Seminole Bend

by Tom Hansen

  “Holy crap, watch out!” yelled Co-Captain Carver. Douglas veered left but stayed close and Carver thought he felt a bowel movement coming on. “What are you doing, Aaron?! Take evasive action!”

  “That Bayou jet may have a working navigation system, Keith. We don’t! Our only hope is to follow its path and try to land behind it.”

  The Coastal East jet was now yawing and porpoising violently while both pilots secured the wheel and planted their feet firmly on the rudders.

  “Wake turbulence! We can’t fight this, Captain!”

  “Positive thinking, Keith. We can and will!”

  “But if we do manage to follow Bayou in, if he brakes faster than us, everyone on both jets is doomed!”

  “I understand. But it’s a risk we have to take.”

  * * * * *

  Harley peered down at the altimeter. Bayou 444 was holding firmly at three thousand feet when the engines sputtered and died. The fuel lamp was now lit bright and steady, and warning beeps were echoing off the cockpit’s walls. A sinister computer-recorded voice was yelling, “Pull up! Pull up!”

  Captain Auferdahl couldn’t hide his anxiety. He glanced at Harley and his voice squeaked, “Now what, Captain?”

  “The HJ-15’s have a seventeen to one glide ratio,” replied Harley immediately. “At three thousand feet, we can glide for about nine and a half miles. But we need to put down now.”

  “Nine and half miles won’t get us to Palm Beach International, Harley.”

  “I know. I think our only option is the Beeline Highway. It’s a straight shot from Seminole Bend to Riviera Beach. According to my calculations, which are all just flashes of instinct lighting up my brainwaves, we should be near Indiantown right now. I have one of those fancy watches with a built-in compass that I use when hiking. Unfortunately, it’s our only navigation that is working, so I will use it to try and find the Beeline.”

  “Your hiking watch? My God, Harley, we have 150 passengers on board! We’re going to put their lives in the hands of your watch?!” Captain Auferdahl was concerned, but he trusted Harley. “What if there are cars on the road?”

  “I thought of that, Rich. It’s past midnight and the Beeline is a low-travelled road at night. With this stormy weather, hopefully no one will be driving.”

  “Our visibility is so bad that we won’t be able to see any car headlights until we’re down to about a hundred feet, and we obviously will have no lift that close to the ground.”

  Harley was about to respond when he saw a small break in the ground fog and a rain-soaked road appeared out of nowhere about 500 feet below. Curiously, he noticed four sets of high-powered aircraft guidance lights reflecting off the shimmering wet asphalt. He knew two sets of lights were reflections coming from his own wings, but where were the other two sets coming from? He guessed right away and he guessed right.

  “Rick, look down there. Four sets of flood lamps, and I do believe that’s the Beeline!” Harley pressed the compass button on his watch and the position and direction appeared. He confirmed with the map that was tucked into a leather pouch next to him. But at that second, Rick wasn’t thinking about the road. Why were there four sets of lights instead of two?

  “Four sets of lights, Harley? How could that be?”

  “Well, if these dang airplanes had a rear view mirror, I could probably tell you quite certainly. But my best educated guess is that Coastal East 561 is following us.”

  “Based on the distance and angle of the lights,” inserted George Alvin, “that plane is only a hundred or two hundred feet behind us!”

  “Good point,” replied Harley. “That means once we touch down, we need to slow brake to give them time to stop so we’re not rear ended.”

  “And that means we’ll need to hope God gives us two or three miles of no car traffic,” stated Captain Auferdahl solemnly.

  * * * * *

  The porpoising on Coastal East 561 became minimal as Douglas and Carver were suddenly able to regain control of their HJ-15.

  “No wake turbulence anymore, Captain,” said copilot Keith Carver. He quickly wiped off the sweat accumulating on his forehead with the back of his right hand.

  Without hesitation or even a second thought, Aaron Douglas responded, “They’re out of fuel, Keith. They’re gliding down to that road.”

  Carver raised his head and leaned forward so he could see the road below. It appeared to be a long and narrow stretch of asphalt.

  “I think that’s the Beeline Highway down there,” declared Carver. “State Road 710. Road my motorcycle on it last year to eat lunch at a catfish place in . . .”

  Captain Douglas interrupted as he screamed out an order, “Shut down the engines! Now!”

  Carver was startled and confused. “Shut down, why?” He didn’t wait for the answer because it was an order. He hit the kill switch, then stared at Douglas.

  “If they’re gliding, they must be planning on putting down on the Beeline,” answered the captain. “That means their airspeed is gradually declining. We’d ram them in the tail before they even touched down with our engines running! We need to glide, too.” Carver nodded his head. That made sense. He agreed, but now two fully loaded HJ-15 civilian planes were going to attempt a landing in the middle of a tropical storm on a public road with no power to lift their wings. He glanced out the cockpit window, looked upward towards heaven and mumbled a short prayer.

  Meanwhile, the momentum of the Coastal East jet was propelling the aircraft treacherously close to the tail of the Bayou jet.

  When Captain Douglas saw that Carver appeared to be offering up a prayer, he grasped the pilot’s wheel with a powerful grip and whispered to his co-captain, “Put in a good word for me, too. I’m going to need it.”

  CHAPTER 102

  Tuesday, March 16, 1982

  12:30 a.m.

  “T his is your captain,” shouted Harley Hutter into the cabin intercom system. There was no need to hide the anxiety in his voice. Trying to be calm would fool no one. “I need all passengers seated behind row fourteen to immediately move to the front of the plane and lie on the floor. Lie on top of each other if you have to, but do it quickly!”

  “What the hell, Harley?” asked Captain Auferdahl. “What are you doing?”

  “Rich, get back there and help those passengers in the back of the plane move up. Throw them over the seats, if you have to, but just do it! When they are all lying down, go open the tail door and lower the stairs!”

  “Open the tail stairs in flight? Harley, no, what are you doing?! Those stairs will snap off on touchdown!”

  “Just do it, Rich! As soon as the stairs are down, run up as far as you can and hit the floor, too!”

  Captain Auferdahl was clueless, but jumped out of his seat and raced to the back of the plane. That section was filled with kids from the Youth Christian Club and they were mobile and quick, but they also had excellent lungs as the terrified wailing echoed around the fuselage walls. The stewardesses were moving them rapidly forward, except for Bonnie Woodman, who was right out of Bayou’s training school and on her first flight. She had wet her pants and locked herself in the restroom.

  Harley hadn’t had time to explain. He had a sixth sense about some things, much like his brother Harry. Harley sensed the Coastal East aircraft was flying too close and fast and wouldn’t be able to stop. He guessed right.

  Captain Auferdahl blasted the emergency crossbar with his hand and cranked it upward. The crossbar prevented the tail door from opening during flight. Then he flipped the switch and the tail door began to lower. As it did, the stairway unfolded. Rich got on his knees and peered out, then stared in disbelief as he saw the Coastal East jet only 100 feet behind him with its nose up and landing gear down. Rich lowered his view. The stairs were now fully dislodged and only ten feet above the Beeline Highway. He hastily stood up and rammed into Bonnie Woodman as she was coming out of the restroom. He grabbed and carried her to Row 14, and then slammed her face first on top of Reverend
Alice who was a chaperone for the youth group. The clanging of the stairway lasted only a split second before it snapped and bounced off the nose of the rapidly approaching Coastal East jet.

  Both jets were gliding without engine power, thus the reverse thrusters would not be operable upon landing. Harley lowered the Bayou’s flaps and raised the spoilers. Miraculously, the jet touched down softly in the pouring rain and whipping wind. Harley didn’t use the airbrakes. His gut feeling told him to wait for the Coastal East jet to land.

  Seconds after Bayou 444 touched down, Coastal East 561 landed, but as Harley predicted, it was moving much faster than his jet. The nose of the Coastal East plane hammered into the open tail section of the Bayou aircraft, thrusting the rear engine and wing compartment of the Trijet upward. As Coastal East’s cockpit was jamming its way through the tail of the Bayou jet, Captain Douglas switched on the airbrakes. Co-Captain Carver’s mouth was wide open, about the same size as his eyes, as the nose of the Coastal East jet came to rest in Row 15 of the Bayou cabin.

  Harley felt the jolt and waited a few seconds before deploying Bayou’s airbrakes, hoping that the Coastal East jet was doing the same. Both airplanes were gradually slowing and had used up a mile of State Road 710 when Harley saw headlights approaching through the fog. If he hit head on with the car, chances were excellent that the car’s gas tank would explode sending all the good folks on board both jets to eternity.

  Just a short distance to the southeast, Harley saw what appeared to be the entrance to some sort of factory. He yanked the plane’s steering wheel to the right as the station wagon heading northwest on the Beeline slammed on its brakes.

  The Bayou jet rolled on to a concrete driveway and crashed through a security gate as the Coastal East jet fishtailed behind, stretching Bayou’s fuselage to its limits. The factory’s security guard, who was sitting in his chair finishing off a bag of microwave popcorn, never saw the dual jetliners approaching, nor what hit him. The elevated security tower was ripped apart just below where the guard was perched, and it and the aghast guard came to rest on Bayou’s tail section. The guard held on tight to a piece of metal protruding from the fuselage and watched in horror as the jet crossed the railroad tracks and crashed into a large aircraft hangar door on the grounds of Pratt Whitney. Ironically, all six JT8D turbofan engines on the Bayou and Coastal East jets were assembled only yards away from where the planes came to a stop, one tucked neatly into the hind end of the other. There were multiple bumps, bruises and broken limbs, but everyone aboard both planes survived.

  The stunned security guard resigned the next day and went to work in his brother’s comic book store.

  CHAPTER 103

  Tuesday, March 16, 1982

  12:45 a.m.

  B arney and Ben watched in awe from the Huey’s cockpit as the Coastal East jet rear ended the Bayou jet on the Beeline Highway. They weren’t able to keep up the airspeed, but using specialized telescopic night goggles, they witnessed the most incredible emergency landing in the history of avionics. The Huey landed in the Pratt Whitney parking lot two minutes after the HJ-15’s had come to a stop in the hangar. Barney radioed the Jupiter Medical Center and ambulances, fire trucks and police all began arriving within twenty minutes. Meanwhile, Ben rushed to help passengers who were using the inflatable slides next to the exit doors on the wings to evacuate.

  At 3:00 a.m., Barney called the president and briefed him on the situation. President Layman said he was sending Air Force One to Palm Beach International immediately and asked Barney to fly the Coastal East and Bayou pilots to the same airport. Layman wanted them to board the world famous presidential jumbo jet and fly back to Washington as soon as they were medically cleared. They would be transported from Andrews Air Force Base to the White House by the Secret Service. Finally, the president ordered Barney to ensure that the pilots didn’t speak to anyone from the media.

  Harley Hutter refused to go with Ben and Barney. He wanted no credit for his heroic actions, instead he claimed he was just helping out, something any pilot deadheading on a doomed flight would do naturally. “Two wonderful pilots, Rich Auferdahl and George Alvin!” said Harley to Barney. “They’re the reason everyone is alive tonight.” Then Harley checked on all the passengers who were wrapped in blankets waiting for medical vans that would transport them to the hospital. Afterward, he began a brisk twelve-mile walk along the ditch that paralleled State Road 710 to Indiantown. From there, he would hitchhike to Seminole Bend and hope to catch a bus up to Tampa. When dawn arrived a few hours later, he stuck out his thumb and a nice fellow driving an Oldsmobile Cutlass convertible pulled over and offered him a ride.

  “Where ya headed?” asked the driver as Harley closed the passenger side door. He glanced in the backseat and noticed it was loaded to the gills with bags of pita bread.

  “Texas,” replied Harley.

  “That’s a long ways, son. I can get ya up to Seminole Bend, though. Still a long way from Texas, but it’s a start. I’m going to see my cousin Lance up there in Seminole Bend. By the way, my name’s Lenny Billips. What’s yours?”

  Harley reached over and shook Lenny’s hand. Then he noticed that the key chain hanging from the ignition had a picture of a young blond gal embedded into a medallion. “That your daughter?”

  Lenny’s face turned bright red when he realized that the car he had stolen could be easily identified by the key chain.

  “Yep, yep. That’s my daughter, Peggy Lou. Bought her this here automobile for her sixteenth birthday. Mine broke down, so she’s letting me borrow it today.”

  Harley did a double-take at the picture and could tell the girl was at least thirty years old. The car was brand new. He chuckled under his breath. After last night, he had no plans to get involved into someone else’s problems by turning in a car thief. Harley was just happy for the free lift.

  “So, ya hear ‘bout that plane crash last night over at Pratt Whitney?” asked Lenny, mainly to change the subject. “Been blasting all over every AM station this morning. Seems like it’s becoming a weekly occurrence, it damn sure is! Too bad we can’t train our pilots how to fly them metal birds the right way! Well, I’ll tell you what. You ain’t never getting me up in one of them things. How ‘bout you? Bet you don’t want to fly neither, now do ya?”

  “Nope, can’t say that I do.” Harley laid his head on the headrest and dozed off.

  * * * * *

  Willy Banks waited until he had a definite prognosis for Tyrone from the doctor before he called Abby. By 8:00 a.m., Tyrone was groggy, but awake and in pain. In the recovery room next door, Sheriff Bonty sat closely by Jimmy with his hands folded in prayer. Both boys spent four hours in surgery and it appeared that their athletically healthy bodies would overcome bullet holes to their torsos. Jenny had fully recuperated from her fainting spell, and spent the early morning hours traveling back and forth from her brother’s room to her boyfriend’s room.

  Tyrus, Willy and Otis sat stupefied in chairs near Tyrone’s bed watching the live CNN reports coming from Pratt Whitney. The pictures of the Coastal East jet’s nose cone lodged inside the tail of the Bayou jet’s fuselage and everyone alive to tell about it was beyond comprehension! Passengers were telling reporters how Captain Auferdahl had ordered everyone behind Row 14 to hustle and lie down on the floor ahead of the wing exits, then bravely opened up the tail staircase which kept the Trijet engines from simply being shoved forward through the cabin. They believed it was a miracle that the Coastal East nose cone stopped exactly at Row 15 and no one was killed. The passengers mentioned that a person seated in the back row had gone up to the cockpit to help out, but they weren’t quite sure if he had done anything significant.

  Perhaps the most interesting interview came from the security guard as he described his adventure sliding across the fuselage and becoming moored to the vertical Trijet engine compartment. The future comic book salesman embellished the story a little more each time he told it to a different reporter.

  A
t 8:30 a.m., Abby Charles sprinted down the hallway at Gregorson Hospital to Tyrone’s room. When Willy called, she was still in bed. Abby slipped on a pair of blue jeans and a white t-shirt from the laundry basket and ran barefoot to her car. There was no time for makeup today. Without looking at anyone in the recovery room, she hastened to her son and gently stroked the top of his head, almost ripping off the IV in the process. Her eyes were a mess, flooded with tears.

  That’s when two strong arms reached around Abby from behind, pulled her back from the bed and turned her about. She looked up at the man she had last seen kissing her in the maternity ward the night her son was born. Tyrus clutched her waist with his left arm and wrapped his right arm around her neck, pushing the back of her head to his chest. Soon, everyone in the recovery room was wiping tears away. Tyrone stared at his mom and dad and smiled. The pain in his shoulder could no longer be felt.

  EPILOGUE

  Billy Joe Gormon

  F BI Director Morris Clements came on Sixty Minutes and told Harry Reasoner that all the terrible events that took place in February and March of 1982 were just a coincidence. He said the airplane accidents were a result of a major malfunction in our nation’s air traffic control radars due to a computer glitch. President Layman reprimanded the Federal Aviation Administration and replaced the computer company that was under contract. He assured the citizens of the United States and our friends throughout the world that the radar systems were all fixed and the skies were safe to travel in.

  Mr. Clements then claimed that the University of Florida blew up because of some underground gas leak. My brother Kenny wasn’t too happy about that neither because the Gator’s basketball team had to play their home games for a year at Moses Junior High down in Ocala. He tore up the letter of intent he had signed, but Mama taped it back together again. She then sat Kenny down on the couch and gave her lecture on “commitment” while Daddy just rolled his eyes.