As the Pentagon reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Mark Thompson always kept an eye out for military stories with a Texas angle. In 1983, when he came across a small article in a helicopter-news magazine about a chopper that had crashed, Thompson was intrigued. The manufacturer, Bell Helicopter Textron Inc., is Fort Worth's second largest employer, with some 6,000 workers. Thompson clipped the story but forgot about it until a few months later, when he read that another Bell helicopter had met the same fate. Both accidents were caused by "mast bumping," which means that the helicopter's blades tilt so...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
