Equal Time Point

by Harrison Jones

“Help me sit up.”

  Once Nancy was upright, she reached into her pants pocket and came out with several sheets of folded paper.

  “I ripped these out of the In-Flight Manual, in case we made it this far.”

  Britt looked at the sheets and realized that they were the ditching section of the manual.

  “Nancy, you are a genius.”

  They quickly found the pages describing the raft operation. They read about the survival pack and found it after a few minutes. The first aid kit contained the items they needed to bind Nancy’s ankle, and then they set about making people busy. Two men were assigned the task of putting the canopy up. Another group was given the responsibility of figuring out how to use the desalination kit to make fresh water. They read about the sea anchor and deployed it to slow their rate of drift. More than anything else, their efforts gave people something to do and a sense of purpose. Once they had accomplished all that could be done, Britt sat down and looked through the remaining items in the pack. She could see no immediate use for the flare gun or signal mirror, and the referee’s whistle didn’t make much sense. She and Nancy decided not to mention the energy bars to anyone else so that they could be rationed later. The last thing they wanted to do was make people thirsty or feed them fiber. There were a few more items to be sorted out and read about in the survival book they found in the pack.

  Everyone had quieted down, and they waited for full daylight to improve the foggy view. Britt and Nancy leaned against the side of the raft and read the survival book and the pages from the In-Flight Manual.

  Nancy said, “I hear birds. Are we close to land?”

  “I’m not surprised you’re hearing little birdies. That was quite a blow to your head.”

  “I’m serious, Britt. I hear something.”

  They quietly listened and didn’t hear anything at first. Then, very faintly, Britt heard it too.

  “I think I do hear something, Nancy. What is that?”

  Suddenly it occurred to her. She dug in the survival pack and came out with the whistle. She blew it, and it was so loud it scared everyone on the raft, including herself. She explained what she was doing, and everyone listened. When they agreed which direction the noise came from, they began taking turns with the paddle. After ten minutes, it seemed that they had barely moved, but it was hard to judge with no reference except open water. An elderly lady, who had not said much at all, tapped Britt on the shoulder. “Dear, shouldn’t you bring up that sea anchor thing?”

  The sea anchor was nothing more than a plastic bag on a rope, but after they retrieved it the raft began to make visible progress. They continued to blow the whistle and listen for the answer. The progress was maddeningly slow, but they were getting closer. The men in the raft took turns with the paddle, and after almost an hour Britt saw a brief glimpse of bright yellow. Soon everyone could see the other raft and began yelling to them. Britt could see two red vests in the raft, and as they came closer, she saw that Tony and Mary Dobson had survived.

  After a frenzy of paddling from both rafts, they were finally close enough for Tony to throw a heaving line over, and they pulled the yellow tubs close and tied them together. Tony asked, “Are you okay, Britt?”

  “I’m fine, but Nancy has an injured ankle. That’s our only casualty, though. Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, we’ve got a few bumps and bruises but nothing serious. I only have eighteen people, including Mary and myself.”

  “Did anybody else get out?”

  “Yeah, Charlie and I loaded the other overwing raft and launched it with Candace. It was pretty full.”

  “Great. I know Robby launched at the one-right door, but I don’t know how many people he had. I think everyone in business got out, though.”

  “We just have to keep our faith. I transmitted our position to a Navy ship, so they’ll be looking for us soon.”

  The Karuk was rocking and rolling. The big propeller on the little ship was making maximum turns and leaving a large wake. Unfortunately, the tug was built for power, not speed. It could tow an aircraft carrier, but not very fast. Captain William Maxwell convened a meeting of the ship’s officers in the wardroom on the second deck.

  “Gentlemen, Rota now has eight aircraft in the search area; however, none of them have rescue capability. Other surface ships are steaming to the area also, but I intend to not only be there first, but to complete the rescue before anyone else has a chance. Each of you will have the remainder of the day to prepare your respective departments. I expect all hands on deck with full capability and no excuses.”

  He turned to the engineering officer.

  “Mr. Crouch, you will have your snipes check everything that can be checked. There will be no inoperative equipment. I want the electricians to test the carbon arc searchlights for night operations and I want them to test the small boat davits for launch. I want your best man on the propulsion switch board when we begin the search grid.”

  All the enlisted men who worked below decks on the ship were known as snipes. The engineering officer did not take offense. “Max, we can’t test the small boat davits at flank speed.”

  “Well, that’s the only speed you’re going to see today, and if those boats don’t lower when I say put them in the water, you can explain to a review board why you can’t follow orders.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Mr. Strickland, your deck apes will have all rescue equipment checked and in place by eighteen hundred hours. Be prepared to transfer whatever is needed to the small boats when we launch. I want sickbay prepared to take casualties, and you make sure Doc has what he needs.

  Lieutenant Strickland was likewise not offended that his enlisted men working above decks were called deck apes, but he thought, Doc is an enlisted petty officer medical corpsman, and sickbay is not much bigger than a closet with a box of band-aids in it. Give me a break.

  The captain continued. “Have the mess cooks clear some space in the ship’s freezer, in case we need to store bodies for a few days. Next, I want a dive platform ready to be lowered, and I want the divers in wet suits prepared to go in the water if necessary. The small boats will launch and recover survivors to the platform, where they will be taken aboard. We have to expect two hundred survivors, and if necessary, they will be accommodated in the crew berthing compartments. The crew will sleep on deck. Are there any questions?”

  Lieutenant Strickland said, “For those of you that haven’t heard, the primary search grid has been relocated thirty miles to the east. It shouldn’t affect our ETA very much, but initial operations will begin in the dark.”

  Captain Maxwell said, “That will be all gentlemen, carry on.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The room that the technical operations accident team had been assigned was on the south side of the building with windows that afforded the members a view of the airport. There were five people in the room poring over technical data for the fuel system. Each member had been assigned space at a conference table and provided a laptop computer in order to access the online maintenance manuals.

  At mid-morning, the vice president of Tech Ops, Jake Smith, called for a roundtable discussion to sort out what had been learned so far. He asked Phil to begin the session.

  “I have been trying to sort through the facts in order to establish what can be validated as credible premise. I believe we can eliminate fuel contamination, simply because the airplane had been in flight for several hours with no reported problems, and all tanks were loaded from the same source. In addition to that, the engines would have been feeding from separate tanks with a normal burn schedule. There could have conceivably been a problem with one engine but not all three. Therefore, I think we should focus on fuel exhaustion.”

  Jake said, “That’s good thinking, Phil. I should have told you that I just received a transcript of the mayday. It specifically states fuel exhaustion as the reason for the emergency.”

  “In that case, we only have to determine how and why
. The position report at forty west mentioned no problems, and less than an hour later, they were out of fuel. That indicates a massive leak. Someone can double check my calculations, but it seems to me that with a normal fuel management schedule, the center aux tanks would be dry, leaving fuel in the mains and tip tanks only. The problem I’m having is understanding how both main tanks could develop such a huge leak. We’ve never experienced a difficulty with the integrity of the tanks, and the odds of two tanks having a problem are too great to consider. The only thing common to both tanks is the dump manifold.”

  Jake said, “You’re right, but there are two fail-safes to prevent dumping all the fuel, even if the valves opened inadvertently. The pilots normally program the flight management computer to automatically close the dump valves at max landing weight, and even if that failed, there is a standpipe level at twenty thousand pounds.”

  “I agree, but the only other possibilities I can come up with are fuel freezing or bird strikes rupturing the leading edge of the wing. The flight plan actually indicated a plus two for temperature at cruise levels. For thirty-five thousand feet, that would be minus fifty-three degrees centigrade, which should not create a problem, even if they were there much longer than they were. We all know that there are no birds at thirty-five thousand feet, so that brings me back to the dump valves.”

  “Okay, Phil. I’ll have someone double check with meteorology and see if the actual temperatures matched the forecast. Meanwhile, you can dig out all the dump system design information and start going through it. Check with engineering and see if there have been any modifications to the system recently. Please don’t find any evidence that we screwed something up to cause this. Who’s working on the aircraft maintenance history?”

  Another of the team members spoke up.

  “I’ve got all the logbooks, Jake, and everything looks pretty routine.”

  “Have there been any squawks or routine maintenance on the fuel dump system?”

  “There is no mention of the fuel system at all in the last couple of months.”

  “Maybe there should have been. Here’s some information you’ll love. Gene Clark and the feds want to meet with us after lunch. I’m not sure who will be with him, but let’s share what we have and try to learn what they know.”

  Ray Slackman was having a bad morning. He had arrived at work with a headache and was finding it very difficult to focus on his duties. Even the routine maintenance chores were a challenge, and he made several glaring errors that required correcting before anyone noticed. He seriously considered feigning illness and going home, but he knew that it would only draw attention to himself. Of course, the topic of conversation among all the mechanics was Flight Eleven, and everyone had a theory. Ray avoided the discussion and tried to keep a low profile. He had not been approached by anyone with questions, and by mid-morning, he was beginning to relax. He told himself time and again that there was no evidence that he had tampered with the dump valves.

  He decided to take his morning break as usual and stood before the vending machines perusing the choices. He almost bolted and ran when the foreman stepped out of his office and said, “Ray, I’ve been looking for you. I need to see you in the office.”

  Thoughts raced through his mind as he slowly walked across the room and into the foreman’s lair. He had prepared a speech for this eventuality, but now his mouth was dry, and his tongue was thick.

  “Come in and have a seat Ray. I suppose you know that ship 826 is the bird that went down last night. Did you see anything unusual at all when you did the service check yesterday?”

  Ray tried not to sound defensive.

  “No, nothing at all. Everything checked out normal.”

  The foreman said, “I don’t know the details of what happened, but they seem to be focusing on the fuel system. I know there are no items on the service check concerning the fuel system other than the exterior walk around inspection. Did you see any evidence of a fuel leak around any of the tanks?”

  Ray almost choked.

  “No, of course not. I would have written it up if I had.”

  “Did you work on anything that’s not in the logbook?”

  “The lead flight attendant asked me to check out a coffeemaker, and I did, but it seemed to be working okay so I didn’t put it in the book.”

  “Well, that sounds routine enough. If you think of anything else, let me know. It sounds like you did everything right, though. Thanks for coming in, Ray.”

  He walked out of the office and sat down at one of the tables. His knees were shaking, and he didn’t trust himself to walk farther. Why were they looking at the fuel system? Lots of horrible scenarios went through his mind, but he concluded that there was still no evidence of wrongdoing, and now that he had been interviewed, that would be the end of it. The more he thought about it, the more confident he became. Tri Con had learned, like so many others, not to mess with Ray Slackman. The money would have made his satisfaction complete. His plan had been almost flawless, and it occurred to him that there was no reason it wouldn’t work again.

  Charlie looked at the other forty-one people in the raft and felt the tremendous weight of overwhelming guilt. Twelve of his companions were handicapped, and he second-guessed his earlier decision in the airplane to leave them as a last priority to evacuate. He felt like each of them were staring at him and condemning his humanity. He could not get the image of the man slumped in his seat with a broken neck out of his mind. People who loved the man would suffer tremendous pain because of his death, and they would want answers. What would Charlie tell them? He was responsible and would have to be accountable.

  Molly had been watching Charlie and could see what he was thinking. She crawled across the raft and sat beside him.

  “Charlie, you saved a lot of lives tonight, including mine. I will always be grateful. I don’t think there are many pilots who could have landed that airplane without killing everyone onboard. I know all you pilots are task-oriented and committed to completing the mission, but you accomplished an almost impossible task with great results. You are a hero.”

  “I don’t feel like a hero, Molly. People died tonight, and more will probably die before this is over. Innocent people depended on me, and I failed.”

  “Charlie, you will not get sympathy from me. This is not your fault. You reacted to a terrible set of circumstances in a manner that most would have given up on. We don’t have time to feel sorry for ourselves. We still have people we are responsible for.”

  “You’re right, Molly. Thank you. We have to make these people as comfortable as possible, and see that they all survive. Our biggest problem is going to be water. We can survive a long time without food, but water is essential. Let’s get someone working on the desalination kit. Then we’ll ration what we have and make it last. I need to explain what happened to everyone first, and then see if we can get some teamwork established and make everyone feel involved and committed.”

  “Now you’re talking, captain. Let’s do it.”

  Charlie stood up. “Everyone, listen up. I’m Captain Charlie Wells. I want to explain our situation to you. First, I’m sure you want to know how we got here. I can tell you that we lost all our fuel and had no choice but to ditch the airplane in the water. I can’t tell you why we lost the fuel, other than saying that it was a malfunction in the system that we could not fix. There will be plenty of time to assess blame, but that time is not now. Right now our only focus is going to be on survival until we are rescued. It will take a team effort to do that, and I intend to call on each and every one of you to contribute to the cause. Whatever particular talent or expertise you have, we will need it. We already have our nurse attending medical needs, and I appreciate that very much. Before we ditched, a message was transmitted to a Navy vessel giving our position. Resources are on the way to find us. The problem is, we don’t know how long that will take. The weather is another problem, and until visibility improves the search will be difficult, but it will h
appen. Here are our priorities. If you have a medical problem, we need to know about it. The next thing we need is drinking water. I need three volunteers to operate the desalination process to make fresh water from seawater. Once we have that underway, we will have to ration the water to make it last. If it rains, we will catch as much of that as possible. Next, but not nearly as important, is food. We have a limited amount of energy bars in the survival kit, and we will ration those also, but we can survive a long time without food. We also have a fishing kit. If you are a fisherman, we will need your skill.”

  A man spoke up. “Captain, I’m a commercial fisherman. Let me have the fishing gear.”

  Several other people talked at once and volunteered to make fresh water. Charlie passed out the equipment and thanked them.

  One of the handicapped men said, “What can I do to help, Captain Wells?”

  “Call me Charlie, and I have an important job for you. We need lookouts to spot the other rafts that were launched and to look for rescue aircraft or ships.”

  Charlie helped the man to the front of the raft and positioned him to look forward. Another handicapped person said, “Heck, I can do that. There’s nothing wrong with my eyes.”

  Soon they had a person on all four sides of the raft and also a person to relieve them every thirty minutes. Molly assigned a woman to blow the referee whistle every five minutes or so, and another group worked on putting the canopy up. The sun was burning off some of the morning fog, and visibility was improving. Charlie thought, Where there is hope there is…hope.

  Pattie paced the family room at Tri Con headquarters and refused to give up hope. She had faith in God, and she had faith in Charlie. She resolved to be brave and show courage in order to encourage the other family members. She had spent some time with one of the chaplains and gained strength from his words and the scripture he quoted. Robby Jenner’s wife seemed to understand Pattie’s feeling of responsibility because her husband was the first officer and second in command. They had discussed the situation and concluded that they should make themselves visible and available to the other family members gathered in the room to provide whatever comfort they could.