Alaska! Up North and to the Left

by Steven Swaks

  I dropped off the meat on a tarp that I wrapped like a giant taco and secured it with several straps. I had always strived to keep the center of gravity towards the front of the plane where it translated into a more stable ride. In a moment of genius, and for engineering reasons, the designers at Cessna decided to add a small cargo compartment in the nose of the aircraft between the engine and the cockpit, but the high performance engine was constantly on the verge of overheating and kept that space fairly warm, not oven like but slightly toasty. To use the nose compartment to its full extent, I always looked for small and heavy items up to the maximum 120 pounds allowed.

  And indeed, meat was the best candidate, it was dense and a few large steaks would have easily reached my desired maximum weight allocated. But it was meat, and I really did not want to cook the steak and arrive in Bethel with medium rare moose roast. My passengers looked at me and saw my disarray. I was standing in front of the nose compartment with envy, holding the 40 pound chunk of meat, staring back and forth between the steak and the narrow cargo bay. I really wanted to shove it in, but I did not know if I would be able to get away with it, I had no idea about the end result. We were talking about an hour and a half flight, maybe more, who knew how the meat would come out? I looked at them, hugging my steak.

  “Hey, son, it’s ok, you can put it in!” One of them threw at me.

  “Are you sure? Isn’t it going to cook in there?”

  They both smiled. I was reaching the edge of my bush flying knowledge. I had learned to fly in the Los Angeles basin. I knew how to handle international airports, I was comfortable in one of the busiest airspaces in the world, I could fly with zero visibility, and I could even teach students to fly in those conditions. I knew my plane inside and out, I could draw the electrical system and knew the intricacies of the entire plane and its systems, but nobody ever taught me the effect of the engine temperature on meat in the nose compartment. I looked, really, but nope, there was nothing in the book.

  The two men lightened up. “Don’t worry, it’s going to be fine in the front.”

  They were willing to take the responsibility. That was good enough for me, and it was obvious they had done that a few times before.

  My moose was secured; my passengers were briefed and ready for the flight. We took off and turned towards the west. The first thirty minutes or so of the flight was doing well. The previous ceiling had broken into small clouds and we had no difficulties avoiding them on a fairly straight line to Bethel. My two hunters peered around and looked at the nearby mountain ridges and tops flying by. We spotted two or three waterfalls and a number of crisp blue lakes. In the middle of our temporary mellowness, I tried to smell some roasting meat but there was nothing; the moose in the front compartment seemed to be doing fine, probably cooled by the cooler air at higher altitude.

  The flight back was running its peaceful course. I was looking at the ground for anything interesting, a potential fisherman perhaps or campers, the sighting would have been rare, especially so late in the season, but not impossible. I glanced upward at tall summits going by. A detail caught my eyes. It was hard to precisely tell how far, but it seemed that large clouds were piling up on the horizon. I looked at the Doppler radar and did not see any echo.

  I had that little voice, you know, the little knot in the stomach that tells you that something is off. Well, that day, it was wide awake and was working overtime. Something was not right, I could not put my finger on it, but I could taste the bitterness of a metal pipe lollipop. I double checked my gauges, everything was fine. No, the trouble was surely out there. The mean cloud mass was growing by the minute. I checked the weather in Bethel, it was fine, clear skies and good visibility. What was happening? What was that thing coming up?

  I had a sense of urgency, we had to get out of the mountains as soon as possible, safety was in the flat delta. We would be able to fly around trouble, stay low, or even reroute to a village. What about Dillingham? It was not justified, yet. Besides, I wanted to get out of the mountains and returning to Dillingham was a contract for another thirty minutes over the chain.

  A large and long valley was approaching, it would be the beginning of freedom. Once in it my options would pop up like a jack in the box, little Jack would jump out and the tension would drop.

  After an extra few miles, the entrance of the valley opened up. Soon we would be in the delta. There would be no more rocks to worry about, and the flat and dull tundra would be a well appreciated welcome home present. The ever darkening and increasing clouds came with its load of bad news, the darker the clouds, the worse they would be. Those ones were turning black, the impenetrable black of ink. There was no more cloud mass, no, there was a much better name, thunderstorm. The monster did not come alone, if rain was a manageable prelude, the turbulence was the main act and it could easily shred a plane, especially a small clunker like ours. Thunderstorms had brought down airliners before and our plane was a miserable speck of dust against a giant. The mountainous terrain did not help. The darkening clouds were an enormous lid over my freedom keeping us down like a fly under a bell jar.

  Another fifty miles to go. This is roughly when I glanced at the GPS and a little detail caught my eye in the middle of the ongoing torment. The thunderstorm was not it. The harrowing feeling had not come from that. It was something else, the punch line of a sick joke. My alternator needle was quietly resting on the negative side. My alternator, the plane’s little electric power plant, had decided to take an unscheduled break. I still had electricity, but I was already tapping into a limited reserve, my battery was it. Once depleted, I would be in the dark, quite literally. It was not a catastrophic failure by itself, the plane would not fall out of the sky or suddenly burst into flames, but it meant that my heavy demand on electricity would soon no longer be met. I cycled my alternator and confirmed it went on a spontaneous and unjustified strike. The alternator needle was still lying unresponsive on the small needle stop. I did not know what happened, I might have lost a belt, or maybe the unit by itself had just died. Either way, there was nothing much I could do about it, I could only switch to a conservation mode. I started to shut down any unnecessary electrical component. Most of the lights went off, the strobes stopped their rhythmic flashing, the transponders went silent and no longer showed the rest of the world where we were. We turned into an invisible dot in the middle of a radar scope. The radios quieted down and the navigation equipment stayed stiff. There was no more colorful GPS moving map to show us the way either, no more terrain avoidance, not even the older VOR* needles to lead the plane the right way. My 207 was sick. We were back in the thirties, back in the days when a good knowledge of the terrain meant a safe ride home, when electronic gizmos had not yet become a partner in crime reaching untold capabilities.

  My two passengers looked oblivious to the current situation. Like any other in flight failure, it was manageable, the plane was still flying, and there was really no reason to be overly concerned. I considered landing at an alternate airport. After all, it was the appropriate thing to do in this situation, but Murphy was right, the next challenge was coming up. In a normal failure -if there was such a thing-I would have diverted to Eek to the southwest, but the bulk of the thunderstorm was piling up in that direction. My only real plan B was vanishing behind a curtain of black clouds. Bethel was my next logical choice still twenty minutes ahead. I followed a narrow river downstream and backed up my crude navigation with my old compass.

  The beautiful afternoon was turning ugly. The once innocent white and puffy clouds had long lost their souls and morphed into demonic clouds. The dark Evil was coming out of the sky to get us. Like a gate to hell, the heart of the thunderstorm was a deep black mass swallowing anything around it. There was no more fall, no more lakes or mountains, but the darkness consuming everything in its path.

  We finally escaped the mountains and their uncertainty for the safety of the flat land. The rain started hitting the windshield. At first, it was slow, a
drop at a time. Then, it turned alive, harassing us and slapping us with anger. The turbulence came along to add to our misery. Consistent tremors were rattling the 207 to its core, reminding us of our frail condition. Occasionally, a violent jolt hit us and tried to dismantle the plane once and for all. The seat belts strained to keep us in our seats. Another fifteen minutes and we would be back in Bethel, away from the torture. The airport was the safe haven, the cradle waiting to save us.

  I checked the weather again in Bethel; the world was coming down. All the numbers were crumbling to their doom, the visibility and the ceiling were dropping. Once again, I was fighting my way home.

  Once in a while, I turned to my passengers who looked nicely calm. Alaska had no more tricks to surprise them. In their eyes, men had definitely conquered the third dimension and gravity was an abstract concept, the blank GPS screen and the deteriorating weather did not mean anything. I felt lucky and appreciated having two stoic fellows sitting beside me, and I did not even want to think about the same flight with emotional passengers.

  In order to save electricity, my radio stayed mute all the way to the vicinity of Bethel. Fifteen miles out, I turned it back on to check the weather and the current airport information on the ATIS*(Automated Terminal Information Service).

  “Bethel Airport information Delta, wind One Five Zero at 15, visibility 3, ceiling 1500… thun… tempera… 12, dew point 10, ILS* approach… runway 18 in, advise on… contact you… Bethel Information Delta.”

  The radio was weakening, and I was about to use much more electricity to broadcast rather than just to listen. I keyed the microphone with the clear hope to be heard on the first attempt. At every trial, the radio cannibalized my anemic battery, each push of the switch was another sucking motion, some more amperes bleeding out before total exhaustion.

  “Bethel Tower, Norton Five One Charlie, 11 miles northeast, level 1000, inbound with Delta.”

  I waited. Nothing.

  “Bethel Tower, Bering Five Five, 1800 on the arc at WEEKE, we have been cleared for the ILS 18, we have… Delta.”

  “Bering Five Five, Bethel Tower, report KUSKM.”

  The control tower had not heard me, and to complicate the matter, a Boeing 737 freighter - Bering Five Five-was right behind me on a large curving approach to the airport, less than a thousand feet above me, and soon to be descending. We were both converging for the same runway.

  I tried to contact Tower once again.

  “Last aircraft northeast calling Bethel Tower, you are garbled and barely readable, say again.”

  Every time I pushed my microphone switch, the electrical artery bled out a little more. I was facing complete electrical failure and the end of all communication with a 737 roaming in the area and still probably hidden in the clouds. I kept my eyes wide open, unable to find the fifty ton giant, even if I was still somewhat aware of his position on a set procedure.

  I repeated my call, “Bethel Tower, NORTON FIVE ONE CHARLIE, 7 miles northeast, level 1000, inbound with Delta.”

  “Norton Five One Charlie, enter left base runway 18, report two miles, your radio is barely readable.”

  “Left base, call you two miles, Five One Charlie, I have an alternator failure.”

  “Do you need assistance?”

  “Negative, Five One Charlie.”

  “Bethel Tower, Caravan Eight Niner Four, eight miles northwest, level 1000, inbound with Delta.”

  A Caravan, a turbine plane faster than mine, was coming head on with me from the other side of the airport, both of us merging for the same runway, each of us on the opposite side of an imaginary capital “T” with the runway as the vertical beam.

  “Caravan Eight Niner Four, Bethel tower, report two miles right base runway 18, you have a 207 twelve o’clock approaching left base, and a 737 inbound on the ILS. Report the traffic in sight.”

  The Caravan acknowledged the tower about the traffic advisories.

  With each passing second, the three planes were converging towards the same point, with the same approximate time of arrival. Jake, the controller, put down his coffee mug and scanned the darkening sky. No plane in sight. His eyes swayed from each of our assumed position to the next one. His stomach tightened. There was no radar to assist him. Bush Alaska was still at the edge of the seats of the pants where the controller continuously kept a mental representation of the ongoing scenario, with the three targets moving on an imaginary three dimensional map. There was nobody or nothing else but himself and the three aircrafts. There was no ground controller sitting next to him, nor supervisor a few feet behind him.

  How long had he been in a tower? Four months? Bethel was his first assignment. A nearby clap of thunder broke his concentration, more by professional reflex than by any real conscious action, Jake squeezed his push-to-talk microphone switch.

  “Five One Charlie, say position.”

  “… miles Five… Charlie.” The communication was terrible.

  “Say again Five One Charlie.”

  “TWO miles, left base… One Charlie.”

  “Caravan Eight Niner Five, say position.” Jake asked.

  “Two miles right base, Eight Niner Five.”

  “Bering Five Five, say position.”

  “A mile north of KUSKM, Bering Five Five.”

  The Caravan laden with nine passengers was not only approaching the 207 at over 230 miles per hour head on, but the large 737 was also seven miles from the runway converging towards the two planes at the speed of a racing NASCAR.

  Jake’s pulse was drumming in his chest. He froze for an instant. What was he supposed to do? One mistake would have a world of consequences with three planes heading towards the same point right over the town.

  “Are you ok?” Brendon, his short and stocky supervisor asked aware of the communication.

  “I’m fine.” Jake once again keyed the mic. “Caravan Eight Niner Five fly direct to the numbers -the beginning of the runway-, number one clear to land, expedite. Norton Five One Charlie, square your base, number two behind the Caravan, clear to land, Bering Five Five, report three miles final. You have two converging traffic coming twelve o’clock, report traffic in sight.”

  The three planes acknowledged their directives.

  I was peering through the obscuring sky in front of me. Nothing. I looked right for the Boeing, again, nothing.

  I looked again ahead when the Caravan’s flashing strobe lights pierced through the haze. The Caravan banked right on a tight turn and lined up with the runway. I was on a wider turn left still looking for the Boeing, when finally its powerful landing lights emerged out of the dark clouds.

  The Caravan taxied off the runway when I touched down, but the ordeal was not over, as I was slowing down on the wet runway, the 737 was behind me, who knew how far back?

  “Norton Five One Delta, exit on Delta taxiway, contact Ground, expedite, Boeing on short final.”

  I answered and added power to reach the taxiway faster. I could feel the large mass coming behind us, 100,000 pounds of fury and speed, tons of metal and kerosene, hungry old fashioned turbojet engines raging towards us.

  I finally reached the lines separating the taxiway from the runway. One side was a launch ramp, the other was a peaceful heaven, one side was madness and rush, the other was a timeless sanctuary. I stopped the plane, looked right, and saw the large Boeing passing over the highway, engine shrieking, then over the airport fence before touching down in a thundering rumble of thrust reverse.

  I stopped and contacted Ground control with what was left of my electricity and taxied to Norton’s ramp before parking in front of the terminal.

  Routine was back where it belonged, I wrote my end of flight times. The ground crew rushed to the plane and opened the back doors to unload the freight. My two unfazed hunters nonchalantly unbuckled their seat belts and gathered their belongings. They stepped out of the plane and threw their bags in the pickup waiting for them.

  Usually, it would have been time to say a quick th
ank you and good bye to my passengers before walking to the terminal to finalize my paper work, but this time I was curious about the condition of the meat in the front compartment. I walked around the nose of the plane, and anxiously opened the latch. The meat was intact. Deep down, my two passengers also looked relieved. Even if their experience had played a significant role, there were so many factors in the equation, the altitude flown, the outside temperature, the engine temperature, the length of the flight all gathered for a positive outcome or a roasted steak.

  The ground crew loaded their bags and the moose in the back of a pickup truck. My two passengers jumped into their seats and drove away. There were no words of gratitude, nor any acknowledgment of any kind. I was the taxi driver who took them home, and the last two hours did not mean much. My attempts to make them comfortable and safe, my attitude towards the failure and the situation were washed away. I was only a step to their ride home; I did not weep over it, but some kind of gratitude would have been appreciated.

  As I entered dispatch in this late afternoon, I heard Jeb’s mechanical voice dropping like an anvil, “Tunt, NEXT.”

  “Ok… Five One Charlie is out, the alternator is dead.”

  “Seven Eight Mike is available,” Jeb said without looking at me.