Broken Wings (21 page)
“The landing gear must be stuck. I can’t get the lights to indicate that they’re all down.”
Without waiting for further explanation, Erin stopped her descent and began climbing again, waiting for her captain to instruct her further. She felt a fleeting moment of panic, but it was banished by years of training and preparation for an emergency of this kind.
“Uh, Tower, this is Southeast 81,” Jack radioed, in that professional, calm voice that made the problem seem routine. “We’re having trouble with our landing gear. Need a few more minutes.”
“Roger, Southeast 81,” the tower responded. “Climb to two thousand feet and go back to approach control.”
Erin followed the commands of the tower, and Jack radioed back, “Okay, going up to two thousand .. .”
When they’d reached the desired altitude, Erin held her breath and prayed they’d be able to correct the problem. Surely, it was a lightbulb out, she thought, knowing it was unlikely. She listened, holding her breath, as approach control set them in a 360-degree holding pattern while they worked on the problem.
“Erin, engage the autopilot,” Jack ordered.
Erin obeyed quickly, and they began trying to find the source of the problem. Scott went down to the forward electronics bay to see if he could visually determine if the gear was down and locked. He wasn’t able to tell.
Together, they tried all three methods of getting the landing gear down: the normal hydraulic extension, the emergency hydraulic extension, and the manual hand-crank system. All failed.
Jack leaned back in his seat, his eyes working over the instrument panel, not missing a thing. “Okay, folks,” he said in a voice so matter-of-fact that one who didn’t know better would think he was discussing a minor inconvenience rather than a potential disaster. “We’re going to have to make an emergency landing.”
Erin cleared her throat and tried to wrestle with fear. She was a professional. Pilots had landed without landing gear before. She had tackled this very problem in simulated flight when she was training…they would be fine. “I…I’ve never done this before in an actual flight,” she whispered.
“Well, neither have I,” Jack confessed, “but if we go by procedure, we’ll be okay.”
“You’ll fly?” Erin asked hopefully.
“No,” he said, and her worry increased. “I think it would be best if you flew to touchdown. That way I can keep one hand on the thrust reversers. When the throttles are idle, I’ll be able to grab the thrust reversers and pull them back.”
Erin eyed the three horizontal levers attached to the throttles and acknowledged that his plan was sound. Even if it meant that she was responsible for getting the plane to land on its metal belly rather than wheels that wouldn’t come down. But there was no time to argue.
“Meanwhile, I can keep my left hand here”—Jack gestured toward the tiller, a small steering wheel—“so I can control the plane as soon as it’s on the ground. Understood?”
Erin forced out a hoarse “Yes.”
Fear had to be shelved in some dark chamber in the back of her mind as preparations for touchdown became foremost. The flight attendants were notified to prepare the cabins for an emergency landing, and the tower was radioed. Ambulances, fire trucks, and maintenance crews were told to stand by. Detail after detail was taken care of efficiently and quickly.
Once preparations were under way, Erin never had a moment to let paranoia affect her performance. Despite what had happened to Mick, she was determined to do her part to get the plane down safely. There were too many lives at stake to lose her courage now. Mick hadn’t had an option; Erin did. She could either rely on her training and self-confidence, or she could let the plane tumble to a fiery stop, taking countless lives…
B
ack in Shreveport, Lois stayed in her chair as the meeting broke up. The members had voted overwhelmingly in favor of a strike. If nothing miraculous happened between now and midnight tonight, she couldn’t report to work tomorrow. As easy as it would be to cross the picket lines, she knew she couldn’t do it. She was union, just like the rest of them, and wouldn’t consider diluting the power of their statement. Not even if it meant her career.
She gathered her papers and stood up, facing Ray Carter. “Well, you win,” she said in a flat voice.
“I hope we all win,” he answered.
Realizing it was futile to continue the conversation, she started to leave the room when Frank Redlo came barreling in. “Thought you’d want to know, Lois. We just got word that Jack and Erin’s flight is having landing-gear problems. They’re gonna have to make an emergency landing.”
Lois stumbled back, her mouth slack. “Oh, not Erin.”
Ray Carter frowned and leaned back against the table, shaking his head balefully. “She’ll freak. That plane is doomed.”
Lois’s teeth clamped together, and her blue eyes flashed fiery diamonds when she swung to face him. “Erin Russell is as capable as you are of getting that plane down safely. Maybe more capable!”
“Wanna bet?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” she said, her face glowing. “I’ll bet my whole career on it. What have I got to lose? You just threw it away for me, anyway.”
With that, she stormed out of the room, determined to win that bet and make Ray Carter eat his words.
A
ddison sat in first class, staring in confusion out the window. Something was wrong. First he had felt the plane descending, making an approach, and suddenly they’d pulled up. They were farther now from the airport than they’d been before. He unbuckled his seat belt and stood up, intent on going to the cockpit to find out what was wrong.
Before he could reach the aisle, the senior flight attendant came out of the cockpit, her face a peculiar pallid shade.
“What’s up?” he asked.
She turned away from the other passengers and lowered her voice to a whisper. “There’s been a problem with the landing gear, Mr. Lowe. We’re going to have to make an emergency landing. Jack said to tell you that he might need your help organizing the evacuation when we land.”
Addison’s eyes flashed in the direction of the cockpit door, as if he could see through it to Erin. “I’ll do anything they need me to do,” he said. “But can I go in the cockpit for a minute?”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” the woman said. “The jump seat is vacant. Excuse me, I have to go prepare the other flight attendants…and the passengers.”
Addison hurried forward to the closed cockpit door, opened it, and stepped inside. The three pilots seemed too preoccupied with the emergency to notice him. “I heard about the landing gear,” he said quietly, so as not to disturb Erin’s concentration. “Anything I can do for now?”
Erin glanced back at him over her shoulder, but Jack answered. “Not right now, unless you know some way to repair the landing gear from here.”
Addison sat down in the jump seat, the empty seat usually occupied by off-duty pilots flying from hub to hub. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t have a clue.” He leaned forward, his worried eyes pinned on Erin.
“How’re you doing, babe?”
The easy endearment made her look back at him, and Jack glanced at them both, surprised. “I’m fine,” she said. “No problem. I’m going to fly to touchdown.”
His face must have revealed his discomfort, because she added, “Don’t worry. I can do it.”
“I know you can,” Addison said gently.
A radio transmission came from the tower, and Jack answered it. The flight engineer excused himself to go reassure the passengers. Addison stood up and moved closer to Erin. He set his hand on her shoulder and began a deep, eloquent massage that soothed more than her muscles and performed a healing ritual in her heart.
“You get us down safely,” he whispered. “I’ve waited too long for you to lose you like this.”
She turned around to meet his eyes, and he saw the questions there. Had she really believed he was going to walk away?
“Stay up here for a while if they don’t need you yet,” she whispered, searching his eyes for what she needed so badly to find.
“How are we on fuel?” Jack asked Erin, shattering the moment.
Erin broke her visual embrace with Addison and checked her instruments. “Low,” she said. “We can’t hold much longer. We need to get her down.”
Scott came back into the cockpit, his young face struggling to hide his worry. He’d probably only been with the company a few months, Addison surmised, probably counted most of his flights as uneventful. Addison hoped that tonight Scott would have a story to tell his friends. He hoped they all would. “The cabin’s almost ready. I told the flight attendants that we’d warn them over the PA just before touchdown. Some of the passengers are upset, but it’s relatively quiet back there.” He turned to Addison, his mouth twitching slightly. “Addison, could you cover one of the wing exits? You know what to do if we have to evacuate.”
Addison stood up, nodding his agreement while his mind considered the possible scenarios they faced. There could be a damaging impact, countless injuries, fatalities, a panic among the passengers that could cause more injuries. If there was fire, there would be little time to get everyone out before an explosion could occur. “Did they reseat the children and elderly near the exits?” he asked.
Scott took his seat, his eyes intent on the instruments that would guide them to safety. “Yeah. And we have two pregnant women and three lap babies. We tried to seat them where they could get out first. They’ll need help, though.”
Addison’s eyes gravitated back to Erin, his haunted gaze meeting hers as if for the last time. Why couldn’t he be in two places at once? his heart asked. Why couldn’t he stay here with her, the strength of his will making the plane land safely, while still doing what was needed of him in the cabin? “I’m going back there, babe,” he said. “You can do it.”
As if sensing his hesitation in leaving her, Erin tried to lighten things up. “If I don’t,” she teased, “are you going to write me up? It’s a little nerve-racking handling an emergency with an NTSB official aboard.”
“Ex-NTSB official,” Addison clarified, then left the cockpit before the import of his words could sink in.
E
rin stared at the door for a moment, puzzled. Surely, he hadn’t said what she thought he had. “What did he say?” she asked Scott.
“He said, ‘Ex-NTSB official.’ Must have quit or something.”
Despite the task that confronted her in the next few minutes, Erin couldn’t help the smile that lifted her heart, renewing her strength. Had he taken Sid’s ultimatum seriously and chosen her? Her battered spirits rose, and with renewed determination she turned to the job of getting the plane—and all those frightened people—on the ground. Too much was at stake to mess up now. She just might have a future, after all.
L
ois paced in the pilots’ lounge, torn between terror at Erin’s situation and the belief in what she had told Ray Carter about Erin’s abilities. Erin could do it. She could get that plane down without hurting anyone. All of the Southeast pilots had been trained for such emergencies. Until Mick’s crash, Erin had always been one of the coolest, clearest-headed pilots she’d known. And she was all right now. Lois would not allow her doubts to cloud the confident picture she tried to visualize.
Several other pilots sat around the lounge, discussing the plight of the union should the strike actually be called at midnight. While most of them had voted in favor of it, no one was thrilled about not having a paycheck for what could be weeks. Or—if Lois was right, and they all knew she could be—they might never get one again.
“If there was just some way we could make Zarkoff show his true colors to the press,” one of the pilots said. “Maybe then we could get a little public sympathy on our side instead of his.”
Lois crossed her arms and continued pacing, silently agreeing that a little help from the media wouldn’t hurt.
“Can you believe he made it sound like we’d all come to some nice understanding last night? When the jerk wouldn’t even
talk
to us?”
“What we need to do is tell
that
to the press,” someone said.
“We tried. But they’re only interested in how he’s whipping Southeast into shape. The only way to get attention our way is to have some ace…something that puts us on top for a while…”
Lois spun around as the seed of an idea sprouted. “That’s it,” she said. “That’s what we’ll do.”
The pilots focused on Lois, whose eyes were wide with eagerness.
“What’s
it?” someone asked.
“Just imagine. One of the things Zarkoff wants is to look good, and the way he does that is by making us look bad. But what if the press saw Southeast pilots act in an emergency situation and come out heroes?”
“You mean Erin’s flight?”
“Yes!” Lois stopped cold, her thoughts reeling. “I’ll call the Washington press and tell them all that a Southeast plane is about to make an emergency landing at Dulles Airport. Then when Erin and Jack get the plane safely on the ground, on live national television, no less, we’ll be on top. The press will be covering us, instead of him!” She picked up the phone book and began scanning columns as she spoke. “We’ll work them from this end, and I know Erin and Jack can handle things from that end. We’re all worried enough about our jobs to take a chance when we see one!”
There was excited chatter in the small lounge as Lois punched out the number of Washington information.
“There’s just one problem,” one of the pilots said. “What if it isn’t a heroic landing? What if they don’t make it?”
Feverish heat suffused Lois’s face at the suggestion, but she decided she wouldn’t think about that possibility just now. There was no room for doubt. Only faith in what her friend could do.
I
t’s raining,” Erin told Jack, her voice as calm as his, though inside, she trembled. “How bad is visibility?”
“Just above minimums,” Scott responded. “It won’t make things easier.”
“This isn’t supposed to be easy,” she said, feeling confident despite the obstacles she faced. “Jack, it looks like it’s the right wing that doesn’t have its gear down. I’m going to try to land on one main wheel, to minimize the danger of fire and damage to the plane, okay?”
“That’s just what I’d do,” Jack agreed. “Remember, there’s not enough fuel to make a missed approach if visibility gets worse. Just use your instruments.”
“I will,” she said.
Radio contact continued between the cockpit and approach control, while Erin concentrated on her task. Memories swept through her mind like images in a familiar nightmare, but this time it was no dream. Despite such thoughts, Erin reminded herself that God had not given her a spirit of fear—fear came from another source. God was with her, watching over her, following his plan. He would give her the power to save these lives, to save the plane…she could do it.
Adrenaline pumped up inside her when approach control cleared them to land and Jack began counting down her descent. When they passed the five-hundred-foot mark, she heard Scott sound the four chimes that warned of the landing. He made a quick announcement on the PA that it was time for the passengers to brace themselves.
Calmly, Jack continued calling out her altitude. “Four hundred, three hundred, two hundred, one hundred fifty…”
Erin put every ounce of concentration she possessed into lifting the right wing and lowering the nosewheel as they closed in on the ground. She felt a jar as the left gear touched down, and she set the right wing tip down as gently as she could.
From there, Jack took over, pulling back on the thrust reversers to slow the airplane down. They could hear the scraping of metal outside, feel the drag of the right wing. The plane shook with the flammable pull of friction, but the pilots didn’t waver from their plan. After a moment, they scraped to a stop.
Erin sat, paralyzed, for no more than a split second as reality sank in. They had landed without fire, without major damage to the plane, without injuries. Just a bumpy landing. Nothing more. Behind her, she heard the passengers erupt into cheers.
“You did it,” Jack said, his voice hoarse and breathless, his emotion evident for the first time since the flight began.
“We
did it,” she corrected. A sense of success, of accomplishment, flooded her, leaving her tingling.
“I’ll finish up here,” Jack told her, unable to help smiling. Perspiration trickled down his face, revealing the fact that he’d been just as tense as the others. “You evacuate the passengers out the aft air stair. We won’t be needing the slides this time.”
Erin wiped her own face and followed Scott into the cabin, where Addison, having already anticipated the type of evacuation that would be ordered, had opened the exit and begun letting the shaken passengers out down the ladder.
When he spotted Erin, love and pride filled his eyes. He left the door and whisked Erin up into his arms, crushing her against him. “I love you, Erin,” he whispered. “I knew you could do it, but man, was I praying.”
T
hey were scarcely inside the airport when the press descended upon Erin, shouting questions left and right about the landing. Holding fast to Addison, for physical and moral support, she answered each query, until she saw the small monitor set up at the side of the room. There she saw Zarkoff being interviewed at the same time in Shreveport. He smiled like a proud father. It was apparent that he’d watched the landing on the television the reporters had provided for him, and now he bragged of the abilities of “his pilots” to handle any situation.
Erin recognized a network reporter near her and seized the moment. “Did the Southeast pilots vote for the strike today?” she asked.
“Sure did,” the reporter answered. “How do you feel about that, Miss Russell? Does it lessen your satisfaction over this heroic landing?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “It scares me to death. Zarkoff will replace us with less-experienced pilots. He’s already warned us. I’d hate to see a plane full of trusting passengers encounter this kind of emergency again and have inexperienced pilots with little training try to land safely.”
A female reporter raised her voice above the others. “But Miss Russell, Mr. Zarkoff contends that he tried to negotiate, but that your demands were unrealistic.”
“Tried to negotiate?” she asked. “He absolutely refused to meet with a professional negotiator, and when he met with our bargaining committee, he refused to discuss a single issue they brought up. He told them that his first offer was his final one and that if they decided to strike it would actually save him money!”
The press shot out more questions at that revelation, and Erin answered them as honestly as she was able, knowing that this was one battle Zarkoff was going to lose.
I
n Shreveport, Lois stood in the background, looking anxiously at the monitor that showed Erin in Washington, standing up for the Southeast pilots like a pro. She turned to Zarkoff, whose face was as red as an overripe tomato, and listened to the questions the press threw at him.
“How do you respond to Miss Russell’s accusations?”
“I’d say that it’s all a misunderstanding,” he said. “I don’t want a strike. I value my employees here.”
“But wouldn’t it, indeed, save you money to bring in less-experienced pilots and pay them less?”
“Well…theoretically, but—”
“We’re talking realistically, Mr. Zarkoff,” a hard-nosed reporter pressed. “Did you negotiate with those pilots or not?”
“It was a misunderstanding,” he maintained, smiling smugly. “I think we can meet again, come to some understanding to end the strike. I’m willing to make a few concessions. My pilots are worth it.”
“What kind of concessions?”
All the reporters turned around when they realized that Lois was the one questioning Zarkoff now. She stood with hands on hips, her head tilted skeptically. “Concessions in pay? In work conditions? In sick leave? In hours?”
He rubbed his face and cleared his throat, as obviously uncomfortable as she’d ever seen him. She etched the picture on her mind for future reference. “All of them,” he assured her on national television. “Mark my word. We’ll work this thing out. I don’t want to lose even one of these capable pilots.”
Lois stepped back from the crowd and sank against the wall as the press closed in again. The plan had worked, she thought. And things were finally looking up.
A
t Dulles airport in Washington, Addison was finally recognized as the NTSB investigator who’d investigated Mick’s crash. The press pounced on the irony that he’d been on the plane during the emergency.
“How do you evaluate the handling of this emergency?” a reporter asked.
“It was handled expertly,” he said. “Even better than I could have hoped.”
“Do you think the crash a few weeks ago would have been avoided if more capable pilots had been flying?”
There was a hush and all eyes—including Erin’s—became fixed on Addison. “That flight was piloted by one of the most capable pilots in this industry,” Addison said. “Mick Hammon would have saved that plane if it had been humanly possible. It was a failure in the elevator system that caused the crash, and the initial speculation that it was the captain’s fault was absolutely in error. Mick Hammon acted appropriately and with dignity.”
Erin couldn’t help adding to that, her voice wobbling with conviction. “If not for Mick, I wouldn’t have landed that plane so accurately today,” she said. “He taught me everything I know about good piloting under pressure.”
A
t the youth center in Shreveport, Jason Hammon stood alone in the large gym, shooting the basketball with all his might, watching the ball fall freely through the hoop to come back to him. His hair was wet with perspiration, and his face was a hot shade of red.
“Hey, Jason,” Zeke called from the doorway, his voice echoing from the walls. “Erin’s on TV. Something about an emergency landing. Come on. Hurry!”
Erin? Emergency landing?
Jason’s heart jolted. He grabbed the ball and looked back at Zeke, saw the look of urgency on his face. Still holding the basketball, he shot out the gym doors, Zeke fast on his heels, and went to the room with the television. At least twenty kids were gathered around, listening as Erin and Addison praised Mick, suddenly making him into a hero.
“Who’s this Mick guy?” Zeke asked innocently.
Jason’s shoulders straightened, and he lifted his chin with the first pride he’d felt in weeks. “Mick Hammon was my dad,” he said.
“Get outta here,” Zeke said. “You expect me to believe—”
“Believe it,” someone in the crowd said.
Jason glanced through the throng of kids to find his ally, the person who could prove to Zeke that he was, indeed, Mick’s son. The crowd parted, and he saw T.J., the bully who’d picked a fight with him before, standing across from him.
Jason’s muscles tensed and his heart raced. Adrenaline pushed through him like a drug that made him capable of greater things than his size could have mastered.
“That was his dad, all right,” T.J. said, his cold eyes riveted into Jason’s. “He came to our school on career day.”
“Wow,” Zeke said, oblivious to the mounting tension in the room. “You must be proud of him. What Erin and Addison said was on national TV. You’re famous…”
Jason didn’t hear the words. His attention was completely on T.J., who was standing only a few feet away from him. His eyes narrowed.
T.J. hooked his thumbs into his front pockets and took a step toward him. Jason’s hands coiled into fists. T.J. took another step. Then another.
Just when Jason expected the first remark that would send him swinging, T.J. offered a tentative smile. “So, you gonna just stand there holding that ball, or are you gonna play? I got a buck says you can’t dunk as good as you can paint.”
Jason’s defenses lowered a degree, but he held T.J. in cold scrutiny a moment longer.
“Come on, man,” T.J. said. “Just one game.”
Quiet settled like a thick fog over the room. Jason wet his lips, took a step toward T.J., and tossed him the ball. “You’re on,” he said, as a smile tugged at his lips.
A
t home, Maureen sat on the couch, watching Erin and Addison on television, tears of relief tumbling freely down her face. It was over. No more nasty phone calls, no more cruel remarks for Jason at school, no more wondering why Mick hadn’t done things differently.
Now, Mick, too, was something of a hero, and his family could go on with their lives.