CSI: NY – Episode 5.03: “Turbulence” Recap

CSI: NY – Episode 5.03: Turbulence
Air Date: October 08, 2008

This is another detail-heavy episode. If you’re into the details, it certainly helps if you recorded the episode, just in case…

On a commercial airliner running into mild turbulence, Mac tries to calm the man sitting next to him. The young man, Ed Riley, is on his way to file for a patent, and shows Mac his invention: The Wig Lock, that holds his toupée down. Mac finds a flight attendant’s brisk movement to the back of the plane curious, and follows her to the galley.
(click on “Read More” for the rest of the recap)

In the galley area, Mac flashes his badge, and the flight attendants show him the passenger lying dead and bloody in one of the lavatories. The man, who has lost a lot of blood from his severed carotid artery, has an Air Marshall badge. His weapon is missing from its holster. None of the attendants saw anyone come or go from the back lavatories, or saw or heard anything that might have caused the man’s death.

Mac tells the crew to ask the captain to lock the cockpit and turn back to New York. He tells them to tell the passengers that there is a sick passenger. Mac takes photos with his phone. None of the passengers seems overly suspicious. Mac tells Ed what’s going on, and asks him to help him watch for anything suspicious.

Mac searches the body, using gloves from the plane’s first aid kit, but finds no identification on the man. A flight attendant tells Mac that Air Marshalls don’t usually have seat assignments, but believes that he was sitting in 6C, but definitely Row 6.

Mac tells her to have the captain contact the Air Marshall Service with the badge number. He checks out the sixth row, finds nothing unusual. Then he noticies that 11D is missing its passenger, James Turner. Another flight attendant says he seemed agitated, and recognizes him sitting in Row 12. Mac walks by Turner, and notices blood on his cuff.

The first attendant comes back and reports that the badge belongs to Roger Stockwell, a late forties marshall, scheduled to go to Los Angeles that day. The victim, though, is much younger looking. Mac wants to send his fingerprints back to the lab. The attendant and Ed bring him the airsick bags, lipstick, and captains satellite phone that he needs to take the prints, photograph and send them.

Stella receives a call from Mac. He gives her the details, and asks if she’s heard of any hijackings. She hasn’t. Mac tells Stella to have Lindsay check the prints, and to look up James Turner. He tells her to send everyone to JFK to meet them, when the plane lands.

The victim is Anton Greenway, a man convicted of drug dealing and smuggling, who escaped from a courtroom the day before. He once worked at JFK, for Atlantic Vista Airways. She says the real Air Marshall, Roger Stockwell, was staying at an airport hotel, but failed to check in for his assignment that morning.

Don and Danny find Stockwell shot dead in his hotel room. There’s no sign of forced entry, but Stockwell is very bruised up with defensive wounds. They find duct tape and a handgun…a Desert Eagle 50…in the room. Danny finds white fibers in the bullet wound.

By the bed there are more, and under the bed, Danny finds a plush panda with a bullet hole and powder burns. This explains why no one in the hotel heard a gunshot. They find variegated hairs on the panda, but they’re not human. They suppose that the panda was also a delivery ruse that got the intruder into the room.

The plane lands at JFK, where the team, and a slew of authorities are waiting. Mac tells the passengers that a murder happened on board, and to cooperate with the police. He picks Turner out, and has him escorted first.

Stella tells Mac that Homeland Security and the FAA believe this is an isolated incident. They’ll allow NYPD to investigate, but want to be kept in the loop. Stella says she was unable to get a warrant to search all the passengers’ belongings. She says that Homeland Security will talk to the passengers, while NYPD looks for evidence.

Hawkes goes to inspect the body, and Mac dispatches Adam to search for the murder weapon and the air marshall’s gun. Stella receives a call on James Turner. He paid cash for a one-way ticket, had no luggage, hadn’t booked a hotel, and doesn’t live in Washington.

Turner acts surprised that he’s a suspect. He tells Mac that he has a second family in Washington, and that his other wife doesn’t know. Mac challenges him about the blood on his shirt, and sends him off to be searched.

Placement of blood in the crime scene tells Hawkes and Stella that the victim had his back to the wall when he was cut forcefully, spinning him around quickly. Blood in the sink basin makes them think the killer tried to clean up there, and could have left a trail back to the cabin. The search for latent blood reveals little, but the trail ends in the other lavatory.

Adam found the marshall’s gun in the trash across from the lavatory. He didn’t find the murder weapon, though. Mac leaves him to search the waste tanks.

As Stella and Hawkes ponder out loud why someone would kill an air marshall, but not hijack the plane, Hawkes finds a life vest holding $250,000 Canadian cash, blood, and the air marshall’s missing ID. They believe the murderer took the gun and the ID to distract the investigators from the actual crime, a botched robbery on-board the plane.

Sid tells Lindsay that Stockwell died from the bullet shot from the Desert Eagle found at the crime scene. Anton Greenway’s fist matches the bruising on Stockwell’s jaw. Greenway’s injury is torn, indicating a rough edged instrument. Sid also found condom lubricant and spermicide on his hand. He either had sex right before boarding, or while in flight. He also has “IKELIMM” written in indelible ink on his hand.

Don tells Mac that the airline won’t let the crew give samples until they each talk to a lawyer. Mac has eliminated Ed, the captain, and the co-pilot from the possible suspects. None of them left their seats before the murder.

Don says Homeland Security is going to talk to all the female passengers again, but he doesn’t understand why the Mile High Club entry would warrant killing the man. Mac makes the required “invertebrate kills her mate” reference, but Don thinks it’s Turner. Mac, though, says the blood on his shirt turned out to be his own.

Stella tells Lindsay that prints on the duct tape belong to Greenway. She supposes that his plan was merely to restrain Stockwell and steal his credentials. He must have used the gun, only because Stockwell fought back.

Lindsay hasn’t found any matches for the letters in the language databases to indicate what it might mean. It’s not a word or a phone number. Closer inspection revealed, though, that the Is are actually 1s. Lindsay realizes that they’re probably encoded geo coordinates.

Without further explanation, they determine that determine that it points to an abandoned airfield in Montreal. So, Greenway was planning on hijacking the plane to flee to Canada, explaining the money. He needed the air marshall badge to get the gun past security, but needed to hijack the plane to avoid Canadian customs.

Hawkes has found that Greenway’s jacket was custom fit with hidden pockets that were perfect for holding the money. The murderer must have found the money or knew he had it, and hid it to avoid its being found when the plane was forced to land. The jacket also shows traces of cocaine, and non-human hairs matching those on the panda in the hotel room…leopard hairs.

Danny says the Desert Eagle is missing its serial numbers, and had no latent prints. The magazine, however, was forgotten in the cleaning. Prints on the magazine match Terrence Davis, a downtown club manager (played by Hip-hop artist, Nelly). He was in the “import/export” business, before the DEA made him quit. Prior to his arrest, he worked for Atlantic Vista Airlines, at the same time as Greenway. But he wasn’t on the plane.

Danny and Don head to Davis’ club. Davis has a leopard. They ask him about his “partner”, Greenway. Davis claims he hasn’t worked with Greenway for a long time. Davis says that Greenway came by the day before, wanting some letters he was holding for Greenway, while he was in prison. He also asked for the jacket. Davis opens his desk to give them the gun, but is surprised to find it missing. They arrest Davis for owning the gun.

Lindsay tries to find matches for distinctive marks on Greenway’s jaw so they can determine the murder weapon. They try every possible weapon found on the aircraft. Adam bursts in with a condom wrapper. The condom had no useful DNA, but the wrapper has lipstick on it. He had narrowed down the shade and the manufacturer.

Terrence Davis won’t talk to Don. Flack tells him that he can keep the charges local, and make a deal, if he has any information. (This is the set-up for the recurring role Nelly will play this season.)

As the passengers are being released, Mac takes to searching for any more clues on the aircraft. Stella calls. The lipstick didn’t match that of Nina, the flight attendant who lent her lipstick to Mac. Mac, though, tells her that they’ve already released all the suspects.

Hawkes found brass and nickel plating in the marks in the victim’s jaw. It doesn’t, however, match anything confiscated from the plane. Mac realizes, though, that flight attendants’ wings might match. When Hawkes forwards him the jaw images, Mac finds that the points on the wing do match the marks. He also notes that photos of the crew show that Susan is the only one not wearing her wings.

Susan has already hopped on a flight to Paris that leaves in three minutes. Don and Mac hurry to the gate, and onto the aircraft. Her wings revealed blood matching Anton Greenway. Mac tells her that they found out that she worked at Atlantic Vista, at the same time as Greenway. He also reveals bank photos of Susan converting the same amount of money found on the plane. She admits that she loved Anton. She said he was only supposed to restrain the marshall, not kill him. He held a gun to her, when she refused to help him hijack the plane.

Mac: At that point you had two choices: come forward, having prevented a hijacking, or go for the cash. You made the wrong choice, Susan. And now, you’re grounded.