Point of Impact
Page 32
Tears blinded Michelle. ‘How many?’ she screamed.
‘One, Two, I don’t know,’ came the replies.
Frantic, she scanned the sky for parachutes but the tornado of flame consuming the aircraft hid everything from view.
Fire tenders and rescue vehicles sped towards the doomed jet. A gust of wind cleared the pall of smoke for a second and Michelle at last saw a solitary figure drifting down under his orange-and-white parachute. Let it be Drew, she thought to herself. Please God, let it be Drew.
The figure landed and tore at his harness. As the parachute came free, the wind blew it across the burning jet. The canopy ignited and it traced a yellow line across the night sky as it whirled away downwind. Still wearing his helmet, the figure began sprinting towards the blazing jet. Rescue workers ran to intercept him and dragged him back.
Above the din in the control tower, the roar of the raging fire and the screeching of tortured metal, Michelle now heard an even more unearthly sound. One of the Tempest’s engines was still running – and running out of control.
The revs steadily mounted, higher and higher, the engine note rising to a scream and then a banshee wail. She saw the rescue workers diving for cover, dragging the helmeted figure to the ground with them. Then there was a blast as the engine blew itself apart.
After the flash Michelle felt a dull concussion in the pit of her stomach. There was a long moment of silence, then bedlam resumed.
The moon-suited fire crews doused the blazing carcase of the jet with foam, working in towards the wreckage of the cockpit. Michelle was on her feet, motionless, oblivious of anything except the yellow-clad figures.
Her eyes strained into the dark, trying to pierce the dust, steam and smoke swirling around the Tempest. Her gaze switched incessantly between the anonymous, helmeted figure, still struggling against the rescue workers holding him, and the charred, stiff body that was now being pulled from the burnt-out cockpit.
Chapter Twenty-One
Michelle gazed upwards as four dark shadows pierced the mist, the bass rumble of their engines swelling to a roar. As they came overhead, the lead Tempest suddenly pulled up and began climbing vertically away from the others, its afterburners blazing red.
It disappeared into the grey overcast, still climbing towards infinity, as the remaining members of the Missing Man formation flew on without their departed comrade. The thunder of their engines faded, leaving an echoing silence behind.
She still stared upwards, watching the mist swirling around the grey stone steeple of the church. Then she lowered her gaze as a solitary crow settled back into its perch in the bare, dead branches of an elm.
Michelle shivered. ‘I thought I’d seen my last funeral for a while.’
‘I thought so too.’
Neither of them spoke for a minute, gazing at the long queue of aircrew in dress uniforms filing silently into the church. Russell glanced towards them and hesitated, then disappeared inside.
‘What a bloody waste.’
Michelle turned to face him. ‘You had to do it.’
‘I threw his life away,’ he said, his face haggard. ‘I’ll never forgive myself. We didn’t do the safety checks because we were racing to take off before they blocked the runway. But I should still have checked the command ejection lever. I didn’t do it.’ He rubbed his face with his hand. ‘When the landing gear collapsed, he was slammed into his instruments and lost consciousness. I pulled the handle, thinking I was ejecting both of us. I came out; he didn’t.’
Her eyes had filled with tears, but she laid a hand on his arm and said gently, ‘It was his job to check it as much as yours.’ She paused, holding his gaze. ‘It’s not your fault.’
He shook his head and looked away.
She hesitated again, then reached into her handbag. ‘Have you seen this?’ She handed him a page torn from that morning’s newspaper.
There was a large picture of Power alongside a banner headline:
FATAL FLAW IN TEMPEST
All the RAF’s principal fighter aircraft, the Tempest RS3s, are being recalled, following the discovery of ‘a minor fault.’ Air Vice-Marshal Charles Power praised the ‘diligence of the RAF’s Accident Investigations Bureau’ and said that two aircrew serving in Bosnia, Flight Lieutenants Drew Miller and Nigel Barber, had also provided useful information. A new generation of Tempests is to be introduced from next year and a rolling programme of modifications will be carried out on the existing aircraft.
The Air Force has lost a number of Tempests in crashes recently, but he denied any link. ‘There’s not a shred of physical evidence. The loss of aircraft in training is inevitable if it is to simulate adequately the exigencies of war.’
All the time he was reading, he was aware of Power’s confidently smiling face looking up at him from the page. It was the smile of a man who knew he had won.
‘Nice of him to give me a name check, wasn’t it?’ He crumpled the paper and tossed it into a litter bin. As he looked up, his face clouded. ‘Great. The photograph was bad enough; now here he is in the flesh.’
She followed his gaze and saw her father walking towards them. Power approached slowly.
‘Michelle. Flight Lieutenant. A very sad day.’
There was a long silence.
‘You’re not wearing your medal, Flight Lieutenant?’
‘No. I’d feel like I was taking a bribe.’ He paused, his eyes locked on to Power’s. ‘Looking forward to life at Barnwold Industries, Air Vice-Marshal?’
‘Very much, thank you,’ Power replied, his face a mask. ‘Of course it’ll be very different from the Royal Air Force.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought there’d be too much difference.’
Power’s lips tightened. He glanced at his watch. ‘Perhaps we should be getting inside.’
He offered his arm to Michelle, but she shook her head and turned away.
Power hesitated, his arm still outstretched, then walked off alone towards the church.
As the priest appeared at the head of the church steps, looking out along the road, a black-clad figure detached herself from the queue of mourners and walked towards them.
He was shocked at the change in her. Sally had lost a lot of weight and aged years in a few weeks. She stood looking at him for a long time, not speaking, her face as white as the priest’s vestments.
He put his arms around her and hugged her to him, feeling her shoulders shaking as she sobbed against his chest. He held her until she had stopped crying, then gently released her.
She straightened up, wiping her eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You shouldn’t have come.’
‘I had to… for Nick.’
She rubbed ineffectually at the mark her tears had made on his uniform, then turned to face Michelle. She rested her hand on her arm as she looked into her eyes. She seemed about to say something, but then shook her head and hurried away. Her children, looking small, lost and frightened, clustered around her as she led them into church.
A hearse swung in off the road and pulled up at the big oak door. Both of them stared for a moment, then looked away as the undertakers began to slide out the coffin.
‘So,’ Michelle said, her voice brittle. ‘You’re determined to stay in the Air Force, despite everything?’
He took a few moments to reply. ‘It’s the only job I can do. I’ve given up on Germany, though. I’m going for an exchange posting with the French. It’s on a base in the Dordogne, three years initially, but if I like it there I could apply to stay permanently.’
‘I didn’t even know you spoke French.’
‘I don’t. I’m learning.’
He paused, watching as the pall-bearers began to form up around the coffin. It was draped with a Union Jack and a peaked RAF service cap lay on top of it. ‘What about you? You haven’t changed your mind about leaving?’
She shook her head, her lip between her teeth. ‘Every RAF uniform, every Tempest flying overhead, every Happy Hour in the
mess – even the smell of avgas in the hangar – would remind me of what I’ve lost.’ She gave him a long, last look, reading the pain and sadness in his eyes, then kissed him on the cheek. ‘Goodbye, Ali.’
She turned away, the first tears pricking her eyes as she followed the pall-bearers carrying Drew’s coffin into the church.
Afterword
Responding to calls from Her Majesty’s Opposition to hold a full public inquiry into the recent spate of crashes involving military aircraft, the Minister of State for the Armed Forces, Mr Nicholas Soames, made the following statement in the House of Commons on Thursday 6th June 1996
It is arrant nonsense to suggest that we would do anything to jeopardise the safety of aircrew by allowing an unservicable aircraft to fly. No aircraft is permitted to leave the ground unless it is judged entirely safe to do so. The ground crews that service RAF are dedicated professionals, and are amongst the best in the world.
At the same time, the RAF continues to maintain the most rigorous training standards, which every other country in the world wishes to come and learn from. Average fast jet flying hours are well above minimum NATO levels. Operating levels and skills remain at an exceptionally high standard.
There is no reason to believe that there is any fundamental problem in the way in which operations are conducted or supported, or that this is anything other than a truly, deeply and very unfortunate coincidence. It would be premature to infer that the overall accident rate for 1996 will reveal any new or disturbing trend. There have been similar clusters of accidents in the past, but they did not reveal any new trend. Overall the general accident rate has continued to decline since the early 1980s.
I assure the House, nevertheless, that there really is no complacency. As the House will know, boards of inquiry are set up to examine the circumstances of each crash. Those investigations are extremely thorough and exhaustive, and although the work is still in progress, I can tell the House that there is no definite pattern to link any of these accidents.
Acknowledgements
As this is my first novel, I have drawn heavily on others’ experience in order to produce a readable end product. To thank everyone would take far too long, but I would like to single out a few individuals without whom I would have been lost:
Mark and George, the intrepid Lucas brothers, who have spent many hours helping me put the whole thing together. Suzie and Sue, for struggling through the first draft and offering their criticism – always constructive! Finally, Neil, for his constant help and advice. Thank you all.
Even in peacetime, the Royal Air Force expects to lose £100 million worth of equipment and ten lives each year through training accidents.
In the five years between January 1991 and May 1996, eighty-three military aircraft were lost in crashes during training, resulting in the loss of over seventy lives. This excludes Gulf War losses. Eighteen of the aircraft were Tornados.
Twenty-eight of the accidents were attributed to ‘aircrew error’. Another nineteen are still under investigation.
These are the facts; what follows is fiction…
John Nichol, June 1996
About the Author
During his fifteen years in the RAF, John Nichol served all over the world, first as an electronics technician – which included a stint on a task force refuelling tanker in the South Atlantic in the wake of the Falklands War – then as a navigator, flying the Tornado GR1, before being retrained to fly the Tornado F3 Air Defence Interceptor.
On 17 January 1991, as part of Operation Desert Storm, John took part in a daylight bombing raid on Ar Rumaylah South West Airbase in Southern Iraq. Shortly after the attack, his aircraft was hit by a SAM 14 surface to air missile and he was forced to eject. He was captured and held as a POW for forty-nine days, during which time he was tortured and paraded on television screens throughout the world.
In November 1994, John deployed to Italy as part of Operation Deny Flight, where he was involved in mounting air defence patrols over Bosnia as part of the United Nations peacekeeping effort in the former Yugoslavia.
In March 1996, John Nichol took voluntary redundancy from the RAF to pursue a career as a writer.
He is the co-author of the hugely successful non-fiction bestsellers Tornado Down and Team Tornado. Point of Impact is his first novel.
First published in the United Kingdom in 1996 by Hodder & Stoughton
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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Copyright © John Nichol, 1996
The moral right of John Nichol to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788637503
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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