Lockout

by John J. Nance

  Jerry’s left hand was deflecting the sidestick controller, but the aircraft was not turning.

  “I know that!”

  “But …”

  “I’m … trying.”

  Dan glanced to his left, puzzled. “What do you mean, ‘trying’?”

  “It’s not following my commands,”

  “What? Damned computers!” Dan reached for the switches controlling the autoflight system, finding them off. He turned them back on and then off.

  “That should do it. Are we free?”

  “No.”

  “No? But autoflight and autothrottles are completely disconnected!”

  “I’m telling you, I’m shoving the stick to the right and she’s still straight and level.”

  “How’s that possible?”

  “Dan, how is any of this shit possible! We should have direct law.”

  Dan had eased back onto the right seat. The F-15 had moved a bit further to the right and then turned back to steady his heading while he waited for the jumbo jet to respond. Somewhere behind them, the F-15’s wingman was waiting, undoubtedly with armed ordinance.

  “Jerry?”

  “This is NOT happening! All the computers are off, and I still can’t get a response from the sidestick. Try yours.”

  Dan grabbed the right-side control stick, commanding a steep right bank as Jerry let go.

  Again the utter lack of change was akin to a physical impact.

  He tried again, moving the stick carefully through left, right, up, and down commands, but the aircraft remained rock steady, refusing to follow the commands.

  “Jerry, what’s going on here? How can we not have direct control?”

  “I don’t know, man! Do you remember anything in the book about a situation like this?”

  “No!”

  “Nor do I. But she won’t let go. There’s no electricity going to any part of the flight computers.”

  A deep sense of foreboding had been percolating away in Dan’s stomach for the past two minutes, and now he felt just outright nauseous. He looked at his right hand, which was deflecting the right sidestick controller ordering what should have been a precipitous turn to the right in an aircraft devoid of any power to the autoflight computers that might oppose him.

  And yet the flight path had not changed.

  “Nothing, Jerry! It’s like we’re along for the ride,” he said quietly.

  The captain was sitting there, Dan noticed, in utter disbelief, the F-15 now maneuvering back to his original position to their left, his wingman somewhere behind.

  “Any ideas, Dan?”

  “Everything’s on an interlock with the autoflight system. Mess with anything, it’ll disconnect. Right?”

  “I always thought so,” Jerry replied, the strain audibly affecting his voice.

  “Okay … let’s try this.” Dan Horneman positioned his left hand on the throttles and clicked the disconnect button for the autothrottles, yanking the levers back to the idle position. The complete lack of response from the aircraft felt like a physical blow.

  “Jeez … nothing!”

  “Try the speedbrakes,” Jerry prompted.

  “Whoa! Not at this speed!”

  “Just a little … to see if it works!” Jerry snapped, pulling the lever slightly out of the detent himself, but feeling no response. He pulled harder, but there was no change in the aerodynamics of the aircraft. “Maybe drop the landing gear?”

  “If we try and it works, Jerry, at this speed it’ll blow the gear doors off.”

  “Right. Then we won’t.”

  “Dan, you said you know the systems … there’s got to be something we’re controlling that doesn’t depend on electrons.”

  Even in the midst of the growing crisis, Jerry’s acknowledgement that his copilot’s knowledge might have some value was a startling concession.

  “I’m all ears, man, if you can think of anything,” Jerry continued.

  “Well …”

  “How about the nosewheel steering? That’s hydraulic.”

  Dan was chuckling the laugh of a condemned man, “Yeah, that’ll work at 33,000 feet!”

  Jerry looked slightly embarrassed, “Yeah. Got it.”

  “Sorry, man. It’s just that I never really thought of it before, you know?”

  “Thought of what?”

  “That there’s nothing on this flight deck that’s physically connected to anything usable in flight! This bird is nothing but a freaking video game!”

  “There’s … nothing?”

  “Okay, the rudder is connected by cable to the hydraulics, and the pitch trim is also partially manual as long as we have hydraulic pressure, and the alternate gear extension system uses a cable, but that’s it. Everything else involves electrons. Flight controls, throttles, speed brakes, landing gear, trim system … everything’s electric. We might as well be sitting in a capsule on the ground controlling this machine by satellite telemetry, like the drones—or unmanned aircraft systems—that the air force uses.”

  “But, Dan, no one in their right mind would design a system that could lock out its pilots if there’s no counterpart on the ground, right?”

  “Well, sure as hell no one else is flying this beast. And all the flight instruments have been lying to us. They’re still lying to us! Look at that moving map! It’s saying we’re over the Atlantic heading west, and instead we’re barreling southeast toward Paris!”

  The interphone call chime rang, and Dan punched it up on his panel to find Carol on the other end with a simple but disturbing question.

  “What?” Jerry asked.

  “Carol wants to know if she should wake up Breem and company?”

  “Shit.”

  “Is that your final answer?” Dan chuckled.

  “No, dammit! That’s all I need is his royal ass up here firing off orders.”

  “Jerry …”

  “I know, I know. All available resources, and we’ve got a bona fide disaster going on.”

  “I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to point out the company regulation regarding relief crews and emergencies.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Whoever is in charge when an emergency occurs remains in charge. The only exception is if a check captain decides to remove a relief captain for cause.”

  “And Breem’s no longer a check captain.”

  “Right. It’s your ship.”

  “Tell her to wait fifteen minutes, then wake them. Maybe the bastard will have some ideas. Who’s his copilot?”

  “Wilson. I forget his first name.”

  “Okay. Do it.”

  Dan passed the order to Carol and rang off.

  “We’ve got to get control of this thing,” Jerry said, suddenly pulling himself up in the seat and taking a deep breath. “Okay, look … let’s go back over everything and see if there’s something we’ve missed that could regain control. What if we reversed everything you tried a few minutes ago? I mean, there’s got to be a logical explanation for this, if we can keep from panicking.”

  “Panicking?” Dan asked with a rueful chuckle he couldn’t stifle.

  “Yeah.”

  “Too late, brother. I’m already there.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CIA, Langley, Virginia (5:45 p.m. EST / 2245 Zulu)

  At the top of the intelligence food chain, patience is seldom a virtue, Walter Randolph thought, as he punched in his aide’s secure phone number.

  “You promised updates, Jason.”

  “I was just getting ready to call, sir. I’ve been on the line with our air force command post at Lakenheath in the UK. Their two F-15s had to break off. The Pangia flight wouldn’t, or couldn’t, follow them back to London.”

  “Explain, please.”

  “The lead pilot said the pilot of the A330 was gesturing and acting like he was going to follow their orders, but the aircraft never altered course. He said there were others in the cockpit when he first flew alongside, but they beat a hast
y exit. Logically, if the pilot won’t follow the F-15s, even though he’s signaling that he intends to, that might indicate that he can’t follow.”

  “In other words, intimidation. Did the rest of the aircraft look normal? Did the fighter report on that?

  “Yes, sir. There are lights throughout the cabin, and faces visible in most of the cabin windows.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Southeast bound over the English Channel headed for France. The French are already scrambling fighters to intercept.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Cockpit, Pangia 10 (2245 Zulu)

  “Jerry, I’ve got a GPS lock.”

  “On your iPad?”

  “Yes. My personal one.”

  “I thought you needed an Internet signal?”

  “I remembered an aviation program I downloaded that has a stored map … wait … okay, we’re about …”

  “What? What are you showing?”

  “Jeez! This can’t be right!”

  Dan peered at the small screen again, blinking and refocusing to make sure he was interpreting the map correctly.

  “Where the hell are we?” Jerry insisted.

  “Jerry, hold on.”

  “Where, dammit?”

  “Not over the Atlantic, that’s for sure! According to this thing, we’re over France and aiming straight for Paris from maybe a hundred miles northwest.”

  “No shit?” Jerry’s voice had almost a whining tone.

  “Looks like we just passed over the channel south of London.”

  “France? Seriously?”

  “That’s what it says, man, but I’m a little short on believing computers about now.”

  There was silence from the captain for a few seconds before Jerry sighed heavily and replied, almost under his breath. “I hope it is Paris ahead.”

  Dan looked up, puzzled. “Why?”

  “Paris would be a perfect place for an emergency landing … provided we could get control of this beast.”

  Jerry turned to his left, looking outside where one of the F-15s had been up until minutes before.

  “He’s gone.”

  “I figured. The one on the right is gone, too. If we’re really over France now, they’ll send up a couple of Mirages.”

  “Dan, they wouldn’t shoot us down, would they?”

  “You’re the ex-military guy, Jerry. You tell me!”

  “I just flew Tomcats off a carrier. I never got involved in diplomatic stuff, and that was decades ago anyway.”

  “Okay, look, I do happen to know this. The French are diffident friends at times, but, no, they won’t shoot us.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “But we can’t fly this heading forever without running into some people who might.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I don’t know, man. I … haven’t projected this heading, but it probably takes us over the Middle East and some places we don’t want to be.”

  Jerry was shaking his head in apparent disgust, and somehow Dan knew what was coming.

  “I can’t believe you saw the compass showing the wrong heading and you didn’t … recognize it!”

  Okay, so let’s play “shift the blame!” Dan thought. A good pilot with the right stuff and a modest bank account would never make that mistake, right Jere?

  An appropriate retort had formed in his mind, but he forced it back. They were in the middle of a real emergency, and an internecine dual wasn’t going to help regain control.

  “Okay, okay …” Jerry was continuing, “the main thing is, we’ve got to get communication back! The factory where they hatched this airplane isn’t that far. Toulouse. Maybe someone down there knows how to regain control.”

  Dan’s head snapped up from the iPad as he released his seatbelt and motored the copilot’s seat back on the rails, then sideways. He swiveled around to face the captain, fixing Jerry with a steady stare and an index finger held high.

  “Okay, listen. We’ve got to regain control of this ship, and we have to realize those F-15 pilots are going to report that we refused their orders, and the only reason we would do that is … is …”

  “If we were being forced to, or we’re deviating on our own.”

  “Chicago won’t believe we’ve gone nuts. I wouldn’t if I were them.”

  “So … we’re hijacked in their view? What does that do to us?”

  Dan sighed deeply, looking at the floor for a second before meeting Jerry’s rather feral gaze again. “I don’t know, but … they’ll keep everyone out of our way, I guess.” His eyes suddenly shot down to the transponder control head. “We are squawking radio failure, right? The 7600 code, not the 7500 hijack code?”

  “Right.”

  “Good.”

  “But someone could be forcing us to do that. That’s what they’ll conclude. I remember reading about the Soviets shooting down a Korean Air 747 back in the eighties.”

  Dan was waving away the thought. “That risk is a long ways off. Right now, Captain, we need to prioritize.”

  Dan noticed that his use of Jerry’s title seemed to have an impact. Almost imperceptibly, the left-seater sat up a bit, looking around as if suddenly realizing he was the one in charge.

  “I was going to say the same thing,” Jerry began, a slightly defensive tone overlaying the barely-contained panic both of them were feeling.

  “I recommend,” Dan said, watching the captain for any sign he was pushing too far, “… that our first move should be to find a radio or a cell phone or something we can use to talk to the guys who built this jet and get some help on how to get its goddamned attention!”

  Jerry Tollefson nodded. “Yeah, agreed.” He started to punch the PA button on his interphone panel, but Dan stopped him.

  “Wait! Let’s stay coordinated. What do you want to ask them?”

  “What you said. A usable cell phone or a radio of some sort.”

  “That means we’ve got to fess up to what’s happening.”

  Jerry nodded. “Yeah, I get that.”

  Dan hesitated, wondering if Jerry could pull it together enough to not panic the passengers and gauging whether an offer from the copilot to do the deed would be resented.

  Whatever, he concluded. “Want me to do it, Jerry?”

  The captain started nodding in obvious relief. “Go ahead. No, wait! I’m the captain … I should.”

  “Go for it, then. Hurry.”

  Jerry punched the appropriate button and adjusted his headset microphone, activating the PA. He sat in silence for a few seconds, collecting his thoughts and trying to imagine the best way to break the news that everyone aboard was being flown by an electronic ghost.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain … Captain Tollefson. I need you to listen very carefully. As some of you had already noticed, we have reversed course and are, at this moment, about a hundred miles northwest of Paris, France. We have experienced a very unusual failure in our autoflight system, and although we are in no present danger with plenty of fuel, many of you also noticed that we were intercepted by US Air Force jet fighters a while ago. The reason is that we have lost all of our radios … not just the satellite system for Internet and phone calls. And, we have been unable to get the system back, so we can’t talk to air traffic control, even though they know who and where we are. I now need to enlist your help. If there is anyone aboard who has a radio capable of transmitting and receiving aircraft frequencies, please ring your flight attendant call chime immediately. For those of you with cell phones that work in Europe, I ask you to take them out now and turn them on, and if you have a steady signal and can reach anyone below, we need to borrow that phone in the cockpit immediately. For anyone with a handheld satellite phone, we also need to know if you have a lock-on signal. Anyone who can assist, please immediately ring your call chime.”

  Call chimes could be heard through the cockpit door, and Dan triggered a call to Carol.

  “I’m opening the door. Just give us any
thing you collect from the passengers.”

  “What in heaven’s name is going on, Dan?”

  “We can’t disconnect the autopilot, and we need to talk to someone on the ground about why.”

  “Can’t … what?”

  “That’s why we turned around and didn’t know it.”

  “Can’t you …”

  “Carol! Please! Just go get us phones that work. We’ll explain later.”

  “You need to explain more now,” she replied. “To everyone! You should see the looks back here, and I don’t want panic.

  Jerry had punched off the PA to call the cabin, and his finger now poised over the PA button once again as he shot a questioning look at Dan.

  “What?” Dan asked.

  “Was I too vague?”

  Why don’t we just tell them we’re in a giant pilotless airplane! Dan thought to himself. But Jerry was asking for guidance. This wasn’t the time for flippant answers.

  “I think,” Dan began, “… that if I were back there as a passenger, I’d rather know the entire unvarnished truth. They will undoubtedly find out later.”

  “Yeah, got it,” was the reply. Another deep sigh and Jerry punched the button again.

  “Okay folks, let me describe to you precisely what we’re dealing with up here. It’s our policy not to dance around or obscure anything. In a nutshell, our autoflight system will not disconnect, and we have not yet been able to find a way to regain manual control. Further, the airplane reversed course on its own while falsely displaying normal indications that we were westbound and over the Atlantic headed for New York. Normally we would just pull circuit breakers and disconnect the system, but it is resisting our efforts to do so. Now, machines and computers are not sentient, so there is a simple explanation for this, and we will find it. But that’s the reason we need to establish an alternate way of speaking with folks on the ground, so we can solve this problem more quickly. Both of us up here promise to keep you fully informed at all times.”