Runway Zero-Eight (18 page)

“1,000 feet… speed 130… 800 feet, speed 120… 700 feet, speed 105. We’re going down too quickly!”

“Get back that height!” Treleaven shouted. “Get back! You’re losing height too fast.”

“I know, I know!” Spencer shouted back. He pushed the throttles forward. “Keep watching it!” he told the girl.

“650 feet, speed 100… 400 feet, speed 100….”

Eyes smarting with sweat in his almost feverish concentration, he juggled to correlate speed with an even path of descent, conscious with a deep, sickening terror of the relentless approach of the runway, nearer with every second. The aircraft swayed from side to side, engines alternately revving and falling.

Burdick yelled from the tower balcony, “Look at him! He’s got no control!”

Keeping his glasses leveled at the oncoming aircraft, Treleaven snapped into the microphone, “Open up! Open up! You’re losing height too fast! Watch the air speed, for God’s sake. Your nose is too high — open up quickly or she’ll stall! Open up, I tell you,
open up
!“

“He’s heard you,” said Grimsell. “He’s recovering.”

“Me too, I wish,” said Burdick.

The radar operator announced, “Still 100 feet below glide path. 50 feet below glide path.”

“Get up — up,” urged Treleaven. “If you haven’t rung the alarm bell yet, do it now. Seats upright, passengers’ heads down.”

As the shrill warning rang out in the aircraft, Baird roared at the top of his voice, “Everybody down! Hold as tight as you can!”

Crouched double in their seats, Joe and Hazel Greer, the sports fans, wrapped their arms round each other, quietly and composedly. Moving clumsily in his haste, Childer tried to gather his motionless wife to him, then hurriedly leaned himself across her as far as he could. From somewhere midship came the sob-racked sound of a prayer and, further back, an exclamation from one of the rye-drinking quartet of, “God help us — this is it!”

“Shut up!” rapped ’Otpot. “Save your breath!”

In the tower, Grimsell spoke into a telephone-type microphone. “All fire-fighting and salvage equipment stand fast until the aircraft has passed them. She may swing.” His voice echoed back metallically from the buildings.

“He’s back up to 200 feet,” reported radar. “Still below glide path. 150 feet. Still below glide path. He’s too low, Captain. 100 feet.”

Treleaven dragged off the headset. He jumped to his feet, holding the microphone in one hand and the binoculars in the other.

“Maintain that height,” he instructed, “until you get closer in to the runway. Be ready to ease off gently… Let down again… That looks about right…”

“Damn the rain,” cursed Spencer. “I can hardly see.” He could make out that they were over grass. Ahead he had a blurred impression of the beginning of the runway.

“Watch the air speed,” cautioned Treleaven. “Your nose is creeping up.” There was a momentary sound of other voices in the background. “Straighten up just before you touch down and be ready to meet the drift with right rudder…. All right.. Get ready to round out…”

The end of the gray runway, two hundred feet across, slid under them.

“Now!” Treleaven exclaimed. “You’re coming in too fast. Lift the nose up! Get it up! Back up the throttles — right back! Hold her off. Not too much — not too much! Be ready for that cross wind. Ease her down, now. Ease her down!”

Undercarriage within a few feet of the runway surface, Spencer moved the control column gently back and forth, trying to feel his way down on to the ground, his throat constricted with panic because he now realized how much higher was this cockpit than that of any other plane he had flown, making judgment almost impossible for him.

For what seemed an age, the wheels skimmed the runway, making no contact. Then with a jolt they touched down. There was a shriek of rubber and a puff of smoke. The shock bounced the aircraft right into the air again. Then the big tires were once more fighting to find a purchase on the concrete.

A third bump followed, then another and yet another. Cursing through his clenched teeth, Spencer hauled the control column back into his stomach, all the nightmare fears of the past few hours now a paralyzing reality. The gray stream below him jumped up, receded jumped up again. Then, miraculously, it remained still. They were down. He eased on the toe brakes, then held them hard, using all the strength in his legs. There was a high-pitched squeal but no sudden drop in speed. From the corner of his eye he could see that they were already more than two thirds down the length of the runway. He could never hold the aircraft in time.

“You’re landing too fast,” roared Treleaven. “Use the emergency brakes! Pull the red handle!”

Spencer tugged desperately on the handle. He hauled the control column back into his stomach, jammed his feet on the brakes. He felt the tearing strain in his arms as the aircraft tried to slew. The wheels locked, skidded, then ran free again.

“Cut the switches!” he shouted. With a sweep of her hand Janet snapped them off. The din of the engines died away, leaving in the cabin the hum of gyros and radio equipment, and outside the screaming of tires.

Spencer stared ahead in fascinated horror. With no sound of engines, the aircraft was still traveling fast, the ground leaping past them in a blur. He could see now a big checkerboard marking the turn at the far end of the runway. In the fraction of a second his eyes registered the picture of a fire truck, its driver falling to the ground in his scramble to get away.

Treleaven’s voice burst into his ears with the force of a blow.

“Ground-loop it to the left! Ground-loop it to the left! Hard left rudder!”

Making an instantaneous decision, Spencer put his left foot on the rudder pedal and threw all his weight behind it, pressing it forward savagely.

Veering suddenly from the runway, the aircraft began to swing in an arc. Flung over to the right side of his seat, Spencer struggled to keep the wings clear of the ground. There was a rending volume of noise, a dazzling flash, as the undercarriage ripped away and the aircraft smashed to the ground on its belly. The impact lifted Spencer clean from his seat. He felt a sharp pain as his safety belt bit deeply into his flesh.

“Get your head down!” he yelled. “We’re piling up!”

Gripping their seats against the maniacal violence of the bouncing and rocking, they tried to curl themselves up. Still under momentum, the aircraft continued to slither crabwise, ploughing the grass in vicious furrows. With a screech of metal it crossed another runway, uprooting the runway lights, showering fountains of earth up into the air.

Spencer prayed for the end.

Like a prisoner in some crazy, helpless juggernaut, blood appearing in the corner of his mouth from a chance blow as yet unfelt, he waited for the inevitable tip-over, the upending, splintering crash that would, for him, disintegrate into a thousand fiery pinpoints of light before they were swallowed into darkness.

Then, quite suddenly, they were moving no longer. Spencer seemed to feel the same crazy motions as if they were still careering across the field; but, his eyes told him they had stopped. For the space of seconds there was no sound at all. He braced himself against the awkward sideways tilt of the deck and looked over at Janet. Her head was buried in her hands. She was crying silently.

In the passenger compartment behind him there were murmurs and rustlings as of people who unbelievably awake to find themselves still alive. Someone laughed, shortly and hysterically, and this seemed to let loose half a dozen voices speaking at once.

He heard Baird call out, “Is anyone hurt?”

The noises melted into confusion. Spencer closed his eyes. He felt himself shaking.

“Better open up the emergency doors,” came the adenoidal tones of ’Otpot, “and then everyone stay where he is.”

From the door to the flight deck, jammed open in the crash, he heard the doctor exclaim, “Wonderful job! Spencer! Are you both all right?”

“I ground-looped!” he muttered to himself in disgust. “We turned right around the way we came. What a performance — to ground-loop!”

“Rubbish — you did magnificently,” Baird retorted. “As far as I can tell, there are only bruises and a bit of shock back here. Let’s have a look at the captain and first officer — they must have been thrown about some.”

Spencer turned to him. It was painful to move his neck.

“Doctor” — his throat was hoarse — “are we in time?”

“Yes, just about, I’d say. It’s up to the hospital now, anyway. You’ve done your part.”

He tried to raise himself in his seat. At that moment he became aware of the sound of crackling. He felt an upsurge of alarm. Then he realized that the noise was issuing from his head set which had slipped to the deck. He reached down and picked it up, holding one phone to his ear.

“George Spencer!” Treleaven was calling. “George Spencer! Are you there?”

Outside there was now a rising crescendo of sirens from crash tenders and fire trucks and ambulances. Spencer heard voices in the passenger compartment behind him.

“Yes,” he said, “I’m here.”

Treleaven was jubilant, caught in the general reaction. Behind his voice there were sounds of excited conversation and laughter.

“George. That was probably the lousiest landing in the history of this airport. So don’t ever ask us for a job as a pilot. But there are some of us here who’d like to shake your hand, and later we’ll buy you a drink. Now hold everything, George. We’re coming over.”

Janet had raised her head and was smiling tremulously.

“You should see your face,” she said. “It’s black.”

He couldn’t think of a thing to say. No witticism; no adequate word of thanks. He knew only that he was intolerably tired and sick to the stomach. He reached over for her hand and grinned back.