“Look,” said Crandall. “Look beyond the bridge.”
Berry looked out toward the bay. As if the Golden Gate were a wall, the bank of fog ended abruptly at the bridge. The entire bay, as far as he could see to Berkeley and Oakland on the opposite shore, was clear.
“I told you we could beat the fog, John.” Crandall laughed. “Look to the right.”
Berry glanced out the right windshield. Indistinct angular forms rose out of the fog—the shape of a city. Golden sunlight glinted from the tops of the Bank of America Building and Transamerica Pyramid, like El Dorado, thought Berry, but this was no spectral city, and a sense of reality began to return to him. The buildings grew rapidly as the Straton hurled toward them at 340 knots. Berry steered the Straton to the left, away from the city, and lined its nose up between the bridge towers, like a helmsman navigating the approaches to the bay.
The airliner passed through the inlet and sailed over the Golden Gate Bridge, the twin towers barely a hundred feet below the aircraft. Berry spotted Alcatraz Island coming up below him. He banked the Straton to the right and followed the curve of the bay, south toward the airport, which he knew was less than three minutes’ flight time away. Even if they flamed out now, he thought, he’d be able to avoid the populated areas. “Okay,” he said matter-of-factly, “we’re approaching the airport. Sharon, get ready to begin the landing procedure we practiced.”
“I’m ready.”
Berry felt that there was, between them, that bond that instantly develops between pilot and copilot, helmsman and navigator, observer and gunner; the knowledge that two must work as a perfect team, become nearly one, if they are to beat the long odds against survival.
The skies were clear, and out of the right-side window, the city of San Francisco lay among the hills of the peninsula. Flight 52 was a sudden intruder on the city’s hectic rush hour. Along Fisherman’s Wharf, cars stopped and pedestrians turned to gawk and point at the huge aircraft lumbering over the bay. On Nob Hill and Telegraph Hill, people watched the aircraft sail past at eye level. Vehicles pulled off the road, and children shouted. Many of the onlookers spotted the holes in the sides of the Straton, the jagged wounds highlighted by the low angle of the sun. Even those who had not seen the damage could see that the low-flying Trans-United airliner was in trouble.
Berry saw the silvery San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge lying straight ahead across the Straton’s flight path. He knew that this bridge was the last obstacle to a successful ditching in the bay. He held his breath until he was certain that the Straton’s glide path in a sudden flame out would carry it over the bridge.
As he passed over the bridge, he allowed himself to look out at San Francisco International Airport. It sat on a small piece of lowland jutting into the bay, less than fifteen miles ahead. “There it is.” He knew he should be applying the flaps if he was going to try for the airport. But the flaps would cause extra drag and burn off too much fuel. He thought he wanted to get as close to the airport as possible before he made the decision on where to come down, or had it made for him by a flame out. He let the Straton streak along at 340 knots.
Crandall looked at the rapidly approaching airport. Instinctively, she knew they were coming in too fast. “John, too fast. Too fast.”
Berry tried to calm himself. There were so many things to do and so little flight time left in which to do them. Everything had to be a trade-off from here on; every maneuver would be a compromise between the right thing and the expedient thing, always trying to avoid the dead-wrong thing. “All right. All right. I’m going for distance. We can hit the brakes later.” He looked at his fuel gauge. The electronic needles were lying dead against the empty mark.
Berry recalled his first solo landing in a Cessna 140, an older tail-wheeled aircraft he had some trouble checking out in. When the instructor finally got out, Berry kept finding excuses to continue with other kinds of practice rather than land, until his fuel was too low to put the landing off any longer.No excuses this time. Bring it right in . Sweat started to form on his brow and neck, and his hands were starting to become unsteady on the control wheel.
Berry yanked back on the four throttles, putting the engines at idle power. He watched as the ship’s airspeed began to bleed off to a lower, more reasonable indication for landing. Intent on the cockpit instruments, Berry failed to see what was passing a few miles to his left. On the east side of the bay was the Naval Air Station at Alameda, and farther south was Oakland’s giant airport. Either one of those airports was a minute or two closer, but John Berry was focused, physically and mentally, on San Francisco International. That was where he had started, and that was where he intended to end. He hoped that the emergency equipment would be waiting there. “All right,” he said softly, “all right. No ditching. We’re going into San Francisco International.” Berry saw that the airspeed was now low enough. “Flaps down.”
Sharon sat motionless for a second, mesmerized by the sight of the rapidly approaching airport jutting into the bay in front of her. In her mind she had already arrived home safely. The realization that they were still hundreds of feet off the ground and miles from the runway jarred her.
“Flaps down! Flaps!”
She reached out mechanically with her left hand, as she had done dozens of times in practice during the last three hours, and grabbed the flap handle.
“Pull it to the first notch. Quickly.”
She pulled the handle, and the flaps dropped.
Berry felt the aircraft slow even more and saw the speed bleed off on his airspeed indicator: 225 knots. Altitude 700 feet. To his right he saw Candlestick Park pass beneath his wingtip. “About five miles. We’re coming home. Coming home. Put out more flap. Go ahead. Now.”
Crandall pulled back at the flap lever and moved it to the next setting.
The Straton began to decelerate more quickly, and the nose jumped up. The aircraft began to pitch up toward the sky.
“John!”
Linda screamed.
“Calm down! It’s all right. It’s all right. I’ve got it under control That was normal. Just relax. We’re doing okay. Okay. Coming home. A couple more minutes.” The giant airliner was more of a handful than Berry imagined. It was heavy, ponderous, a hell of a lot different from the Skymaster … yet the principles of flight were the same.It is the Skymaster , he said with conviction.Nothing is different .
Suddenly, the wheel began to vibrate violently in his hands and the stall warning synthetic voice filled the cockpit.AIRSPEED …AIRSPEED . “Oh, Christ.” He had allowed the Straton to slow too much. The airframe began to shake badly. “Power, Sharon, power.” He held on to the wheel with both hands, knowing that if he let go with even one, the aircraft might get away from him.
Crandall reached out and grabbed the four throttles. She pushed them a few inches forward. “Power.”
“Not too much. Easy, easy. We don’t have much fuel.” Berry lowered the nose of the Straton to pick up airspeed. He prayed that he hadn’t asked for too much from the fuel-starved engines. The control wheel in his hands stopped vibrating and the flight smoothed out. But Berry could see that he had very little altitude left; he certainly couldn’t afford another approaching stall. Yet he had to ration every ounce of fuel, to balance engine power against altitude, altitude against speed, speed against lift and drag. The airport was coming up fast. He reached out and pulled the throttle back to a lower setting. “Okay, coming home, coming home, Sharon, full flaps.”
Crandall pulled the flap lever to its last notch. “Full flaps.”
Suddenly, another cockpit horn sounded, followed by another synthetic electronic voice.LANDING GEAR .
Berry looked down at the instrument panel. “Damn. …” He realized now that he had put out full flaps without lowering the landing gear, and that had automatically triggered the warning. A gentle reminder to pilots like himself who had too many problems to think about trivialities like landing gear. “Sharon—the landing gear. Put it down. Down!”
Crandall knew she also should have remembered—it had been part of the drill they had practiced. She reached out and lowered the big handle directly in front of her. “Gear down.”
The airport was almost beneath the nose of the Straton, and Berry knew it was too late to try to put it down on the shorter runway in front of him. He swung the Straton to the left, toward the widest part of the bay, away from the airport.
“John. The airport.”
“No good, I need room to maneuver.” The landing-gear voice continued, and he wondered if the gear was functioning. He focused on the three unlit landing-gear lights directly in front of him. “Forget it. No gear. We’re going to put it down in the bay.” Suddenly, the horn stopped and three bright green lights glowed in front of him. “Gear down! Gear down. Okay. Hold on. We’re turning in.” Berry banked the aircraft back to the right, but as soon as the airport came into sight again, he saw that his turn had been too wide.Christ, Berry, do something right. Get a grip on yourself .
“John, we’re too far left of the airport.”
“I know. Take it easy. I can slide it back.” He applied the proper amounts of rudder and aileron, and the Straton began sliding back toward the airport. “We’re okay. Coming in, everything is all right.” Berry felt that he could negotiate the approach with some degree of skill and confidence. But it was the last five or ten seconds to touchdown that killed—that transition between approach and landing, those moments when the lift of the aircraft had to end and the forces of gravity had to fully take over again.
He looked down at the airport, a right-angle cross of double runways jutting into the bay. He could see the main terminal and the long passageways radiating from it to connect the satellite terminals. He saw movement and activity on the ground, and knew they were waiting for him. There were two parallel runways in front of him now. He expected to see the runways foamed, but remembered that it was no longer considered useful in a crash situation. The white approach lights that ran out into the bay were blinking to show him they wanted him to use the left runway. “Okay, I read you. I read you.”
The touchdown zone lights embedded into the runway were on and the green runway lights were visible even in the daylight. There was no question about where they wanted him to land. The only question was what kind of landing it would be. All he could promise them was that he wouldn’t kill anyone on the ground.
The Straton kept sliding right as it descended on its long, shallow glide slope toward the runway in front of it. Berry stopped the slide and lined up the nose with the centerline. “Okay. Soon.” He had no idea why the engines were still running. He glanced at the altimeter. Three hundred feet above sea level, and the airport was at about thirty feet above sea level. Two hundred seventy feet to touchdown. He looked out the windshield. The runway was about two miles ahead. They were low by normal standards, but nothing about this flight had been normal. The airspeed was slow, but not slow enough for a stall. He grasped the wheel with one hand and pulled off more power from the throttles with the other. “Okay, we’re going in. Going in. Sharon. Linda. Just hold on. Hold on. I’ll touch it down as easy as possible. Sharon, read off the speeds to me the way I told you.”
Crandall looked down at the airspeed indicator: “One hundred sixty knots.”
“Right.” Berry felt he could do it, as long as the fuel lasted another fifty or sixty seconds. As long as he didn’t fall apart within the next minute. He drew a long, deep breath. In front of him, a series of sequence strobe flashers in the bay drew his eyes toward the runway centerline.Very elaborate system. Very nice airport . “Speed.”
“One hundred fifty knots.”
Berry held the wheel steady and felt the huge aircraft sinking slowly from its own weight, down toward the earth.
He heard a sound behind him, the sound of ripping—ripping fiberglass. John Berry kept his eyes on the runway, but he knew what that sound meant.
Sharon Crandall turned and saw the panty hose lying on the floor with the latch still attached to them. She looked up. “No! No!”
19
* * *
The president of Trans-United Airlines, the chairman of the board, and government officials looked out from the control tower. The entire emergency and rescue operation was being coordinated below.
Jack Miller stood off to the side, not exactly sure how he had gotten into the control tower, but knowing that there was no longer time to get to the runway. He watched and listened as the operation unfolded around him.
The curious and the morbid were arriving by the thousands, choking the airport access roads and covering the grass boundaries of Route 80. Police in the area of the airport, trained for just such a situation, began clearing a lane for outside emergency vehicles to reach the airport.
Outside the main terminal, and inside along the security corridors, people had begun assembling, even before the news of the radar sighting. Those on the outside stared up at the sky, waiting, on the remote chance that the Straton would return. Those on the inside watched the flight information board or just listened to the public address system for updates. They waited and watched, like wives of sailors once waited and watched, on the quays and from the upper windows of their houses, for sight of the ship that was lost.
Since the radar sighting had been announced, the airport was increasingly jammed with friends and relatives of the passengers on Flight 52. With them stood other passengers and airport employees who had temporarily abandoned their jobs. For everyone outside, all eyes were turned eastward as they followed the huge silver Straton as it swung slowly around to the south. It flew low over the bay, flaps down and landing gear extended, like a gull about to light on a rock.
From the moment the Straton had been spotted on radar, all other air traffic had been diverted to Oakland and other airports, and rapid intervention vehicles—RIVs—had been cutting across the deserted runways, trying to position themselves for any eventuality. Equipment was being massed by RIVs and helicopters at the point where the two pairs of runways crossed. A platform truck from which the officer-in-charge would supervise the operation was brought out to the crossway, complete with field desks and cell phones. Medical supplies, wheelchairs, hundreds of stretchers, water, and burn units were flowing toward the center of the airfield. Aluminum trestles were set up to convert stretchers into examining tables. A unit stood by to identify and mark the dead. Another unit of paramedics, nurses, and doctors was breaking open crates of medical supplies. The entire acre at the juncture of the runways resembled a hastily assembled military bivouac. But as quickly as the emergency services were assembling, they were still not ready to handle a disaster of the potential scope presented by the onrushing Straton.
Edward Johnson and Wayne Metz stood on a small taxiway a few hundred feet from the runway. Around them, on the road and on the grass, stood scores of police, reporters, airport officials, and Trans-United people. About a dozen news cameras stood in the grass, all pointed toward the end of the runway. RIVs sped past, taking up positions on both sides of the runway.
Wayne Metz looked out across the bay and watched silently as the Straton made its turn. His mouth kept forming words, but no sound came out. Never before had he wanted so badly to see one of his insured risks destroyed. He stared as the Straton came out of its turn far east of the runway. “I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe that’s the Straton.”
Edward Johnson watched, fascinated, as the aircraft made its final approach. “It’s the Straton, all right. I don’t know how he did it. I don’t know how he could have recovered from a flame out … but he did, didn’t he?” He had stopped being frightened and had gotten control of himself again. A cold, calculating impassiveness took hold in him, and he watched with grudging admiration as Berry slid the aircraft back toward the runway. “I’ll be damned. Jesus Christ, this guy has his act together. I might sign the son-of-a-bitch for a pilot job with Trans-United. He does a better job than half our overpaid crybabies.”
/> Metz looked at Johnson as though the man had gone completely out of his mind. But as he stared at Johnson, he knew why Johnson had come so far. Edward Johnson believed that he had not been a participant in what had happened in the communications room. He was now Edward Johnson, vice-president of Trans-United Airlines, and very concerned about the fate of his flight.
Trans-United’s chief pilot, Captain Kevin Fitzgerald, moved closer to the runway than anyone else dared. He stood by himself at the edge of the grass, staring down the long expanse of concrete. He raised his eyes and looked out into the bay, then looked at the head-on silhouette of the Straton. His airplane was coming home. He whispered, “Come on. Come on, you bastard. Hold it.” His voice became louder, “Hold it! You got it! You crazy bastard, it’s yours, it’s yours, it’s yours! You’re in control. In control.”
The police and emergency services crews who had gathered on the grass became excited as the Straton came in over the bay and began dropping toward the runway. Many of those people realized the dangerous position they had put themselves in and began running back toward the hastily assembled disaster-control area, a little farther from the Straton’s target area.
Johnson, Metz, and Fitzgerald, along with most of the firemen, a few reporters, and all the cameramen, stayed dangerously close to the runway.
Johnson turned to Metz. “It’s going to be hard to convince anyone that the pilot of that aircraft is in any way brain damaged.”
Metz shook his head. “Damn it, you can say he was temporarily confused.”
“Right. But if those data-link printouts exist, we have to get to them before the FAA people start crawling around that cockpit.”
“I hope to hell he crashes. I hope the airplane explodes.”
Johnson nodded. He’d never been so ambivalent about anything in his life. “God, Wayne, I hope he makes it and I hope we make it.”
The two men looked at each other for a long moment.
Mayday Page 34
