“I’d be ‘dicking around,’ as you put it, trying to keep them, and us, alive.”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to sound insensitive.” Shack removed his hand from Rob. “I know you’re stressed. We both are. I—”
A call from Nehalem Bay interrupted. “Delta Echo, you still there?”
“Roger that, Nehalem Bay. Give me a moment.”
Rob went back on the interphone. “So what do we do? What would you do? You’re the Air Force commander.”
The Cessna flew through a layer of smoke drifting over the river. Below, the conflagration in the tank farm appeared to have spread. One of the tanks erupted in a red-orange fireball. Arcs of flaming fuel jetted skyward in all directions. Rob rolled the Cessna out of harm’s way.
“In the military,” Shack said, “the mission comes first. Our mission is to save Alex’s life.”
“I’m not in the military.”
“Neither am I, but it’s my legacy. I think there might be something in the Bible that addresses the situation, too.”
“I’m sure there is. But what about us? We could just as well lose three lives as save one if I dump us in the drink.” Not to mention deep-sixing a half-million-dollar airplane.
“In this case, you’re the aircraft commander. You make the decision.”
“No. How about you taking over? I’ve never ditched an airplane before.”
“Neither have I.”
“But you’ve got a hell of a lot more flyboy experience than I do.”
“Not in a Cessna. You’ve got the touch to land this thing. Besides, I’m hurting.” He pointed at his ribs.
Rob’s heart rate accelerated, thudding away with a disco beat. “I can’t do it, Shack. I just can’t.”
Shack inclined his head toward Alex. “She might appreciate it if you’d try.”
Rob drew a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut for a brief moment, then called Nehalem Bay.
“Okay, brief me on the plan.”
“Roger, Delta Echo. Legacy Emanuel Med Center is about a half mile from the river. They think they’ll be able to get a vehicle through the debris to the river where the River Patrol guys can hand off the patient.”
“I think you left out all the ‘ifs,’ Nehalem Bay.”
“Yeah, I know, but we’re trying to sound positive.”
I guess somebody has to. “Go on.”
“We’re told there’s an open stretch of water on the Willamette just north of the Fremont Bridge. If you’re able to land just short of the bridge, that’ll put you close to the med center.”
“Everybody understands, I assume, this won’t be a landing. It’ll be a crash. I’m not flying a plane with pontoons. And, oh, by the way, the river is filled with all kinds of crap, things adrift—pleasure craft, tugs, barges, houseboats.”
“Roger that, Delta Echo. Maybe you’d better talk directly to the River Patrol.”
“Can I reach them on guard?”
“Negative. They don’t have that capability.”
Rob and Shack exchanged glances. Shack pinched his lips together and shook his head. Over the interphone he said, “How the hell did they think we could do this if we can’t even communicate with the rescuers?”
Rob flashed a forced smile, his first of the day. “Because maybe they know I’m like a Boy Scout, always prepared.” Except for ditching in rivers. He reached into the center console, fished out a hand-held radio, and gave it to Shack. Then he called Nehalem Bay again.
“I assume we can reach the rescue boat on channel 16?”
“Roger that, Delta Echo.”
“Okay, thank you, Nehalem Bay. We’ll get in touch with them.”
He spoke to Shack. “Since I fly near the ocean a lot, I bought a portable VHF marine radio. You know, just in case. The emergency channel is 16. Dial it in and call the River Patrol Unit.”
“Better dig out the pilot’s operating handbook, too,” Shack said. “We’ll need to go over the ditching procedures.”
“Right,” Rob said with a total lack of enthusiasm. He reached into a pocket on the door beside him and fumbled for the manual.
Shack removed his headset and, using the hand-held unit, made the radio call to the rescue boat.
“This is aircraft Skylane seven-three Delta Echo calling the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office River Patrol Unit. We’re preparing to ditch in the Willamette. Do you read? Over.”
“We read you, seven-three Delta Echo. This is the Sheriff’s River Patrol—five Mary twenty-seven. We’re standing by to help. We need to coordinate details. Over.”
“Five Mary twenty-seven, thank you,” Shack responded. “As I understand it, we’re expected to touch down just north of the, uh—” He glanced at Rob.
“Fremont Bridge,” Rob yelled over the engine noise.
“Fremont Bridge,” Shack said. “Is that your understanding?”
“Roger that. You got an ETA?”
Shack slipped on the headset to communicate with Rob. “We got an ETA for ditching?”
Rob shrugged. He really didn’t want to think about it, but said, “Let’s say fifteen minutes. That should give us enough time to review the procedures.”
Shack responded to the River Patrol. “Be ready in fifteen.”
“We’ll be there. Got three deputies on board. Been doin’ grab-and-goes all day, so we’re pumped. If the plane stays afloat for a couple of minutes, we can help. If it goes underwater right away, it’s going to be . . . well, a challenge.”
“It’s our intent to make like a floatplane.”
“I’m sure it is. Okay, here’s the deal. As soon as you stop moving, get the doors open. Don’t wait. If you wait, and the craft is sinking, you won’t be able to open the doors against the water pressure. Do you have life preservers on board?”
Rob, who’d removed his headset, too, had been listening. He spoke to Shack. “No. Never figured I’d need any.”
“Negative,” Shack said over the radio.
“Okay, then be sure to remove your shoes and heavy clothing before you ditch. We’ll toss you a rope or life preserver once you’re in the river. We’ll have a swimmer in the water who will get your patient out of the plane and onto a sled. We’ll get her into the rescue boat and then to shore where an EMT vehicle will pick her up. Sound like a plan?”
“Roger, rescue. We’ll let you know when we’re coming in.”
Rob opened the pilot’s operating handbook. He and Shack went over the ditching procedures together, step by step.
“You can do this,” Shack said after about ten minutes. “It’s paint-by-numbers. I’ll call off the checklist to you. All you have to do is execute. You’re a good pilot. You proved that in Manzanita.”
“Right,” Rob said, his tone flat.
“I’m serious.”
“Look, I’m worried about the damned landing gear. It’s not retractable. I can see it hitting the water first and flipping us over. We’ll turn turtle and sink upside down. Drown like—”
“Shut up, Rob. The gear won’t flip us. If you touch down at almost stall speed, by the book, the gear will dig into the water and decelerate the plane. Maybe rapidly, but we’ll still be shiny side up. Let’s do this. I’ve got your back.”
“The mission, right?” He glanced back at Alex.
Shack nodded. “The mission.”
“Okay. I’m ready. As my mom used to say, ‘Everybody’s got an expiration date.’”
Shack responded with quiet resolve. “Ours isn’t today, brother. Ours isn’t today.”
Rob wished he could be as certain. But for some reason, he at least felt emboldened. Scared shitless, but emboldened. “Call the rescue boat. I’m gonna make one last pass along the river, scope it out, then ditch.”
Rob too
k the Cessna back north, passing near the burning tank farm. A red-and-white Portland fireboat had arrived on scene, but its attack on the streams of blazing fuel snaking toward the river appeared ineffectual. In the river itself, two small orange-hulled Coast Guard vessels pulled people off drifting houseboats. Several unattended barges spun lazily in the current as they headed downstream toward the confluence with the Columbia.
“Okay, recon run,” Rob said to Shack.
He turned south, descended to eight hundred feet, dropped his speed to ninety knots.
“Keep your eyes open for power lines crossing the river,” he said to Shack.
The Cessna passed back over the St. Johns Bridge and the BNSF rail bridge, both of which had missing spans. To his left, the University of Portland campus sat on a bluff overlooking the river. It appeared several buildings had ridden landslides to the bottom of the bluff.
Just south of the campus, the Swan Island shipyard facility sported a number of toppled cranes. They sprawled like giant steel skeletons adjacent to the ships they’d been offloading.
As he reached the end of the shipyard, Rob put the Skylane into a slight right-hand turn.
“Here’s where we make our final approach.”
The Fremont Bridge stood about a mile ahead of them. He spotted what looked like a rescue boat waiting near the eastern end of the bridge, at least what remained of the bridge. The main span, a steel arch supporting a double-decked highway, remained intact, but the elevated approaches to the bridge from I-5 had been reduced to piles of concrete and warped steel.
“The river looks clear,” Shack said. “Just little chunks of debris here and there. Should be okay by the time we make our go-around.”
“Better be.”
Rob waggled the wings of the Cessna as he approached the rescue boat. Someone waved in response.
“I hope they know what they’re doing,” Shack said.
“Are you shitting me? You’d better hope I know what I’m doing.”
He pulled the plane up, turned, and flew back downriver. He and Shack removed their shoes and outer shirts. They reached the fire-ravaged tank farm where Rob turned again and pointed the plane back in the direction of the Fremont Bridge.
“Okay, I guess this is it. Call River Patrol.”
Shack made the call, then leaned toward Rob and extended his hand. “However this comes out, and I think it will end okay, I want to thank you for your friendship and courage. I think Alex would, too. You’re a good man, Rob Elwood.”
They shook, but Rob let the compliment pass. The task at hand consumed him. He’d read about the so-called “pucker factor” that pilots in harrowing situations experience, but had never encountered it himself. Now he did. His anus fastened itself to his seat like the sucker on the tentacle of an octopus.
“Here we go,” he said, his voice full of false bravado. In truth, he wanted to be anyplace but in an airplane trying to land in the Willamette River.
Shack held the operating handbook open on his lap.
Rob descended to three hundred feet, flew abeam of Swan Island, and set the plane on its final glide path. About a minute to landing.
“Okay, call off the steps.”
“Aim for 55 knots at touchdown. Close to stall speed. Set the flaps at twenty degrees.” Shack’s voice sounded strong and commanding.
“Got it,” Rob said, unable to get any other words out. He adjusted the flaps.
“Fifteen hundred RPM,” Shack said.
The Cessna slowed and Rob watched the water surface flashing beneath him, coming up, it seemed, way too fast. His knuckles turned white as he held the yoke in a death grip.
Forty-five seconds to go.
“Slow it a bit,” Shack said, “you’re a little hot.”
Sweat beaded on Rob’s forehead and dripped into this eyes, blurring his vision. Despite that, he spotted the rescue boat, SHERIFF emblazoned on its cabin, pulling into the center of the river, getting out of the way of the plane’s path.
Thirty seconds.
“Good descent,” Shack called out. “Back off on the power just a tad. Twelve degrees’ nose-high.” More than that and the tail would hit first, forcing the nose down and into the water. Less, and the nose would drill directly into the river like a torpedo.
The Cessna flew just over a hundred feet above the Willamette now. At least the surface appeared flat, no wakes or waves. Maybe I can do this.
“Holy shit!” Shack screamed.
The marine radio squawked at the same time. “Abort, abort!”
Rob saw why. Directly in front of him, a huge boathouse and attached dock, a fugitive from somewhere upstream, emerged from underneath the bridge. It took up half the width of the river, riding the current, plowing through the water like a polar icebreaker.
“Pull up,” Shack yelled.
Rob gave the Cessna full throttle, but knew time had run out. They’d clear the derelict boathouse, but not the bridge. “Goddamnit,” he screamed in frustration and rage.
“Under the bridge, go under the bridge,” Shack bellowed.
Their only option. The plane skimmed beneath the lower deck of the bridge, clearing it by mere feet. Once past the Fremont, Rob pulled up just in time to roar over the semi-submerged wreckage of the next bridge upstream, the Broadway.
His arms and hands shook palpably as he gained altitude and turned the Skylane northward once more, positioning the plane for another attempt at ditching.
“Jesus, Shack, I don’t know if I can do this again,” he said, his voice trembling.
“Sure you can. You’re a veteran now. You nailed that first approach, and you reacted like a pro when you had to abort. Take a few deep breaths and we’ll try it again.”
Shack called the rescue boat and told them to stand by for another try.
Rob flew a lazy circle for a few minutes and managed to steady himself. Then, with Shack calling out the steps, he began the ditching procedure for a second time.
They passed the thirty-second mark with no problems.
“River’s clear,” Shack said.
Rob bobbed his head in acknowledgement as he focused on the spot in the river where he wanted to touch down.
“Mixture control to idle,” Shack commanded. “Fuel shutoff valve closed. Magnetos and master switch off.” Fire prevention measures.
The engine stopped as designed and the cabin went silent except for the rush of the wind.
Fifteen seconds.
“Keep the wings level,” Shack barked. “Unlatch your door.”
Rob cracked the door open. Air whistled through the opening.
“Nose too high!” Shack yelled.
“Shit.” Rob pushed the yoke forward.
But time had run out. Shack threw his arms in front of his face. Rob tucked his chin into his chest. The undercarriage beneath the tail smacked into the water with a thudding splash. The plane decelerated with frightening force, hurling Rob against the seat harness, the harness biting into his chest like barbed wire.
The plane rocked forward. The tail lifted. The nose buried itself in the river. Green-gray water washed over the windscreen.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Aftermath
Portland
Sunday, July 5
“GET OUT, GET OUT!” Shack yelled.
The nose of the Cessna bobbed up, bursting from the river like a surfacing submarine. Rob unfastened his harness, popped open the door. Water poured into the cabin.
The coolness of the river ignited Rob’s senses. At least it didn’t approach the numbing chill of the Pacific. He dog-paddled away from the plane, a quick, splashy retreat. A flotation device, a square cushion tethered to a rope, plopped into the water beside him. He grabbed it.
A rescue swimmer already was at
the door of the now-sinking plane, working frantically to free the backboard and Alex.
The Sheriff’s boat sat in the water near the rear of the aircraft. Its twin outboards burbled noisily as its operator struggled to hold it in a static position relative to the Skylane as both rode a strong current. Rob guessed the massive amount of wreckage and debris in the river had funneled it into mini-rapids and swifter-than-usual channels.
The boat looked to be a thirty-or thirty-five-footer with a long, flat deck in front and a cabin toward the rear. A drop-down door in the bow, like a military landing craft, sat open, waiting for the swimmer and Alex.
On the opposite side of the plane, Shack, also grasping a flotation cushion, plowed through the water like a body boarder as a deputy on the deck of the boat tugged him in.
The swimmer, wearing a dry suit, gloves, and helmet seemed to be having difficulty getting Alex out of the plane. Rob paddled back to him.
The swimmer gave Rob a quick once-over. “You okay?”
“I’m fine, just bruised. Let me help.” He let go of the flotation cushion.
“Grab the right-hand handle of the backboard,” the swimmer said. “Let’s see if we can keep it level and pull the patient out together.”
The swimmer had already disconnected the IV bags, but the backboard seemed hung up on something inside the aircraft.
“I think it’s snagged on a seatbelt,” Rob yelled.
The swimmer didn’t hesitate. He scrambled into the plane, into water already two feet deep and rising fast, and fumbled underneath the backboard. “Got it!” He slid her out.
Alex issued a long, low moan.
“Okay, pull together,” the swimmer commanded.
He and Rob tugged the backboard from the plane and wrestled it onto a yellow Life Sled that bobbed in the water next to the submerging Cessna.
“Get away from the plane, quick,” the swimmer said. “It’s going down.”
Rob grabbed the flotation square again and hung on. He watched, virtually drained of emotion, as the Cessna nosed over, the dripping tail rising from the river like a sounding whale, and plunged to the bottom of the Willamette.
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