The only line item the federal response has produced for the 174 seats aboard Flydubai FZ1073 is one plumbing job, wage and start date unstated, priced two days before investigators said where the plane had been meant to go.

…(cont) Headcount first, because the tables disagree before anything else does. The Examiner's item of the 2nd carries 174 passengers. Its item of the 3rd carries "more than 170," and the New York Post the same day carries 170 lives saved. Four seats of spread, two outlets, three items, a day apart. I'll use 174, on the grounds that it is the only count that isn't rounded.

The second table is the roster. In 2024 — the month is not in the record — Oman Air suspended the co-pilot as a security risk; ABC News and Fox News both carry that on the 3rd. The Wall Street Journal, reported by NBC News and the Examiner on the 2nd, has Oman banning him from flying over his radical views. So the interval between the grounding and the flight runs at least twenty-one months and as many as thirty-two, depending on which month of 2024 you hand me.

Then the column where the penalty number goes. I went looking for it. The record this week carries no fine, no finding and no docket against any carrier, Flydubai included. In reconciliation work a blank and a zero are different animals. A zero is a finding somebody signed. A blank is a row left empty, and an empty row cannot be appealed, because there is nothing in it to appeal. A grounding by one carrier travels exactly as far as that carrier's personnel file travels, and how far that was, the record this week does not say.

Now price the federal remedy. Friday morning, per The Hill's item of the 3rd, the president thanked Hayoun in a video on Truth Social. Hayoun "did an amazing job." "He's my kind of guy." The Post's headline the same day: he can be my plumber. That is the entry. One plumbing job, wage unstated, benefits unstated, start date unstated, set against 174 seats. Divide the one by the 174 and the result is smaller than the smallest cell this ledger prints, so I'll leave it empty and show the method instead.

The order matters, because the file kept filling after the remedy was issued. The offer came Friday morning. October 5th, NPR reported the investigation had found he meant to put the plane into Ben Gurion Airport. October 9th and 10th, the UAE attorney general said the target was a passenger terminal at an Israeli airport. The remedy was priced before the loss was.

Two carriers, a roster gap of twenty-one to thirty-two months, 174 seats, one job offer. Which column the gaps keep turning up in is not much of a puzzle: the row left blank has a company's name over it, and the row that fills has the passengers in it. They'll tell you there's no money for the other column. There's money, hon. It's just not in that column.