Justification For Killing (2 page)

Snapping back to his
senses, the co-pilot answered, “Yes! Yes! I’m here Captain. I’m
here!”

“
Help me Donald, we’re
going down, I can’t hold her any longer. Prepare to crash! Prepare
to crash!” As they dropped down through the storm, the unmerciful
blizzard was not abating. If anything, the snow intensified.
Captain Hunter was watching the altimeter - 19000 feet - 18000 -
17000 - 16000 - 15000 - 14000 - 13000...

“
Landing gear? Landing
gear Captain?” yelled the co-pilot. Without waiting for the Captain
to answer Mr. Walker flipped the landing gear switch. At the same
time, he was practically standing up pulling back on the yoke as
hard as he physically could pull. His efforts combined with the
same efforts exhibited by the Captain were beginning to take effect
- the descent was beginning to slow.

He now could see the
ground - everything was white - white in every direction, 1200 feet
- 1100 feet... Without realizing the wheels were already down and
locked the Captain answered, “Roger Mr. Walker let the landing gear
down. I can see ahead, it seems fairly flat.”

At 500 feet, the planes
landing lights were brightly illuminating the glistening white snow
to their front, but Captain Hunter barely could see ahead. It was a
blinding snowstorm. When he got an open glimpse the terrain seemed
flat, suddenly the plane’s wheels touched, and it began to slide
for what seemed like an eternity. The snow had cushioned the
landing. The wheels, packed with snow, were not turning they were
sliding. On and on they slid. Captain Hunter could see nothing out
the front windshield, but a thick blanket of snow. He kept thinking
any moment they would crash into some unseen obstacle which would
cause the 777 to erupt into a fiery fireball. The fate of the
airplane was out of the Captain’s hands, but he had never believed
in fate – he placed his believe in a Higher Power. All he could do
was hang onto the yoke and pray God was now hearing his desperate
plea. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the plane stopped
moving.

There were no fires. The
plane seemed to be intact.

Of all the foolish things
Walker said to Captain Hunter, “I couldn’t have done better
myself.”

All Captain Hunter could
say softly was, “Thank you... thank you!!” as he looked toward the
Heavens.

Both the engines
were still running - why?
How is this
possible,
Captain Hunter thought? Reaching
for the throttle controls, he cut the power to the two-turbofan
engines. Their tremendous roar began to decline to a decreasing
whine and then finally they were silent - no sound could be heard
notwithstanding the screams emanating from the passenger
compartment. The engines may have been quite, but the raging,
howling blizzard heard through the planes metal walls was not
silent. Before switching off the landing lights Captain Hunter,
looking out the front, could see nothing but swirling, blowing
snow. The snow wasn’t falling straight down it was being blown
horizontally.
Another time, another place
this scene might actually be beautiful,
he
thought,
but they were on the ground,
where?
Where he did not know. He only knew
they were alive. Donald, white as the snow, which enveloped them
muttered, “Well... well... any landing you can walk away from is a
good landing, right...? Right Captain?”

“
Get the passengers off
Donald! Get them off now!”

Donald grabbed the
cold steel handle to the door separating the cockpit from the
passenger compartment - he did not know what to expect. Opening the
door wider, he saw a mass of confusion in the dim glow. Once the
engines were shut off the interior lights were operating off
batteries. Panic and fear were running rampant among the
passengers. People were screaming, babies were crying, and
mumblings of prayers could be heard throughout the compartment.
After two complete, 360 degree rolls, the cabin was a mess of
objects - debris from the galley, personal belongings from the
overhead bins, items from under the seats, and from their recesses
over each passenger seat all the small, yellow, plastic nosepieces
had descended to provide oxygen. Now they were all dangling,
swinging and swaying. Suspended by their clear plastic tubing,
giving an eerie appearance to the whole interior. In the
semi-darkness, Mr. Walker shuddered, for a moment he thought they
resembled hundreds of spiders - big, yellow spiders suspended from
their webs on thin ropes of clear, plastic tubing. Taking a further
look at the oxygen mask Donald thought to himself,
‘
a shot of oxygen might do ME some good
about now too.’

As the co-pilot continued
his slow walk down the aisle, he continually tried to calm the
passengers, “Everything is okay, we are okay, please everyone
settle down. Get back into your seats and bundle up.” His actions
exhibited a calming effect on the passengers who now were beginning
to quieten down and respond to his commands.

The flight attendants were
beginning to move to the emergency hatches. Those hatches were
equipped with the large inflatable escape slides. They were getting
ready to open the doors in an effort to get the passengers out.
This was by the manual – Standard Emergency Procedures.

Seeing this, Walker
screamed, “Hold on! Hold on!” Catching the first flight attendants
by the arm he explained, “There are no fires, the engines are not
running, we have not broken apart.” Turning to return to the
cockpit he looked over his shoulder and remarked, “Let’s give this
some thought before opening those exterior hatches. It has to be
minus forty or fifty below out there. I need to speak to the
Captain about this.” Loudly he yelled as he opened the door to the
cockpit, “Until I get back, please, please DON’T open those
hatches!”

Returning to the captain’s
side Walker helped the Captain shut down the final components of
the aircraft before he could speak. The Captain turned to his
co-pilot, “Is everyone getting off okay?”

“
That’s what I came to
talk to you about Captain - the plane is okay - there are no fires,
and I do not believe we are in any immediate danger.” He proceeded
to explain how he thought they should stay on the airplane and not
deplane the passengers. He emphasized that it had to be close to
minus fifty degrees outside. And even if they got out they had no
idea were they were or in which direction to travel. He thought
most of the people would freeze to death before being rescued. His
suggestion was to just stay put. “What do you think?”

The Captain shut his eyes
contemplating Mr. Walker’s report and their current situation,
after a couple of seconds he spoke, “Good advice Don... leave them
on the plane. That is the better of the two evils. We can’t survive
out there, you’re right. Good... that’s good. Tell the flight
attendants to have everyone bundle up - put on as much clothing as
they can, and when the sun comes up maybe we’ll be able to assess
our situation better.”

A few of the passengers
had scrapes, cuts and bruises from the rollovers, but luckily a
couple of doctors were onboard as passengers, and they immediately
began first-aid treatment. Approaching one of the doctors Walker
asked if any of the passengers seemed critical. The doctor replied
that the worst cases were nothing more than a couple of cuts and
scrapes, which they handled with the aircraft’s first-aid kit, and
a couple with mild concussions. But, surprisingly, everyone was in
reasonable decent shape. No one had any broken bones. This was good
news. Turning from the doctor he informed the flight attendants of
the Captain’s decision to keep the passengers on board.

Standing at the
intercom station, Walker spoke,
“Attention
everyone! Attention! I am Co-pilot Donald Walker. Captain Haskell
Hunter is still in the cockpit assessing our
situation.”

At the mention of Captain
Hunter and Donald Walker’s name the passengers all broke out with
enthusiastic applause in appreciation for their handling of the
plane. Especially since they were now on the ground,
alive.

“
Thank you, thank you very
much. I’m sure Captain Hunter would appreciate your show of
appreciation, but right now I need to fill you in on our situation.
To begin with we almost had a catastrophic encounter with another
passenger airliner. To avoid a head-on collision Captain Hunter had
to take emergency evasive maneuvers, which I’m sorry to say you had
to suffer through; however, we are on the ground... the bad news is
we do not know exactly where we are, but the good news is we ARE on
the ground, and still in one piece.”

Another round of
spontaneous applause broke out.

Trying to raise the
passengers spirits he offered a bit of humor,
“Well, we may not know precisely where we are, but I assure
all of you we are not lost... we know we are somewhere in
Russia.”
That brought a slight under the
breath chuckling and more applause by the
passengers.

“
Seriously though, we should be able to better evaluate our
situation when morning comes. Until then, Captain Hunter wants you
all to bundle up the best you can. It’s going to get cold in here,
and without the engines, we have no way to provide heat. Try to eat
and drink as much of the food in, or lying around the galley. In a
couple of hours, it will be frozen solid and of no use. The Captain
and I will be in the cockpit, so if we can be of service, please
let us know. We have a couple of doctors on this flight. They have
been considerate to offer their services, and we appreciate their
help. If you need their assistance they said they would be more
than willing to attend to your medical needs. Until morning try to
stay warm and I will talk to you if we have any further
news.”
Replacing the microphone on its
cradle he turned and re-joined Captain Hunter in the
cockpit.

Needless to say,
they were in a quandary. Captain Hunter turned on the auxiliary
power, which only supplied battery power to the ‘glass cockpit’
when the engines were not operating, and checked all the
instruments on the front panel. He then checked the fuel gauge and
saw they still had about half of their initial fuel load. He
reasoned,
could they restart the engines
if the cold became unbearable
. He also
thought,
what if we are here for days,
maybe weeks. What will we do for food?
Speaking to Walker, who had returned to the cockpit, the
captain ordered, “Donald return to the galley section and find the
emergency kit. We will need to go outside and set off one of the
flares if we hear the approach of an airplane. We may not be able
to get our bird back into the sky, but possibly another aircraft
such as a helicopter could rescue us. Meanwhile, I’ll try to get an
SOS out. I know the radio is not working, but I’ll see if I can
find out what’s wrong with it; regardless, we can’t give
up.”

MORNING...
FINALLY!

Captain Hunter had finally
drifted off for a few hours of much needed sleep - the interior of
the aircraft was extremely cold, but fortunately the airline had
provided plenty of pillows and blankets for all the passengers, so
there were more than enough to keep everyone bundled up during the
long, cold night.

The following day came and
went without incident, everyone stayed wrapped up and made the most
of the available items they could salvage. Most had placed
containers of edible food and bottles of water inside their
garments. The heat from their bodies kept the items from freezing;
therefore, no one was being deprived of food or water – yet. Food
was not as plentiful, but the water was more than adequate to
supply their needs. The restroom facilities were another matter.
Sometimes necessity IS the mother of all inventions. One of the
passengers, an electrician, unhooked the heater in one restroom
from the planes’ normal power source and redirected it to the
emergency, battery-powered circuit. It did not perform at peak
efficiency but was warm enough to allow passengers to ‘attend to
business’. When not being used for ‘official business’ individuals
took turns inside the tiny room warming themselves. It might not
have been a dainty sight, but it allowed for a few minutes of
warmth – there were no complaints.

No news of rescue today!!
No sounds of a rescue plane had been heard either. The temperature
outside was still in the forty to fifty degrees below zero range,
so trying to walk to find civilization and help was out of the
question. The life of anyone leaving the confines of this downed
aircraft would be measured in minutes, surely not as long as an
hour. The extreme low temperature was just too brutal.

The morning of their third
day, a bright light suddenly awakened Captain Hunter! His first
thought was fire, but it was not fire but snow! Blowing, drifting
snow had totally covered the cockpit windows. The brightness was...
was... it was the sun’s rays penetrating the blanket of snow
lighting up the interior of the cockpit.

“
Donald! Donald! Wake up.
The sun is shining. And listen, the wind is beginning to diminish
its howling. Come on let’s get outside and see if we can determine
where we are?”

“
Huh? Huh, what’d you say?
What time is it?” Were the co-pilots muffled responses from
underneath the blanket and coat he had used to cover his head.
Removing his wraps he was amazed. “Is it Captain? It is! It’s
really sunlight! You’re right, we need to get out and see where we
are.”