“Well, Alex, thanks for asking. Yes, the 226 is using the Petter-Browning locking system. Of course, it does, silly. This eliminates the barrel bushing and uses a full-length guide rod.” He held up the pistol grip. “Oh, what’s that, Alex? You wanted to know how to use this part. Sure, you do. Better than the Glock. You could use it as a single- or double-action pistol,” he explained. In the middle of his talk, he jumped back into the gameshow without skipping a beat. “What is Spain? I’ll take International Currency for five hundred, Alex.”
He took a rag and buffed the barrel. “You know, Alex,” he said, grinning, “the Beretta has a safety. No manual safety on this here. And the magazine holds 15 rounds in a good-looking, fancy, double-stack configuration. I knew you’d like it.”
He put the weapon back together at a familiar pace while reciting each word of the pillow commercial on television. Richard was pleased with his performance and looked at Muffin on his couch.
“Come on, Muffin. Don’t toy with me.” He picked up the handgun and turned to Muffin. Pointing and aiming the P226 gun at the cat, he pulled the trigger multiple times.
Click, click, click.
With no round in the weapon’s chamber, no bullet was fired, and Muffin was used to the daily clicks disturbing her and ignored Richard’s actions. Richard snickered, an almost wet laugh that sounded like he had a mouth full of saliva.
He spent the next hour scrubbing the web, looking up “Raymond Parker,” “Ray Parker,” and everything he could find about the Native Americans and organized crime in western New York. The hits on social media and the search engines turned up some public arrest records, but not many results for postings, photographs, or news articles. To Richard, Ray Parker maintained a pretty low social media profile, which he made a note of for the congressman.
From the top of the staircase, a long, faint creaky sound penetrated the basement. The 1800s wooden door sounded big and heavy, as his frail mother must have struggled with opening it. Elderly and small in size, her rare call out to him caused Richard’s temper to flare.
“Richie? Richie? Ben jij dat? Is that you down there?” yelled his mother. Widowed and aging, she had a bad habit of swapping words between her native Dutch and English.
Richard’s nostrils flared like a bull, and he snapped his head toward the staircase from where his mother was most likely hunched over and waiting for a response. With his eyes open much bigger than normal, he stood erect, ready to leap up the old-world staircase. In a sudden fit of rage, he yelled up to her, angry.
“Don’t you make me come up there again! Did you forget what happened last time?”
Chapter 13
Squadron Ready Room
“Get your ass in gear, kid. We don’t have all morning! This isn’t your father’s Cessna you’re planning to fly,” Shorty yelled down the hall at Charlie.
A few more days had gone by and Charlie moved on from the academic portion of this training syllabus to the flying portion. This morning’s flight was planned out, the spring weather clear, and Charlie felt good about the upcoming flight. Shorty was attempting to hurry things along in good humor.
Shorty had their flight plan in his hand and headed to one of the flight planning rooms for their flight brief and weather update. Charlie, acting as the co-pilot, reviewed their procedures, briefed the timeline, locations, refueling areas, aircraft weight, and rendezvous for offloading fuel. Charlie was pumped to fly once more, getting airborne for the first time at Niagara.
They went through the pre-flight procedures, started up the jet, and were ready to fly. Charlie could barely contain himself, as not only was he excited to be in the cockpit again, but would see Niagara Falls for the first time from the air.
“BISON 81, Niagara Tower, you’re cleared for take-off,” the tower controller transmitted over the frequency as Shorty and Charlie taxied for take-off.
“Charlie, just like flight training, our throttle count on take-off is a count of three. Three-second count, then slowly move the throttles forward until reaching their limits. Or temperatures, whichever is maxed out. Out from zero to full power. Let the four engines do some work on those big ole swept wings,” Shorty instructed.
Charlie had his right hand on the yoke, and his left hand on the four throttles. He took a deep breath, relaxed his hands, and kept a light grip on both controls as he slid his toes off the brakes and on to the rudder pedals. The jet zoomed down the runway and their bodies shook from side to side in unison due to the landing gear and runway vibrations.
“V1, rotate!” said Shorty.
Charlie heard the rotate call and pulled back on the yoke, the control input required for making the jet’s nose rise above the horizon. As soon as they were airborne, Shorty slapped the landing gear up. Charlie heard the tower switch them over to departure, and he made their turn up to the north and climbed.
“This is awesome. The best. Great to be back in the air,” Charlie said.
“I have the controls for a minute, Charlie. Take a look out my window. Niagara Falls and the mist you were looking for, down below,” Shorty told him. Charlie leaned forward to gawk at the 8th Wonder of the World, joining the Grand Canyon and the Great Barrier Reef, among other sights.
Some five minutes later, climbing up to their assigned altitude, Charlie put the auto-pilot on. Their first mission was to refuel a C-17 Globemaster over Vermont on Air Refueling Track-205, so they had some cruising to do. They worked their flight checklists and prepared the jet for her upcoming refueling mission.
“Nice job, Charlie. You were smooth on the controls. Gentle takeoff, eh? How’d it feel?”
“Throttles felt sticky at first, then smooth. The chimes through my headset were different, I guess because of the upgraded avionics here at Niagara. Flight school aircraft didn’t have that. Loved it,” Charlie reported.
No one said anything in the cockpit while air traffic control gave instructions to another aircraft. They waited while the instructions were repeated back.
“Okay, good. Good. Well look past me again, and you can see the Toronto skyline. Rochester on your right at two o’clock position. All the landmarks,” Shorty said, keeping the climb in high above Lake Ontario.
“Thanks, Shorty. Yeah, the western New York weather here makes-”
Suddenly, out of nowhere, the engine instruments all displayed the number four engine on the far-right side rolling back. The oil pressure began to drop as the temperature started to rapidly increase, and it was evident they were losing thrust. An engine failure by any account, a massive reduction in power. Then, just as sudden, engine number three on the right side showed the same indications. It was a total loss of power, and the nose of the jet yawed to the right. The drag was tremendous.
“Oh boy. What’s going on here? I have the controls,” Shorty said. He stared at the instruments, attempting to interpret what the indications meant. “We got an issue, crew. Everyone stand-by.”
The warning lights were all coming up now, indicating a total malfunction of two engines on the right side. Oil pressures continued to be low. Turbine speeds were low. Engine temperatures were hot and getting hotter. The needles were showing a catastrophic emergency developing, already reading in the red. Claxon alarms were heard in all their headsets.
Whoop. Whoop. Whoop. Whoop.
“You have the controls,” Charlie replied, giving the flight controls to the aircraft commander.
We got a real emergency brewing, Charlie thought.
“Hey, pilot, boom operator back here. You had two bangs back here and now got smoke and flames shooting out both engines on the right, engines three and four. We’re no crap on fire.”
The four-engine KC-135, similar to the Boeing 707, can hold 31,200 gallons of fuel in her lower deck. A fire was the last thing any aircrew wanted. A total tinderbox. All aircrews in situations like this wanted to do was to put the fire out and land
.
“Copy, boom. We’re shutting down those engines now.” His pulse was racing, wanting to do the proper procedures. History was riddled with aircrews shutting down the wrong engines, leaving them as a glider with no one to blame but themselves.
Charlie got his flight checklists out, ready to read the procedures to Shorty as a back-up.
“Hurry up, hurry up. These flames are freaking huge,” the boom replied, anxious. “I can feel the heat through the goddamn windows.”
Back at the Niagara Maintenance Squadron hangar, Richard shut the door to his office. He took out his cellphone, scanned up twice through the phone numbers with his thumb, and stopped to text when he found the congressman’s number.
Lansing: Sir, I generated a plan for you and it should be happening now. Keep your eye on the news. Hope it works.
Some dots on the screen, as Bruce read and was typing.
Anderson: Okay, Richard. What did you do? Be specific, so I know.
Lansing: Let’s talk about it when I see you later. I don’t want to text about it. Aircraft at Niagara.
Anderson: You better have made a good decision, Richard. I need you to consider all options. Grace and Holly already scheduled me for a base visit later today, so we may see you shortly. Shithead Ray will be following up soon.
Still in his office alone, Richard stared out the window. “Hope I made the right decision. Did I, Alex?”
Chapter 14
Over Lake Ontario, New York
“We have got to get this fire out. Now,” Shorty announced as they went through the engine fire procedures.
Charlie and Shorty were scrambling under severe time constraints to land immediately. They struggled to get the fire out and went through their emergency procedures by memory, as all military pilots did. They did all the immediate action steps to take without looking at a checklist because it would take too long. Now they were into reading the checklists as they cruised toward landing at Niagara.
“We are still trailing smoke, pilot!” the boom operator said. “Like a chimney back here.”
“Something is amiss in the right wing, Charlie. Don’t know, we can look at it when we land. Okay, let’s review our engine out landing procedures so we can be safe,” Shorty told them.
The aircraft was already turned around, much lower in altitude now, and lined up for an emergency return to Niagara.
“Crew, pilot here. Down on the deck in less than three minutes. Hold on,” Shorty said.
“Tower, BISON 81 emergency. Do us a favor and let base leadership know, so they notify public affairs and local hospitals.”
“Okay, thanks, BISON 81. We already got it. Just know you can have any runway. You have emergency priority. BISON 81, cleared to land,” the controller said.
Over the intercom, Shorty made one last announcement. “Welcome committee will be there when we land. Almost have it home, fellas. Hold it together. Almost to the base… we got this.”
Shorty landed her, long orange flames shooting out the back like the tip of a gas refinery. He was able to get the jet off the runway safely and onto the high-speed taxiway.
The declared emergency had already notified Crash, Fire, and Rescue, and they were waiting for the BISON 81 arrival. Charlie looked out his window to the right for the first time since landing, seeing the entire wing engulfed in flames and smoke. His eyes were huge.
“We are definitely on fire. Let’s go. Let’s go! Get out now!” Charlie yelled.
They scrambled out the left side of the jet and away from the billowing smoke. All four crew members were safe outside, helping each other escape from the jet.
The jet wasn’t as lucky.
The flames had already snuck into the wing, feeding off the wires, fuel, and spraying hydraulic fluid that acted as a fuel source. By the time the crew evacuated, the aircraft was engulfed in flames. Charlie and Shorty both helped the boom operators get further away from the burning aircraft, one arm over their shoulders as they coughed. The smoke in the back of the jet must have been unbearable, Charlie said to himself.
Charlie assisted one of the boom operators get into the ambulance, as Ford pulled up in the crew van.
“Are you guys alright? Booms ok? Tell me what happened,” Ford said, emotional about his brother being involved in a mishap.
Right away, Shorty spoke up. “Boss, everyone will be fine, I believe. We lost two engines on the same side with no warnings. Then the cockpit lights started. Got the whoop-whoop and everything else. High temperatures off the charts. No prior indications… zero. We landed as soon as we could, and that’s it.”
“Okay, okay, Shorty. Thanks. Just glad you guys are all ok, that’s all.”
“Charlie, you?” Ford asked after a pause.
“Yeah, Ford. Good. I’ll be fine,” Charlie replied with a bit of shock coming on.
In the two-hour fire, the plane burned up and was a complete loss. All that remained on the high-speed taxiway was the tail section, a portion of the cockpit, and engines one and two on the left side resting on the ground.
They sat in the pilot room and away from the wreckage so they could begin the first steps of the investigation. The first portion always involved taking care of the crew; ensuring their safety was a priority.
As the flight surgeon and safety officer were talking with Shorty and Charlie for health and flight performance details, the commander and public affairs officer walked in the door. Just behind them was Bruce, along with his staff member Grace, on their scheduled base visit. Grace and Charlie locked eyes, and she blushed.
“Gents, congressman was in the middle of one of his base visits and followed the mishap fire events today. He wanted to shake your hands. Meet some real Buffalo heroes for saving lives today,” the wing commander told the pilots.
Ford arrived a few seconds late, watching the extravagant performance of civil-military relations at work. Normal ops would involve him when a Congressional Delegation visited, but Charlie figured he must have been deep in the message traffic to Air Force Reserve Command in Georgia.
Bruce stepped forward. “Men, just wanted to shake your hands. Say thank you to you each for your heroics.” The clatter of cameras could be heard now by the base photographer. He extended his hand.
Oh brother, Charlie thought, catching a glimpse of Grace. Cue the American Hero music.
After some small talk, the base commander closed out the visit. “Congressman, thank you for the visit today. We’ll have an investigation to put together a chain of events, help solve what went on today. A Mishap Board will convene, and we’ll figure it out.”
“I’m sure you will, colonel. Thank you again,” Bruce told her, saying good-bye to the pilots.
As the congressman left the Pilot Room for the hallway, the operations duty officer jogged up to Ford. They whispered for a moment. “Are you kidding me? We have a second jet with an emergency?” Ford said in a loud, but hushed tone.
Charlie was the master of body language and saw that Ford was fuming. He had two emergencies on his hands. Charlie did not recall the base having any in its entire history, and now there were two back to back. And Bruce was touring the squadron on top of it.
A second aircraft, BISON 82, was suffering from an in-flight emergency inbound to Niagara from Elmira, New York. This aircrew, too, was having similar engine issues and questioning if they would make it back safely.
Since the base commander was present in the squadron, Ford went right over to tell her the news.
“Ma’am, do you have a moment?” Ford turned to the base commander, Colonel Sarah McNew. This was a bit odd, considering the congressman was present.
“Ma’am, as you’re well aware, we had an aircraft with an in-flight fire. That was BISON 81. We now have a second aircraft inbound right now, BISON 82, with similar problems that are affecting engines on both sides of the jet. Maybe fuel
problems with the base’s storage tanks, I don’t know. But getting back soon from the Corning-Elmira area. Last reported location was just east of the base, setting up for final approach.”
The colonel was intent on listening and looked up to see Ford’s eyes. “A second aircraft with a second in-flight emergency? That is remarkable.”
Charlie could hear the developments way across the room as he was talking with Grace and looked over at Ford as it was unfolding.
Bruce heard it too, and turned to Grace, nodding as if assigning her to do something.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Sarah. Two emergencies?” asked the congressman.
“Sir, we’ll gather all the data and get you a brief once we know more information,” the colonel replied, as more clicks of the camera went on.
Bruce turned to Grace. “I’d like to see some aviation safety data when we return to Washington. Spikes and trends in military aircraft mishaps. Anything we can do to support our western New York Community.”
Charlie was stunned. He had just survived his first real in-flight emergency, and now a second aircraft developed more engine issues. Charlie stopped paying attention to the congressman for a minute and started to review in his head of all the aircraft systems that could cause fires. Hydraulics. Fuel leaks. Broken lines. Mechanical or pilot errors?
The fire engines could be heard in the distance as they drove out from their flight-line-based firehouse. Charlie also saw at least 20 Reservists getting into vehicles and driving out to the tarmac to watch them land.
Way out at the approach end of the runway, Charlie could barely make out the speck of an aircraft. What did catch his eye, though, was the billowing smoke. And with time, it was tough to see if all their gear was down and locked. Did they forget to lower their gear in the emergency? It looked like BISON 82 hadn’t lowered their landing gear among the confusion.
“Landing gear! Tell them to lower the gear!” was overheard on the ramp. “Wait, their gear is down? That smoke is masking the gear!” was heard next. Smoke was trailing out of both wings now, with flames shooting out each wing like a dragon.
The Buffalo Pilot: A Ford Stevens Military-Aviation Thriller (Book 3) Page 11