Headwind (2001)

by John J. Nance

  “Fly by the airport? Hell, Craig, he can vector us right to it!”

  Craig looked at Alastair with a rapid glance. “But we can’t see it! What if we’re displaced a quarter mile to one side of the runway when we break out? We’ll sit down on a building or worse with no chance of going around.”

  “We have no go-around potential if we fly by and turn, either!”

  “Alastair, we’ve flamed out both engines. We have no go-around capability period! But, if we keep the speed up, we’ll still have the hydraulics for the flight controls and landing gear and maybe flap extension, and we’ll have the ILS on my side to get down the centerline. All we need is enough altitude. Get your flashlight out, just in case.”

  “I have it.” Alastair scanned the situation again on his GPS and on the captain’s panel to his left. Fifty miles from Connemara, speed two hundred ten knots, altitude twenty-one thousand feet and descending steadily with the headwind gone and a tailwind beginning to improve their chances of reaching the airport with enough altitude left to maneuver for landing. As long as they kept the airspeed high enough, the wind flowing through the unpowered jet engines would keep them rotating fast enough to keep pumping hydraulic pressure into the aircraft systems. The battery would be good for thirty minutes, and they’d be on the ground long before that. As soon as they slowed under a hundred eighty knots, however, the hydraulic power would die and the only flight controls left would be the standby rudder system, manual pitch trim, and a hard-to-handle system called “manual reversion” for keeping the wings level.

  “Okay,” Alastair said. “The way I see it, we’ll pass south of the runway at . . . about three thousand feet. A tight left turn at, ah . . . fifteen-hundred, no, twelve-hundred-feet-per-minute descent rate should put us on final approach at six hundred feet above the ground with a little energy to spare.”

  “Tight, but okay. Alastair, tell the controller that, and also tell him we need to begin our turn not an inch farther than one mile east of the approach end of the runway, displaced exactly one and a half miles south.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Check me, Alastair, but I think that’ll give us wiggle room. I can always slip it to a landing as long as we have some hydraulics left, which means I’ve got to keep the speed up, which means I’ll have to dive it down final.”

  “How about the gear?”

  “We’ll put the gear down as I start the turn to final. Use it as a speed brake. Be ready to yank the manual releases if we don’t have enough hydraulic pressure. And . . . keep your left leg clear, but on short final, pull out the manual crank on the pitch trim wheel and stand by to help me flare.”

  “Roger.”

  “I’m gonna hold two hundred knots until we’re lined up fat on final, and I may try to extend some flaps at that point to slow us down. If we touch down at two hundred, we’ll never get her stopped.”

  “Got it. We’re thirty-nine miles out.”

  Alastair relayed the plan carefully to the controller, watching the unfolding flight path on the flight computer and the horizontal situation indicator in front of him to verify they were being aimed ever so slightly to the south of the airport.

  “They know we’re coming?” Alastair asked the controller.

  “Yes, sir. Crash equipment is standing by. You’re cleared to land. Verify you’ve got no engine power?”

  “We’re flamed out. No fuel.”

  “Roger.”

  “Twenty-eight miles to go, Craig,” Alastair said, yanking his flight manual out of his flight bag and wildly leafing through to check the speed figures for final approach at their weight.

  “Since we’re so light, she’s going to want to float when you flare, and we won’t have speed brakes, and of course, there are no reversers without . . . you know . . .”

  “Engines running,” Craig finished.

  “Yeah.”

  “Got it.”

  “Twenty miles,” Alastair said.

  “Okay . . . look . . . get me set up now for the ILS, double check I have the right frequency in the radio, and make sure we’ve got the right inbound course set in . . . that’s a heading of two seven zero.”

  “Already done.”

  “When . . . when we break out, we take whatever we’ve got. I’m going to have to plunk it down and get on the brakes to get stopped.”

  “Understood, Craig. You won’t have antiskid, you know, and if you blow the tires . . .”

  “I know . . . we’ll never stop. I’ll be careful.”

  “Twelve miles.”

  “Roger. Altitude?”

  “We’re good. Coming through six thousand feet. I wish we could see something besides gray out there.”

  “We will. Lock your shoulder harness.”

  “Okay.”

  “Get on the PA. Tell them in the back to get in a brace position.”

  “I can’t. No electrical.”

  “Roger,” Craig said.

  “I show your heading dead-on to pass one and a half miles south. Weather information remains the same. The tower reports the ceiling is a bit better than the hundred fifty feet, and all approach lights are on.”

  “Roger,” Craig said.

  “We’re four miles from the airport, Craig, heading zero nine zero degrees, one point five miles south.”

  “Okay. Call me perfectly abeam the end of the runway, then give me mileage increments east of that point.”

  “Will do.”

  “Altitude’s . . . three thousand five hundred,” Craig said to himself, pushing the jet’s nose down slightly to reach three thousand as they passed abeam the end of the runway.

  “Abeam, Craig. Speed two hundred twenty. Zero visibility.”

  “Roger.”

  The controller repeated the same information.

  “Stand by, now, sir,” Alastair said. “No more transmissions while we’re working this.” He glanced at the left seat. “Okay, Craig, we’re one half mile east, twenty-eight hundred feet above the ground, speed two hundred knots.”

  “Roger.”

  “Coming up on one mile east, speed two hundred, altitude twenty-six hundred.”

  “Keep calling it. Not turning yet.”

  “One point one miles, one point two, one point three . . .”

  “Okay!” Craig said. “Now. Landing gear down!” He rolled the 737 into a forty-five-degree left bank, beginning the turn back to the runway.

  “Gear down,” Alastair repeated, working the handle and checking the gear as it fell into place and rewarded him with three green lights.

  “Gear down and locked, Craig, coming through heading of north, forty-degree bank, speed two hundred, altitude two thousand one hundred, and we’re one point nine miles from the end of the runway. We’re high and fast. I see no lights out there, no glow through the fog, nothing.”

  “Okay. Have faith.”

  “Localizer alive, Craig. Coming fast.”

  “Steepening . . . the . . . bank!” Craig said, rolling the 737 into a nearly fifty degree left bank angle to catch the ILS inbound course. He rolled out of the turn precisely on course and perfectly aligned with the unseen runway ahead and reached for the speed brake handle, pulling it to the deployed position. The windmilling hydraulic pressure dutifully raised the speed brake panels on both wings, steepening the descent and slowing them.

  “Bang on course, one point two miles out, altitude one thousand six hundred. We’re a thousand higher than we should be.”

  “Flaps straight down to fifteen!”

  “Flaps? Craig, the speed brakes are out! No speed brakes with flaps, remember?”

  “Can’t help it. I’ve got to slow!”

  “Roger.” Alastair moved the flap handle quickly as Craig pushed forward to increase the descent rate with the flaps beginning to come out on the residual hydraulic pressure.

  “Point nine from the end, way above glide slope, speed one ninety, we’re one thousand two hundred.”

  “Dumping it! Flaps thirty
!”

  Alastair complied, his left hand moving the lever almost instantly.

  “Flaps are coming through fifteen on the way to thirty. Half mile, Craig, eight hundred feet, two thousand feet per minute down and one eighty on the speed.”

  “Call the glide slope when you see it! We’ll intercept it from above.”

  “Sink two thousand, quarter mile out, four hundred feet, speed one seventy-five.”

  “I’m gonna hold the sink rate until I see it!”

  “Sink two thousand, three hundred feet, speed one seventy-five. Remember the hydraulics may die! Don’t wait too long to pull!”

  A galaxy of fuzzy lights swam into view just ahead, coming up at them fast as Craig began hauling back on the yoke.

  “Sink twelve hundred, two hundred feet, speed one sixty. PULL, CRAIG!”

  Craig yanked the yoke almost back in his lap, feeling the nose coming up but with greater sluggishness each passing second as the airspeed slowed the turning of the engines and the hydraulic pressure bled away.

  “One hundred feet! Sinking too fast!” Alastair said, the runway under them now but the sink rate still excessive.

  Craig had unfolded the manual handle on the pitch trim on his side, as had Alastair, and suddenly they were both rotating the wheel backwards at a blinding rate to the nose-up position. They felt the nose respond at the last second as the 737 settled into ground effect, killing off the remainder of the sink rate as the tires kissed perfectly onto the surface with a moderate plunk.

  “Reverse it! Rotate nose down!” Craig barked as Alastair complied, both of them cranking the pitch trim in the opposite direction, lowering the nosewheel to the runway.

  “Brakes, Craig!” Alastair called as Craig’s right hand left the manual trim and yanked the speed brake handle back, momentarily startled to find it already deployed. He’d forgotten.

  There was only emergency brake pressure now to stop them. The normal antiskid protection had died with the electrical system, leaving only the glow of the battery-powered flight instruments on Craig’s side as the runway lights flashed by. “Airspeed one hundred twenty, Craig!”

  If he pressed the brake pedals too hard, he’d blow the tires and doom them to run off the far end of the runway.

  There were red lights visible now through the mist marking the end of the runway several thousand feet ahead. They were coming fast. Craig metered the braking, feeling the disks grab, slowing them as he used the same rudder pedals to steer between the gradually slowing blur of runway lights.

  “Ninety knots!” Alastair called out. “Eighty . . . seventy . . .”

  The end-of-the-runway red lights loomed closer.

  The brakes felt mushy, as if they were fading, and possibly overheating.

  “Fifty knots, forty!” Alastair called as Craig pressed harder on the brakes, gambling against a blown tire.

  The red lights were just ahead as Alastair called them through 20 knots. Craig jammed on the remaining brakes, feeling the 737 shudder and skid to a halt just as the red lights slowed and disappeared beneath the nose.

  For perhaps thirty seconds the two pilots sat in shocked silence, barely daring to believe they were alive and intact.

  Alastair reached for the transmit button, relying on the battery power for the remaining radio.

  “Galway Approach, Ten-Twenty is down safely at . . . wherever this is. Thank you, sir.”

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” the controller said, emotion overwhelming the cool professionalism that had marked his previous transmissions. “Now I can restart me heart. Well done, lads!”

  The Four Courts, Dublin, Ireland

  Mr. Justice O’Connell had reclaimed his seat on the bench and taken the time to make several notes as he composed his response, then looked up.

  “Very well. I find the videotape evidence as submitted here today to be inadmissible in the extreme due to the inability of Mr. Campbell to override the evidence that it was faked. We are essentially back precisely where we were two hours ago when this hearing began. And so, Mr. Campbell, I turn to you with one question, sir. Have you any evidence to present to this court to support the Peruvian Interpol warrant, or the application for extradition, other than the fact that it was issued by a Peruvian court of competent jurisdiction?”

  Stuart Campbell got to his feet slowly and cleared his throat, his eyes on the papers before him until he looked up at the judge.

  “My Lord, without the efficacy of that videotape, I possess no such supporting evidence. And, I should like to state that I anticipate I will need to take instructions from my client, and that possibly, in due course, an application may need to be made on behalf of my instructing solicitor to come off the record.”

  Jay leaned forward to whisper in Michael’s ear. “What the heck does that mean?”

  Michael scratched the answer on his legal pad. “It means he’s about to dump Peru as a client and get out of this.”

  “I will not ask your grounds, Mr. Campbell,” O’Connell answered. “I believe they’re all too obvious. So noted. And, for want of sufficient supporting evidence to sustain this request against the challenge of the defendant, the warrant is quashed in the Republic of Ireland, and the motion to extradite is denied.”

  This time the gavel came down with finality.

  EPILOGUE

  Dublin International Airport, Ireland—Thursday—3:20 P.M.

  Jay slid the door of the Parc Aviation van open and stepped onto the ramp, preferring to wait by himself for the EuroAir 737, just now touching down.

  He glanced at his watch, which was showing 3:20 P.M., and wondered how pilots achieved the level of composure necessary to survive a near-death experience, then fly the airplane back to Dublin as if nothing extraordinary had happened.

  “They’ll probably strike a hero’s medal for us, and pin it on just before we’re executed,” Alastair had quipped by phone when Jay had reached them after the verdict.

  A blue and white Boeing 757 from Andrews Air Force Base in Washington sat on another hard stand several hundred yards to the south. Jay glanced over his shoulder to make sure the Secretary of State and his people were still inside a waiting limousine several hundred yards away.

  The 737 was coming up the taxiway toward the pre-appointed parking stand as a marshaller wearing an orange safety vest held up his arms to guide them in. Jay watched with his mind on Sherry. Her voice had been composed on the phone from Connemara, but he’d heard the residual tension as she talked and asked her about it.

  “I’m okay. I mean, we knew there was something wrong when the crew told us to put on our life jackets, but it was all right.”

  It was telling, Jay thought, that she responded to his news of the extraordinary events in court with a single “Good!” before returning to the subject of the pilots’ incredible performance.

  “They were magnificent,” she had said.

  “But they miscalculated their fuel, Sherry,” Jay had countered.

  “True, but they pulled it out. That’s the important thing. They got us here safely, even if my hair is now completely silver!”

  Only John Harris had seemed unaffected by the aeronautical drama, focusing instead on what had transpired in Mr. Justice O’Connell’s court.

  “A movie set of the Oval Office! I never thought of that, Jay,” he’d said. “I knew my words on that tape were false, but . . . even I would have sworn that was me on the screen in the Oval.”

  Jay pulled his attention back to the oncoming 737. The EuroAir jet was turning onto the hard stand, the noise forcing his fingers in his ears. As soon as the pilots brought the craft to a halt and cut the engines, the internal airstairs began to descend.

  Jay walked toward the front entrance, waving to the attractive flight attendant who was standing in the doorway. She motioned to him to come aboard and he bounded up the steps.

  Sherry was waiting at the top with a bear hug, and John Harris was right behind, his handshake progressing to a hug and a hand on
Jay’s shoulder.

  “Well done, Jay! Very well done!”

  “Thank you, John, but . . .”

  “No ‘buts.’ You did it!”

  The pilots emerged from the cockpit, their faces reflecting the strain of the past few hours, as Matt Ward slipped into the doorway to scrutinize the ramp beyond, noting the approach of a limousine.

  “Joe Byer is here to greet you, too,” Jay said, as he ran a hand through his hair to control an unruly forelock. “He got the information to me just in time this morning about the U.N.’s findings . . . about Peru torturing political prisoners. And then he flew over here in time to help me prove we were dealing with an artificial set and actors, not you and the Oval Office. He’s been very helpful.”