by Mark Wandrey
The glass cockpit environment was configurable in more ways than he’d thought possible. Fighters were straightforward in their layout. Climb out of a 1970s F-14 Tomcat and into an F-22 and you’d find a lot of similar stuff in the same places. The A-380 was simply stunning in its sheer complexity of systems. He was frankly amazed it didn’t fly with a flight engineer, like planes used to back in the day. The fact was that it pulled that feat off with a large amount of computer automation. Now, with that automation mostly out, he was feeling increasingly screwed.
He looked back to the manual sitting across his knee and tried to ignore the pounding on the door. “Fuel Low,” an audible warning piped up. He stabbed the override without thinking, found a code on the page and keyed it in. The problem he was having was that many of the configurable touch screens were trashed. When the pilot got his throat ripped out, it had sprayed blood all over the place. More than half the displays were screwed, either on the blink from the bloodbath or broken in the struggle. The code went in, and all the screens went blank, even the ones that were still working.
“Well, that’s not good.” However, on a computer screen, the only one still working, was a series of icons with dropdowns. He’d managed to access the maintenance configuration screen and could now assign any data to any screen. “Yes!” he said and immediately began assigning critical info to his three working panels.
Navigation with altitude and course as well as radar came up, the radar flashing to tell him this was the backup (main radar was out). Next screen got consumables and power management. The final screen his meatball (artificial horizon), and flight surface feedback.
They were doing 650 knots at flight level 250, 25,000 feet. “Why the hell are we that low?” he wondered. Normally he’d instantly begin climbing out of the storm. One glance at the fuel gauge killed that idea. He tapped the icon and then the ‘Endurance’ option that appeared. “24 minutes” flashed in response, shaded a bright red. Andrew stared at it for a moment until it changed to 23. “Jesus Christ.”
Before he even looked at Nav he reached to the autopilot controls, luckily still on their own little working panel, and input instructions. He decreased speed from cruise to minimum to maintain altitude. The power management system showed all four turbines spool down and the elevators changed angle to compensate, angling the huge aircraft’s nose up slightly. The endurance display jumped to 36. That would buy him some time, and that was everything. “As long as you’re flying, you’re living,” his first flight instructor had told him years ago.
Nav was next. It took some fiddling to get the malfunctioning system to work. It kept trying to act with their route interactively and was having trouble, as evidenced by the failure of the automated flight path. According to the ETA display they should have landed a half an hour ago. When he eventually got a basic map locator it made him hiss in frustration. They were over central Mexico! He glanced out the window, half expecting to see a Mexican F-15 on his wing. He saw only clouds and lightning.
The radio was on its own panel as well, and was redundant. He flipped to a regional ATC channel by memory and pressed the Trans button on the stick. “This is Air Saudi Flight 66 Heavy over Mexican air space, and I am declaring an emergency. Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Air Saudi Flight 66, I say again, mayday, mayday, mayday.” Andrew released the button and waited. Nothing. He repeated the call. “I add, this flight was destined for Houston. We have experienced…” what the fuck could he say? “We’ve experienced a sickness on board. The captain and flight crew are disabled. We have lost autopilot and have strayed off course. I have less than thirty minutes of fuel on board and need directions for an emergency landing, soonest! Mayday, mayday, mayday!”
“Air Saudi 66,” another voice spoke, “this is Latin Air 4566.”
Andrew let his head fall forward for a moment and heaved a sigh. At least someone had responded, though not ATC. “Go ahead, Latin 4566.”
“We are not getting a response from ATC either. There are more than forty flights in your vicinity that are seeking direction as well. Did you say your fuel is critical?”
“That’s correct,” he replied. The plane leveled off and the engines started to spin up and the endurance fell. He dialed down the speed on the autopilot until the alarm sounded and wouldn’t let him go any lower. They’d slowed to under 350 knots.
“Are you a 767 or something similar? I show you not far from Torreon.”
Andrew fished around in the pilot’s seat pouch, found the pilot’s iPad and powered it up. Luckily the man hadn’t password protected it. Most of the planets airport approach maps and runway details were there. He quickly found Torreon. It was Francisco Sarabia International Airport, and it was small. “I’m in an A380, Air Latin.”
“Roger that,” the other pilot in a definitive tone, and a long silence followed. Andrew paged around and found Mexico City International. He used the iPad’s navigational aid, it was more reliable than the plane’s just now. Over 250 miles. He would be lucky to make 100 before he was a dead stick.
“Can you make Mexico City?” asked the Air Latin pilot.
“Negative,” Andrew replied. He was finally leaving the storm behind, but a new fear was beginning to take hold. He could see a bit of the land below him through clouds. It was rocky and bleak. The airport in Torreon was listed at 1,700 meters. The book said that for a normal landing he’d need 1,900 meters. Now he’d be light on fuel, so maybe he could trim a hundred meters. But he’d never landed a commercial jet, and this pig was the biggest of them all. And who knew what kind of damage that storm had done?
“Air Saudi 66,” a new female voice chimed in and for a moment his heart faced. Was ATC back?
“Air Saudi 66, go ahead!”
“This is Air Mexico 1244,” the voice came back and he crashed again. “Can you make Monterrey?”
Monterrey, he thought, and punched it up on the iPad. Runway 16/34 was only 1,600 meters, but 11/29 was 1,800 meters! Trying not to get too excited, he punched in the navigation information. It was about eighty miles. He didn’t need a second to think about it and instantly put the plane into a bank for a course of 225 on a bearing for Monterrey.
“Air Mexico, thanks,” he said, “I think you just saved our lives.”
“The wind is usually from the south this time of year,” the female pilot warned him, “and you’ll have to use 11/29 which is east/west, but it’s better than a highway.”
“For sure, Air Mexico. I don’t think they make highways big enough for this thing.”
“God speed,” Air Latin offered. A few others jumped in with advice on approach and well wishes. Two even turned to follow him, a 747 out of Brisbane and an A320 that had come up from Rio. None of them were as fuel critical as he was, but they were short on options as well.
When you were almost out of fuel, eighty miles seemed like a trip to the Moon. Especially as the low fuel alarm was going off every minute on the instrument panel of the five hundred and sixty ton airplane you really didn’t know how to fly. He completed the turn using the autopilot then set it for a quick descent. Eighty miles was actually less distance than he should have used to descend this aircraft for 25,000 feet. However, since he’d slowed to only 315 knots, it wouldn’t be that difficult.
He knew he was within twenty-five miles and was using the barely functioning radar navigational system to try and locate the Monterrey airport beacon. It wasn’t there. He tried their published ATC frequency, and just like earlier, got nothing. The storm was behind him now and the early morning sky, while cloudy, below 10,000, was clear where he was. He’d been on the descent approach vector for several minutes, dropping below 3,000 feet. Ahead and to the north was a low mountain and as he passed he got his first look at the resort city of Monterrey. “Oh fuck me,” he said.
The city was built on and around a series of low hills. Housing areas were clustered around shopping districts, historic districts, and a few industrial zones. The smoke from ten thousand fires spiraled
into the sky over the devastated city. The center of the city, once a series of rather modern high rise buildings built around turn of the century structures was a crater a half mile across. There was only one possibility. Someone had nuked Monterrey. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he cursed and grabbed the dead pilot’s iPad again.
Landing maps that pilots carried held relatively limited information. Basically they included the flight approach patterns, runways, and taxiway layouts of an airport. There were some details on the surrounding terrain, mostly to warn a pilot of hills, high radio towers or buildings. He knew he had to stay above 1,000 feet to clear the hills he’d just gone over and their radio towers. The towers were no longer a concern. All that remained were charred stumps.
Monterrey airport was not very close to the downtown area, but how close? It was to the southeast of the charred remains of the city center. He looked at the airport runway, now less than twenty miles away, and then towards the ruins. “Maybe eight miles,” he guessed. It was difficult to see past the city. Smoke was obscuring his vision.
The plane passed over the southern outskirts of the city and began to bounce as it encountered rising currents of air from fires below. As he continued to descend it got worse. Much worse. He grabbed the flap control and gave it two more clicks, and an alarm sounded. “Flap failure,” the information center warned him. He glanced at the flap control. Twenty percent. Landing required one hundred percent flaps. “Great.”
“Air Saudi, what happened to Monterrey!” one of the flights behind him called out.
“Dear God, the whole city is on fire!” the other exclaimed.
Andrew ignored them, and when they started screaming he reached out and flicked off the radio. At this point he was landing no matter what. The fuel indicator was no longer registering. The question was if he were landing on the wheels, or on the nose.
As he passed within a mile of the crater that was once the center of a city, he reached down and grabbed the lever with a plastic wheel on it, pulled out and snapped it down. On the console five indicators representing the plane’s landing gear went from black with white lines to yellow with X marks. There was a loud buzz that dropped in volume but continued to sound as the gear began cycling down. First the nose gear indicator switched to green, then the two rear inboards, and after an eternity the outboard. Andrew breathed and shook sweat from his forehead. Something had finally worked right.
Two miles out, he was below five hundred feet and going way too fast. He reduced throttle as far back as he dared and only slowed to 225 mph. “Too damned fast,” he said and searched the group of control levers until he found what he wanted. He deployed the speed brakes. The speed dropped to under 200 and the information center warned him. “Do not attempt landing with speed brakes deployed.”
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Insufficient Flaps.”
“I know,” he growled.
As if it were listening it displayed another warning. “Glide path not optimal. More flaps.”
“That’s a negative,” he said and felt the response in the joystick. It was incredibly sluggish, taking almost a second to respond to his commands. His breath was coming in gasps. He was flying on the ragged edge.
“Pull up,” a voice suddenly yelled and an annoying chirp sounded. “Pull up.”
Whatever, he thought, but then the plane began to throttle up on its own. “Oh, no you don’t!” he cried and searched the control screen. Master Override was in yellow in the bottom corner. He stabbed it hard enough to hurt his finger. Instantly the throttle dropped to almost nothing and the stall alarm screamed in his ear.
“Piece of shit!” he yelled and gave it more throttle and a little nose down. The turbines spooled up and the stall alarm stopped. He battled to keep the speed as slow as possible, see-sawing between descending flight and stalling.
“Three hundred,” the automatic altitude warned him.
Andrew scanned the approaching airport. There were a few planes parked at the terminal and one almost on the runway 11/29[[?]], but he thought it was clear enough. One of the hangars was burning and he thought he saw some people near the terminal. They appeared to be just standing around. That was strange.
“No time to worry about that now,” he said. The runway appeared clear, and that was all that mattered at this point. He didn’t think he’d have enough fuel to go around to the other one anyway. And then the starboard outboard engine warning went off. It had flamed out.
“Fuel critical,” the computer warned.
Andrew instantly turned off the port outboard engine to balance thrust and further reduced power. The stall alarm went off and he stowed [[s/b ‘slowed’?]] the speed brakes and decreased his angle of attack. He was in an unpowered glide of the biggest commercial airliner in the world.
“Two hundred, one fifty, one hundred. Fifty, forty, thirty.”
The antenna and outer marker equipment loomed. “Shit!” he yelled and grit his teeth. The outer marker passed under him so closer he could read writing on the antenna and he pulled back, flaring the huge plane. The air speed dropped and the stall alarm renewed its panic. “Stall!” it warned. “Stall!”
The massive rear wheels slammed onto the very edge of the runway hard enough for him to go “Oof!” The titanic plane shuddered violently, he’d blown several tires. He pulled back as hard as he could to keep the nose from driving into the tarmac. The much lighter nose gear would have crumpled like cheap lawn furniture.
He just managed to bring it down in a semblance of a normal touchdown before he reached over and grabbed the thrust reverse controls, jerked them back and snapped them into position and pushed the inboard throttle controls all the way up, deploying the air brakes at the same time. The two inboard engines spooled up with a scream of power, panels opening on their sides and directing their thousands of pounds of thrust mostly forward.
All five sets of warning stripes raced by and his mind started counting distances. 1,500 meters, 180 mph. 1,200 meters, 150mph, 1,000 meters, 120 mph. Both remaining engines flamed out. “I’m not going to make it,” he said as he reached a foot over and gave the brakes a pulse. The warning of excessive speed on brakes went off, but since he’d already hit the master override it took his command and he felt the sickening lurch of the wheels skidding. Rubber flew like shrapnel from the three blown tires, pelting the underside of the huge wings. He actually saw pieces of one tire fly out of the corner of his eye. 500 meters, 100 mph.
“Come on you fucking beast!” he yelled. Only 250 meters left and still going 80 mph. He tapped a control he’d located earlier, disabling the antilock system, and with the veins standing out on his neck he stomped the brake pedal.
More than five hundred tons of super-sized aircraft skidded for a moment then started to go sideways. There was nothing Andrew could do at this point; he was just along for the ride. He lost track of how much runway was left and was beginning to wonder when the starboard landing gear went off the end and hit grass. With a maddening jerk the plane came to an explosive and shuddering stop, pitching him sideways violently. His head fetched up against a panel and he was cast into darkness.
Chapter 16
Saturday, April 21
Evening
Dr. Lisha Breda stared at the lab work and shook her head in disbelief. The more tests she did the more unbelievable the results became. She looked up from filing some of the data on the project’s computers to glance at the LCD monitor a tech had installed only hours ago. On it the grainy image of Grant Porter, former research specialist, could be seen walking back and forth in his cage. Only a few of those who remained in the station were even aware he was still alive. If alive was an accurate term.
Earlier she’d drugged him and removed a significant portion of his brain, including cutting in the prefrontal lobe. She stitched him back up and followed all the protocols, but figured that was that. No one had been more surprised than her when she’d looked up a few hours ago to see him walking around. She’d noted in her ca
se book that the patient demonstrated no noticeable decrease in abilities from before the procedure. But the shocks were only just beginning.
The prepared slides from the brain tissue displayed the same chemical reaction to the preserving dyes. It was turned a surreal shade of green. Worse, as she observed the condition of the brain matter she noted cellular activity. Two hours after the sample was removed. “This isn’t possible,” she’d said into a verbal log, then laughed out loud. Her whole situation was impossible!
“Doctor,” her new assistant, Edith, called. “You should look at this.”
Lisha took a sip of cold coffee and got up, her back complaining loudly as she hobbled over to the other woman’s bench. On her screen was displayed a scan of brain matter. She’d managed to isolate a pair of neurons, the specialized brain cells that made intelligence possible.
“Good slide,” Lisha complemented.
“Thanks, but that’s not what I wanted to show you.” The young woman gestured to a little computer display measuring incredibly tiny electrical charges. As Lisha watched it recorded a reading, and then again a moment later.
“Are you certain of the source?”
“This is the second slide I prepared, Doctor.”
Lisha nodded. “I see.”
“That isn’t the most alarming part,” Edith said and pulled up a file on her computer. “Something was tickling on the back of my mind.” The computer displayed another slide of neurons, the one the girl said she’d done earlier. “I’d been concentrating on the electrical responses, and didn’t notice what they were from.”
Lisha watched for a moment before she realized. “They’re reorganizing?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you, Edith.” Lisha went back to her desk and fell into the chair with a sigh. She desperately needed sleep, but she wanted answers even worse.