Arrival delays after long night flights were irritating, but an all too common fact of life. Unlike Osajefo, McGregor had used his relief pilot in the proper manner, so everyone had managed a few hours in the bunk. No one could be described as bright-eyed, but they were in far better shape than Johnson in AfroAir.
Hardaker followed the Instrument Landing System towards Heathrow, something both of them had done a million times before. The latest wind had been from 220° at 38 knots, a slight improvement, but that meant little. Wind readouts are merely snapshots of a swirling, turbulent fluid: seconds later or yards away, it might be a totally different story. Now, close to the ground, the gale was giving them a rough ride.
They broke through the overcast at 600 feet. The crosswind was generating a lot of drift, but Hardaker was holding the centreline nicely. McGregor smiled to himself. Home by early afternoon, a couple of hours in the sack to recover, then he should be fresh enough for that Parents and Teachers meeting at his son’s school.
Traffic ahead cleared the runway via the high speed turnoff and tower gave them landing clearance.
It was then it started to go wrong.
A backing and strengthening gust of wind? A moment’s inattention from Hardaker? Maybe a combination of the two. The reason didn’t matter. At 200 feet on the radio altimeter the 747 suddenly found itself over the right hand edge of the runway. Correcting from an upwind position if the wind slackens is easy; recovering the line from a downwind position if it strengthens is much more difficult. Hardaker did his best, but in heading yet further into wind he opened up a huge angle with the runway. They seemed to be flying almost sideways along it.
McGregor gave it a couple of seconds more. At 100 feet on the radio altimeter they were still so far adrift that the rear wheels would be over the grass. From this position no one could guarantee a safe landing. Saying “I have control”, in one swift movement he pushed the thrust levers forward and eased back on the control column.
“I see you’re overshooting,” came the voice from tower. “What are your intentions?”
McGregor paused to tell Hardaker: “Gear up: after take-off check”. Then pressed the transmit: “Sorry about that. We’d like another approach.”
Go-arounds are not popular when traffic is backed-up, but McGregor’s airline was well regarded, so the tower paused for only a moment before saying: “When able turn left onto a heading of one zero five and climb to three thousand feet. Call Director on One Two Zero decimal Four.”
For the second time that day McGregor became a customer of Tim Adamson. Who was not amused. Delay surges are intensive at the best of times, but follow a well defined pattern. A go-around disrupts this pattern. A rogue aircraft, McGregor’s, had to be recovered from an unusual position - just after take-off - and slotted into the flow again.
There was no question of returning this flight to the back of the queue, if only because the last one to join, number thirteen in line, was still at ten thousand feet over the outer reaches of Essex. Of more importance, go-arounds use a lot of fuel, so McGregor could not be kept waiting too long.
Short of a dire emergency, Adamson did not want to disrupt the four flights already on finals. A quick calculation told him he could get three more in after them before McGregor was in position over Brixton. Adamson gave instructions to get him there at the appropriate time, then turned to his main problem: reconfiguring the other arrivals to cope with the extra delay created by the go-around. It was a headache, but Tim Adamson was an old hand and managed the trick without anyone noticing. He thought.
McGregor’s flight, now piloted by the captain, had no problem with its second attempt. In a fierce crosswind the technique was to crab in, then straighten up with a dab of right rudder just before touchdown. Fast and firm. Not pretty, but safe.
As he finished docking the 747 McGregor relaxed. Turned to his first officer:
“Tough one, Alan. Don’t get a gust like that every day of the week. Sorry I had to take over.”
“Back to training for me, I suppose?” Hardaker looked crestfallen.
Confidence is everything, so McGregor replied: “No, no. I’ll just tell Melville conditions were against giving you the landing. Put this one down to experience. Next one is bound to be better.”
“Thanks.” His first office still looked glum.
“Get the baby sitter in. Take the wife out for a slap-up dinner,” suggested McGregor, who had already established that Hardaker was married with two young children. “Now, I’m off to mum. And a Parents and Teachers meeting. Tomorrow is another day.”
10
The day might have been all wrapped up for McGregor and Hardaker, but not for Tim Adamson and his airborne charges, who now had to cope with the effects of the missed approach.
With delays all too common and their lengths uncertain, the awaiting mob continued gyrating in the heavens above London, patiently awaiting instructions from Adamson. A couple recalculated their fuel reserves; one decided he’d had enough and made straight for Manchester.
A new recruit to the line of hopefuls was AfroAir. First Officer Johnson twice pointed out that their fuel reserves were now critical, but Captain Osajefo replied that delay forecasts were always pessimistic: “Ten minutes at the most, just you see”.
How could a man who normally flew a desk possibly know, thought Johnson, in despair. But the co-pilot was so stupefied by lack of sleep - and terrified of his commander - that he didn’t press the point.
Osajefo’s predicted ten minutes came and went. AfroAir was meandering at seven thousand feet over north London, Adamson juggling his motley fleet into some sort of order for their final approach, when Johnson could contain himself no longer:
“Sir.... I think we should declare an emergency.”
“What!”
The co-pilot resisted that corny phrase ‘flying on fumes’, but that was almost the reality. Instead, he said: “We can no longer make either Stansted or Gatwick. Could still manage City Airport....that’s if the runway’s long enough for us. I don’t know....”
“Find out how much longer,” ordered Osajefo, finally appearing to wake up.
Johnson did just that.
Adamson came back: “Should have you on the ground in fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen minutes!” Johnson almost shrieked the words. Only Osajefo heard him, as he had not pressed the transmit.
Unaware of McGregor’s missed approach, Johnson had been working on the original estimate. It was now a lot more. Impossibly more!
Captain Osajefo, sweating and beginning to grasp their predicament, did transmit: “We need an immediate landing. I repeat immediate.”
“Understand you are declaring an emergency?” enquired Adamson, calmly.
“Of course it’s a fucking emergency!” All thoughts of a red carpet for President Zumweski had been banished by the spectre of another sort of red: red blood for all on board if they didn’t get down at once.
With barely a pause, Adamson said: “AfroAir One, take up a heading of one four five, descend to three thousand feet on altimeter niner niner eight. Speed one eight zero.”
He couldn’t recall ever having heard the word ‘fucking’ used in the London Control Zone, so things were obviously serious.
Captain Osajefo re-directed the autopilot onto this new heading, started to descend and scratched his large bony head. Something was puzzling him.
Turning to Johnson, he said: “They’re taking us away from Heathrow.”
“Landing on the westerlies, sir. Expect they’re positioning us somewhere over central London for finals,” replied Johnson.
When flying in cloud under radar steers one’s exact position doesn’t matter. Normally. But today was not ‘normal’. When Osajefo finally pressed the panic button they had been almost due north of Heathrow. With solid cloud now down to six hundred feet, a visual approach was out of the question, even if Heathrow had allowed it. The co-pilot was right. However desperate their plight, they had to loc
k onto the Instrument Landing System to get in.
Although they were now on their way down and flying the prescribed heading of 145°, Osajefo had so far not followed Adamson’s other instructions. He appeared to have gone straight from denial mode to panic and was muttering to himself.
Johnson reminded the captain to re-set his altimeter to the local 998 millibars: a nasty low sitting out there to the west. After a pause, the captain still seemingly stuck in a frozen state, Johnson reminded him: “And they want our speed back to one eighty.”
The world of aviation lives on precision: people can die without it. Precise altitudes, exact headings, speeds on the button. Their high altitude speed had been a fuel-efficient 200 knots, but now, as they were fed into the final landing sequence, Adamson had asked for a speed reduction to bring them into line with the rest of the traffic. Osajefo was ignoring this: they were still thundering down at 200 knots. Johnson didn’t have to be a mind reader to realise the reason. A slower speed would not only take them longer to kiss the blissful tarmac of Heathrow’s runway. It also demanded more flap, extra pieces of wing that allowed them to fly these slower speed without stalling: more flap creates more drag, thus requiring more power. A double whammy for their parlous fuel state.
Airbus designers don’t really trust pilots, which is not as daft as it sounds. Automatics are always more accurate. As part of this philosophy, they made traditional power levers redundant, instead installing ‘auto-thrust’, which continually adjusts engine power to a selected speed. As the captain had not actioned the request for a speed reduction, Johnson started doing it for him.
And received a smart slap on the wrist.
“But sir.....” he began, before realising the futility of objecting.
“This is an emergency,” snapped Osajefo, now fully alive to the mess he had landed them in. “We have priority.”
Johnson nodded dumbly.
Down on mother earth, Adamson had already started the full emergency procedure: fire crews deployed at Heathrow, back-up help in the control room. His boss, a gnarled old-timer called Harry Fuller, was already scanning the screen with him.
Flights in the London Control Zone must have secondary radar, a device that transmits vital details back to the ground. The radar was showing AfroAir descending through 4,000 ft., doing 200 knots.
“Still maintaining two hundred knots,” observed Harry.
Adamson nodded. “Looks like he’s in real trouble. I’ll let him have what he wants.”
“He’ll soon be too close to Virgin ahead of him,” observed Harry. “I’ll dog-leg Virgin, let AfroAir in ahead. You concentrate on our problem child.”
The controllers continued their juggling act and soon AfroAir’s altitude lock levelled them at the instructed 3,000ft.
When suddenly the cockpit erupted in a cacophony of sound. And a light display worthy of Guy Fawkes. The starboard engine roared up, making the aircraft yaw to the left. In-flight failures are designed to wake you up, but multiple failures trigger warning overkill.
“Number one engine failure,” yelled Johnson, now also close to panic.
“Do the drill,” ordered Osajefo, who was trying to cope with a tripped autopilot and other failures. He was now using his sidestick, flying as manually as Airbus ever allowed. Leaving 3,000ft and starting a right hand turn, he told London:
“I have engine failure. Must land immediately. I repeat immediately.”
“Jesus!” whispered Harry Fuller, who never swore. “I’ll clear all traffic ahead of him. And alert the west London fire services.”
“Head one niner zero,” said Adamson. When able, lock onto the localiser for two seven left. You are cleared to land. And good luck.”
They say you make your own luck. If so, Captain Osajefo had long since squandered theirs. He had just settled onto that 190˚ heading when their remaining engine gave up the ghost. They were now flying a glider. With President Zumweski, the crew and 322 passengers on board. Airliners are streamlined and therefore make good gliders, but gravity can’t be denied forever. It was clear they hadn’t a hope of making Heathrow.
But Johnson had read the book. And seen the film. Sully. With Tom Hanks playing the hero. How Captain Sullenberger had suffered a double engine failure on take-off, but managed to save everyone on board by ditching his Airbus in the river Hudson. Could the River Thames be their Hudson?
First Officer Johnson pressed the transmit: “Other engine now failed. Unable Heathrow. Request vectors for a Sully on the Thames.”
Adamson had been trying to shut his mind to the awful possibility of an airliner crashing in the heart of London. This suggestion offered a chance of salvation. Maybe only a slim one, but it was their only hope. The AfroAir blip on his screen was now down to 1,600ft, heading 190º and still doing 200 knots. The Airbus would be flying blind in cloud, but Adamson could see that almost dead ahead lay a fairly straight stretch of the Thames; bridges in the way, certainly, but beggars can’t be choosers. With cloud down to 600ft., AfroAir’s crew would have only seconds of visual to put her down.
A closer look showed the stricken airliner to be slightly to the right of the river, so Adamson issued an amendment:
“AfroAir turn left heading one six zero. When you break cloud the river should be at your two o’clock.”
Tim Adamson and Harry Fuller could do no more. Tim had the ungracious thought that if AfroAir made a mess of it, the best place was on London’s waterway. Rather than Mayfair, or - God forbid - Buck House.
In AfroAir’s cockpit panic had given way to resignation. Osajefo told the passengers to take up the brace position, in the slender hope they might make it in one piece.
The captain ordered full flap, brought the speed back as far as he dared - below 150 knots. Inevitably, they continued on down.
At 500 ft. they broke cloud. River in sight, but blocking their way was a monster out of Grimm’s fairy tales. Dead ahead a Gothic tower.
400ft. The Gothic tower’s clock face appeared to be almost at eye level. The giant hands registered 1223. The captain’s sidestick did not seem to be working properly, perhaps due to the fact that the Airbus system did not allow pilots to control the elevators and ailerons directly; instead, the two sidesticks sent messages to a bank of computers, which made the ultimate decisions.
300ft. Osajefo saw the reason for his control problem: First Officer Johnson was also thrashing away with his sidestick, sending the Airbus computers hopelessly confusing signals. Not that it mattered. Nothing the two pilots could do mattered any longer.
200ft. In a desperate attempt to avoid the tower, Osajegfo slammed his sidestick over to the right. Because Johnson belatedly had the same idea, this did work – sort of; the Airbus started an agonisingly slow turn to starboard. They were now faced with only the monster’s main structure. Lower, maybe, but still a huge gingerbread barrier.
100ft. The barrier was racing up to meet them. Captain Osajefo yanked his sidestick back as far as it would go. Instinctively, Johnson did the same. In vain. With empty tanks and zero power, AfroAir was in thrall to gravity and could only continue its descent.
It landed just to the right of the monster’s tower. The shockwave was felt over the whole of London.
Etched on Captain Osajefo’s mind during those last few seconds of life was the time shown on the giant clock:
Twelve twenty three.
11
The Palace of Westminster is not large enough for every elected member to have an office there, so Damian White MP had been allocated one across the road in Portcullis House. He should have been tackling the stack of papers in his In Tray, but chance had handed him a welcome diversion in the shape of Chloe Pettigrew, a reporter from the Oxford Herald.
Damian had been careful to cultivate the local press as a source of free publicity. Mid Oxon might be considered a safe Tory seat, but boundary changes could turn it into a marginal or an ambitious rival from his own party might try and unseat him. A record of visibility in the m
edia was sensible insurance.
It worked both ways, because Bert Forrester, editor of the Herald, was always in need of good copy. Contrary to what the TV series Morse might suggest, Oxford was chronically short of murders. Morse could expect a weekly diet of one decapitation, a corpse in the Thames and a couple of serious assaults, whereas Forrester usually had to make do with something like a fracas in Carfax and an arson in Kidlington. A local MP making waves in Westminster might not be earth-shattering news, but all those column inches had to be filled with something.
So Forrester kept an eye on what Damian was up to and when he heard about their MP’s part in the Commons Foreign Aid brawl, he felt it was worth bringing to the attention of his readers in the provinces.
He chose Chloe Pettigrew for the job because she was a mature lady with long auburn hair, usually bunched up on top, and a prominent nose that made her striking rather than beautiful, a combination Damian was guaranteed to appreciate.
She was also the daughter of Brian Pettigrew, one of Forrester’s drinking companions, who ran a string of superior car dealerships in the area. Brian called her his ‘problem child’, hardly an accurate description, because Chloe was knocking on thirty. However, she was certainly a problem, having tried marriage – twice. And twice spurned it. The second attempt had barely survived the honeymoon, after which she had renounced long term relationships and reverted to her maiden name. She had tried various outlets for her energy: barmaid, sculpturing, market research. For her latest effort she had enlisted the help of her father, who had persuaded his old drinking buddy Bert Forrester to give her a go at the Oxford Herald.
Bert had agreed largely to help an old mate, but his initial misgivings had so far proved groundless. Chloe had only been with the Herald a couple of months, but she was proving a better journalist than he’d expected. Why not give her a proper test? See what she was made of by sending her to the big city. Sexism and nepotism rolled into one were excellent reasons to choose Ms. Pettigrew.
NIGHT WATCHMAN Page 4
