deficit disorder and sessions with a sports psychologist had helped his focus; he credited family and God for the rest. His children, Chelsea, 13, and Aaron, 10, attend a Baptist school and brought religion home to Stewart. He began studying the Bible daily, even on Tour. "God gave him the rhythm and the tempo" to play tournament golf, says his longtime friend and sports psychologist Richard Coop. "But Payne had to work on the concentration." It all came together for the nail-biting 15-ft. putt that won him his second Open. "I'm so much more at peace with myself than I've ever been in my life," he said after that victory. "Where I was with my faith last year and where I am now are leaps and bounds apart."

Stewart's final tournament was a fizzler. He missed the cut by one stroke and spent his last Saturday on the sidelines of his son's football game. Stewart was ecstatic when Aaron caught a touchdown pass, which helped carry the team to a 14-8 victory. Aaron received the game ball. The night after Stewart's plane went down, Aaron was clutching it. "Mom, this is a very special ball because Dad saw me get it." Amid all the lingering questions of last week, the golfer's son had one of his own. He wanted to know if he could put the ball in a special place: his father's trophy case.

--Reported by Jerry Hannifin and Mark Thompson/Washington, Brad Liston/Orlando, Stacey Perman/Mina and Jane Wulf/New York

With reporting by Jerry Hannifin and Mark Thompson/Washington, Brad Liston/Orlando, Stacey Perman/Mina and Jane Wulf/New York