by Jack Dey
"Mummy, will we be able to leave here tomorrow? I miss Daddy and Grandma and Grandpa."
Yvette reached down and lifted her five year old, blonde haired daughter into her arms. The child wrapped her arms and legs about her mother and pressed into her chest.
"I hope so, sweetheart," she said, cuddling her while desperately trying to conceal her doubts.
Yvette had been chasing a ghost, a shadowy figure that had consumed a great portion of her adult life and she was beginning to despair of the apparent fruitless quest. Her husband, Greg, encouraged her search, while trying to understand the grief that drove her and didn't stand in her way. He seemed to think that one day it would finally pay off and Yvette’s restlessness would come to an end. Yvette sighed, wondering whether she would ever be rid of the hole in her heart and at the same time, she was thankful for such a wonderful man and missed his embrace desperately. Tonight, as she pressed her forehead against the cold window frame, the familiar ache crept into her heart and she wondered whether all the globetrotting would be better left behind her. She felt sure this obsession would have left her when Chloe had been born, but it just grew even stronger as Chloe grew. Although June and Peter Willis loved and raised Yvette as their own, she still needed to know the circumstances of her adoption.
She had to find her birth mother.
June secretly hoped Yvette would give up the search that had consumed most of her adult life. Each time June waved off Yvette from the airport on yet another attempt, she died a little bit more inside.
June and Peter knew very little of the story surrounding Yvette's mother, only that she had abandoned Yvette at birth, in the hospital in which she had been born. Her mother had simply vanished soon after she had given birth, never to be heard of again. The hospital staff found out later that the name she’d given, Debra Parkinson, was an assumed name, which left the baby girl as a ward of the state. Eventually, Yvette had been fostered with friends of the Willis' who were living in Chicago at the time. On a second honeymoon, June and Peter had visited Chicago and dropped in to see their friends. Almost immediately, June fell in love with baby Yvette, which in turn set in motion a heart-rending, two year international legal battle to adopt Yvette and take her home to Sydney.
Yvette was a loving child and had lived a stable and happy life with the Willis' until the crushing day when it slipped out about her adoption. Although she loved June and Peter, the search for her identity consumed her, leaving a trail of disappointment and frustration.
A high point in her life was when she had met Greg at her twenty first birthday party and they’d fallen in love. They’d married two years later and nine months after that, Chloe arrived.
Yvette’s melancholy ruminations suddenly subsided and her attention returned to the present, feeling Chloe’s embrace slipping and her sleeping body flailing in her mother’s arms. Yvette kissed her daughter’s forehead, walked over to the double bed they shared and placed her gently back in between the covers. Chloe stirred, turned over and went back to sleep. The television was talking to itself in the background and for some reason, Yvette glanced over at it. A weatherman was explaining a slow moving cold front, settling in over Chicago, while more snow was expected overnight.
Yvette longed to be back in Sydney, where it was warm. Greg was anxiously waiting for their return and she longed to feel his warm arms wrapped tightly around her. She had seen the crushed look in her mother's eyes and had felt torn, between finding her identity and her real family, and hurting the only people who had loved and wanted her. After all, they had chosen her and fought for her, eventually winning and taken her as their own. A small tear dropped to the worn, grey carpet. She glanced across to her daughter, sleeping peacefully in the double bed and tried to imagine what it must be like for June, letting her go each time on another attempt to find her blood mother.
The thought suddenly occurred to her, June must think I am trying to replace her. The tears flowed, as she saw in her memory the wounded look of the only mother she had ever known. No...no...Mother, I am not trying to replace you. I just want to know.
The telephone interrupted her thoughts. She wiped the tears away with the back of her hand and paused a moment to gain her composure.
"Hello."
"Mrs Lawrence?" a polished, professional woman's voice greeted her ear.
"Yes, speaking."
"This is Tanya from Flight Centre Chicago. How are you?”
Tanya didn’t wait for Yvette’s response, as she had a head full of information and a rescheduling nightmare to complete before O’Hare was completely closed by the worsening snowstorm. Without an acknowledgement, Tanya hurriedly moved on, “It is extremely likely O'Hare Airport will be closed to large commercial aircraft by morning, due to the forecast for more snow."
Tanya heard Yvette's sigh and continued anyway, "I have rescheduled your flight and if you don't mind doing a bit of a milk run, I can get you and your daughter across to Los Angeles Airport on a smaller plane and connect with a Qantas flight leaving LAX for Sydney. You will have to be ready to go by 4 am, though. Can you manage it?"
Yvette's tone brightened. "Yes, we will be ready and thank you so much, Tanya."
Yvette hurriedly packed their belongings, even though it was close to midnight. She glanced over at the sleeping blonde form, relieved the call hadn’t woken her and was still fast asleep clutching her teddy bear. She thumbed her way through the timetable for the El and mentally marked the train which would take them directly to O'Hare. She glanced again through the window, down at the street below. Snowflakes were still falling, their shadowy reflection illuminated by the street lights and piles of snow covered the sidewalk.
*~*~*~*
Tony Barrett was an experienced Qantas pilot, flying A330-203s since their inception, in 2000. He had been on the Sydney-LA run for many years and knew LAX airport like the inside of his own house. Although the A330s were usually a reliable aircraft, they weren't without their faults. To the greater part, when the aircraft was off the ground, it would fly itself, leaving the pilot in a minder role, checking instruments, flight heading and the weather situation. The computerised plane was known among pilots as flying by wire.
Barrett, being the captain and senior member of the flight crew, was responsible for the safety of all onboard his flight. As a standard company procedure, when the flight was halfway between Sydney and LA, he was required to check in with the Hawaii Control Tower. Barrett pressed the intercom button to make the call, wondering which one of the many people he knew in the tower, would answer his transmission.
"Qantas Flight, QF1156, to Control Tower Hawaii, do you read, over?"
"This is Hawaii Control Tower, reading you loud and clear, QF1156, over."
Barrett immediately recognised the cheerful greeting of Samu, a large Hawaiian man.
"Good morning, Samu, over," Barrett responded.
"Captain Barrett! So that's you flying the blip on my radar? Nice to hear from you," Samu replied. "Your weather situation is clear, right up to 45,000 feet. You will pick up some turbulence from a cold front coming down from the north, around 200 miles out from LA. It shouldn't give you too much trouble, but ice and snow will close O'Hare later on this morning. You will fly over the top of your sister ship, heading east, at altitude 35,000 feet in approximately three hours. Maintain your present course and altitude and have a nice day. Hawaii Control, over and out."
"Thanks, Samu. QF1156, over and out."
Barrett’s attention returned to the cockpit and the instruments glowing in the dark, like some oversized computer game. The scene outside the windscreen of the cockpit was in complete darkness, while his passengers and crew would be fast asleep. The A330 tirelessly droned on into the early morning, now three quarters of the way into the journey to LA. They were on time; the aircraft was performing well and the fuel consumption was far below expectations, a situation which pleased him, giving credence to the professional image he liked to keep up. A fresh
crew would be waiting to take the A330 on an immediate turnaround flight, after refuelling and flight checks, with a new group of anxious passengers, back to Sydney.
Barrett let his thoughts wander for a moment, as he contemplated his looming retirement. He had his yearly medical coming up and another simulator training session in a month. They would throw every conceivable emergency at him, but his calm and experience would outfox the simulator each time. The engineers who designed the simulator interviewed Barrett to write the programme, using his experience to train younger pilots. He showed the engineers real life situations he had faced and how to put the pilots under extreme pressure and in so doing, they would learn from his knowledge.
He was just about to wake his co-pilot, so he could stretch his legs, when the ECAM flashed up an amber caution light for the right hand engine. A memo scrolled across the screen at the same time. Barrett blinked at the sudden intrusion to his near perfect flight, then reached across and shook his co-pilot out of his sleep. The two men stared at the screen, reading the memo carefully. The right hand engine had dropped oil pressure by a couple of kPa over the length of the flight and although it wasn't anything major at this point, it needed to be watched.
The A330 was a mass of complex, computerised electronics and warning systems. The computer systems controlled every part of the aircraft, sending error messages to the pilot for each compromised situation. The messages were sent in colour code, depending on the urgency of the situation: from an amber message requiring a watchful eye; to a red, land as soon as possible message, which was accompanied by an audible alarm. When an error occurred somewhere on the aircraft systems, it logged into the aircraft's maintenance computer and sent a message to the company’s maintenance department, so that a suitably qualified, licensed aircraft maintenance engineer could retrieve the information and examine the fault in real time.
Barrett recalled, in the past twelve months he had heard of two separate A330 G.E. engines that had blown up on takeoff. His instincts were aroused, but he kept his thoughts to himself and if maintenance thought it was a real threat, they would be in contact with him before they landed. Calmly, he entered the fault into his flight log.
There would be no sleep for him now.
Thirty minutes out and just as the sun was starting to rise, he made contact with the LA Control Tower and explained the situation with the warning. He requested emergency services standing by as a precaution, while the lack of response from the company maintenance hangar concerned him.
He prepared the aircraft for landing, setting the autopilot to track the Instrument Landing System beacon, automatically setting up the aircraft on the correct glide slope and lining it up for the centre of the runway. At present, the ILS was guiding the A330 autopilot, but he was ready to land the plane manually if the ECAM warning escalated. He pressed the fasten seat belt sign button and the bing echoed throughout the aircraft, waking sleeping passengers, while the final decent into LAX began.
Just as Barrett was finalising the landing checklist, the ECAM warning blinked out and the system returned to normal.
That's odd, Barrett thought.
*~*~*~*
Chapter 3
As it turned to position itself on the end of the tarmac, ready to make its run up for takeoff, the twin turbo propped De Havilland Dash 8-100 slid awkwardly and sent a shudder into the airframe, adding to the fears of an already nervous passenger cabin.
Yvette gripped the seat and glanced over at the flight attendant to see if she seemed concerned. When she calmly smiled back and continued to stroll the cabin, Yvette relaxed and gazed out of the window instead. Outside the modest aircraft window and in the lights of the petite airliner, Yvette could see the snow was beginning to fall faster and she felt sure they would abort takeoff and cancel the flight. From her window seat, the lights of Chicago’s O'Hare Airport terminal were almost obliterated by the thick, dark cloud, closing in quickly across the runway and obscuring the view from the windscreen of the small, turbo propped aircraft. Chloe held onto her mother's hand tightly and no one spoke among the thirty nervous passengers onboard. Everyone was locked silent into their own worlds of personal fear, wondering whether they would live to see LA.
The pilot pushed the throttles fully open and the twin, turbo propped engines roared in response. The passengers braced themselves and heartbeats raced, too late to reconsider whether this connecting flight was going to be a good idea. The pilot released the brakes and the tiny aircraft started down the runway, slowly at first, but gathering speed rapidly. Aircraft speed continued to increase until they were committed to takeoff and there was no turning back. The darkness sped by the window as the white line markings on the tarmac surface flashed past, faster and faster, illuminated in the lights of the tiny airliner. The eerie stroboscope of light hurt Yvette's tired eyes and she had to look away, focusing her fear instead, on the seat in front.
While the turbo prop approached lift off speed, it slipped sideways suddenly, causing the pilot to react, correcting the sudden, unexpected movement. A muffled scream rippled through the cabin as the pilot quickly brought the slip back under his control and then finally pulled back on the stick, lifting the tiny Dash 8 into the air. As the small aeroplane bumped and jolted and then climbed effortlessly, a relieved cheer erupted through the plane while the cabin tilted, banking to the left on its way to find the designated route and climb through 25,000 feet.
The foggy lights of Chicago quickly disappeared behind them in a blanket of heavy, black cloud. A sudden patch of turbulence buffeted the plane and made the wings bounce up and down, throwing the stomachs of the passengers this way and that. Soon, the little aeroplane burst through the storm cloud and levelled out into clear air. The stars were unambiguous and shining at this level, while the dense, angry cloud slipped further behind them.
It seemed as if the pilot had only just turned off the seat belt sign, when the audible ping alerted the flight attendant and she traversed the cabin, making sure the passengers complied with the pilots directive and prepared everyone for landing again. LAX was just a short flight from Chicago and was now only fifteen minutes away.
Yvette was feeling nauseous as the turbo prop began to slow and lose altitude on its decent into LAX airport. She hadn't eaten since early yesterday and all the rush and stress was telling on her. She would have some breakfast in the airport and only allow herself to relax once she and Chloe were safely on board flight QF1156, bound for Sydney.
*~*~*~*
"I tell you, Captain Barrett, the computer isn’t showing any codes logged, both on my laptop and on the company database. See for yourself."
Tony Barrett gazed at the computer screen and the blinking light on the engineer's laptop, from his seat in the cockpit. The engineer’s laptop was showing all systems functional.
"My co-pilot saw the amber light and read the message with me. Ask him yourself," an exasperated Tony Barrett complained.
The engineer sighed at the insistence of the pilot. "We will check the engine over and carry out some tests, but without a fault code logged, we won't be able to tell anything. Besides, we will be getting pressure from management to get the plane back in the air."
Barrett felt annoyed at the constant pressure from management to keep the planes flying. What would it take for them to cross a line and put hundreds of innocent lives at risk? He filled in his flight log and carried out his post-flight checks, tired after an intense four hours of nursing the engine and then having it return to normal just before landing, without any trace of the fault. He felt a growing unease and added his recommendations to the bottom of his log entry: Aircraft should be removed from service and carefully checked before next commercial flight.
Barrett made his way off the empty aircraft and into LAX terminal. The in-flight service crew were already busy preparing to board the aircraft, in a frenzy of cleaning and restocking for its next flight in two hours, while Tony Barrett had a permanent room booked at a close by hotel
and he was looking forward to a hot shower and two days break before piloting another A330 back to Sydney.
*~*~*~*
"Final boarding call for all passengers on Qantas Flight, QF1156, Los Angeles to Sydney. Your aircraft is ready to leave," a booming voice echoed through the departure lounge of LAX.
Yvette took Chloe's hand. "That's us. We will soon be on our way home."
Yvette’s demeanour was one of relief, although leaving their boarding for the last possible moment before the long flight home. After making their way through customs, immigration and all the terrorist checks, they finally boarded the aircraft, found their seats, and buckled in. Yvette felt the tension draining from her neck and shoulders, and in a matter of 16 hours travelling, they would be back home with the ones they loved so dearly.
*~*~*~*
Captain Colin Brund was a fresh faced wonder boy who had taken Qantas training by storm. He was twenty nine and a man earmarked for promotion within the company. His arrogant knowledge and understanding of the aircraft he flew was matched by none... just ask him! His fine features and athletic good looks made him a magnet for every flight attendant in Qantas. He had a lady in every port and his charismatic personality made sure he would be the focus and life of every party.
As Brund was scheduled to be the next pilot for the trip back to Sydney at the controls of the A330, Barrett had tried to engage him on his concerns with the misbehaving aircraft, but after reading the report from the LAMEs, Brund had just fobbed Barrett off.
"It's all good, Tony. I've got it under control," Brund reposited, his eyes following the smile of an attractive new flight attendant who happened to walk past.