went personally to the radar room to inform Tevis of Flight Two's condition, its estimated arrival time, and the doubt about which runway---two five or three zero---was to be used for landing.
At the same time, ground control was notifying airport emergency services to stand by and, shortly after, to move with their vehicles onto the airfield.
A ground controller talked by radio telephone with Joe Patroni to check that Patroni had been advised of the urgent need for runway three zero. He had.
Contact was then established, on a reserve radio frequency, between the control tower and the flight deck of the Aereo-Mexican jet which blocked the runway. The setup was to ensure that when Patroni was at the aircraft's controls, there could be instant two-way communication, if needed.
In the radar room, when he had listened to the tower chief's news, Wayne Tevis's initial reaction was to glance at Keith. Unless duties were changed around, it would be Keith, in charge of east arrivals, who would accept Flight Two from Chicago Center, and monitor the flight in.
Tevis asked the tower chief quietly, "Should we take Keith off; put someone else on?"
The older man hesitated. He remembered the earlier emergency tonight involving the Air Force KC-135. He had removed Keith from duty then, on a pretext, and afterward wondered if he had been too hasty. When a man was teeter-tottering between self-assurance and the loss of it, it was easy to send the scales the wrong way without intending to. The tower chief had an uneasy feeling, too, of having blundered into something private between Keith and Mel Bakersfeld when the two of them were talking earlier in the corridor outside. He could have left them alone for a few minutes longer, but hadn't.
The tower watch chief was tired himself, not only from the trying shift tonight, but from others which preceded it. He remembered reading somewhere recently that new air traffic systems, being readied for the mid-1970s, would halve controllers' work loads, thereby reducing occupational fatigue and nervous breakdowns. The tower chief remained skeptical. He doubted if, in air traffic control, pressures would ever lighten; if they eased in one way, he thought, they would increase in another. It made him sympathize with those who, like Keith---still gaunt, pate, strained---had proved victims of the system.
Still in an undertone, Wayne Tevis repeated, "Do I take him off, or not?"
The tower chief shook his head. Low-voiced, he answered, "Let's not push it. Keep Keith on, but stay close."
It was then that Keith, observing the two with heads together, guessed that something critical was coming up. He was, after all, an old hand, familiar with signals of impending trouble.
Instinct told him, too, that the supervisors' conversation was in part, about himself. He could understand why. Keith had no doubt he would be relieved from duty in a few minutes from now, or shifted to a less vital radar position. He found himself not caring.
It was a surprise when Tevis---without shuffling duties---began warning all watch positions of the expected arrival of Trans America Two, in distress, and its priority handling.
Departure control was cautioned: Route all departures well clear of the flight's anticipated route in.
To Keith, Tevis expounded the runway problem---the uncertainty as to which runway was to be used, and the need to postpone a decision until the last possible moment.
"You work out your own plan, buddy boy," Tevis instructed in his nasal Texas drawl. "And after the handover, stay with it. We'll take everything else off your hands."
At first, Keith nodded agreement, no more perturbed than he had been before. Automatically, he began to calculate the flight pattern he would use. Such plans were always worked out mentally. There was never time to commit them to paper; besides, the need for improvisation usually turned up.
As soon as he received the flight from Chicago Center, Keith reasoned, he would head it generally toward runway three zero, but with sufficient leeway to swing the aircraft left---though without drastic turns at low altitude---if runway two five was forced on them as the final choice.
He calculated: He would have the aircraft under approach control for approximately ten minutes. Tevis had already advised him that not until the last five, probably, would they know for sure about the runway. It was slicing things fine, and there would be sweating in the radar room, as well as in the air. But it could be managed---just. Once more, in his mind, Keith went over the planned flight path and compass headings.