The next morning, once the structure was judged safe enough, Nora entered the aircraft with Erik. The air inside was metallic and stale, full of frost dust and the old smell of cargo. Wooden crates stamped with machine parts, valves, and agricultural supplies lined the hold in neat rows, still fixed under frozen straps. What unsettled Nora was not the damage. It was the order. Someone had searched, sorted, and made decisions here after the landing.
Near the cockpit, a thermos stood on its side beside a seat rail. In the galley space behind it, an empty ration wrapper sat tucked below a loose panel. On the floor lay a route map with a pencil mark far off the official path, pointing toward an old weather hut on a survey grid eight kilometers away. That, at least, made sense. If the crew had gotten out, they would have needed shelter.
Then Nora noticed something else. Near the rear of the hold, one metal floor panel looked different from the others. The screws were old, but less corroded, as if they had been removed and put back shortly before the plane vanished into the ice. Erik crouched beside it and ran a gloved finger along the edge. “This was opened,” he said quietly. He did not force it yet. First, he wanted the weather hut checked. Nora looked once more at the marked map. Someone on that plane had known the hut existed. Someone had planned to reach it.