Altitude (Power Reads Book 1)

by Dean Crawford

  He wracked his brains for some solution to the problem, and even ran through his fuel calculations again to make sure that he had not erred, but everything checked out the same way. Jason set his flight computer down and stared out of the windshield again at the blue and white sky, the light now starting to change as the winter sun began sinking slowly toward the turbulent horizon.

  Captain Reed said nothing, but Jason couldn’t keep his silence.

  ‘We can’t go back, we can’t go forward and we don’t know if we can land safely. What the hell are we going to do?’

  ***

  V

  Captain Reed remained silent for a long time, but Jason knew better than to say anything else. Instead he watched the distance to Keflavik count down on one of the display screens before him. They were within one hundred nautical miles and their ground speed was over three hundred knots, meaning they would be overhead the airport in just twenty minutes if they continued at their present height and airspeed.

  ‘We hope for the best,’ Captain Reed said finally. ‘We press on to Keflavik and land directly if we have to. We can’t risk diverting and running out of fuel and there’s no way I’m going to force land into a GA airfield unless it’s our only remaining option.’

  Jason nodded, oddly relieved that a decision had been made even though that decision was one that meant they would have to approach a major airport, in terrible weather conditions, with nobody on the ground to warn them of any dangers that they might face upon landing.

  ‘Narsarsuaq, Phoenix three seven five, we’re going for Keflavik.’

  The controller came back immediately.

  ‘Roger three seven five, all in–bound oceanic traffic is being diverted from Keflavik and Reykjavik to Glasgow, Scotland. You’ll be going in alone. Stay on this frequency and we’ll monitor Keflavik in case they liven up. Squawk seven–seven–zero–zero.’

  ‘Wilco,’ Reed replied. ‘Contact FlyBe two four two and tell them we’re under your control. They’re monitoring Keflavik.’

  ‘Wilco.’

  Jason sat back in his seat and shook his head in confusion. ‘What could have happened down there?’

  ‘I’ve never lost two towers before,’ Reed admitted. ‘We’re going to have to be on our game here, Jason. We don’t know what’s happened but we do know that we’re committed to landing so let’s put everything else out of our minds and focus on getting this airplane safely on the ground, okay?’

  ‘What about the passengers?’

  It was a stupid question and Jason regretted asking it the moment he did so. Company procedure was standard in emergency situations at most airlines: keep the passengers calm and never let them know about the seriousness of a situation unless to do so would increase the danger that they were already in. People could be unpredictable during times of stress, and an aluminium tube seven miles above the earth and moving at four hundred miles per hour was never a good place for a riot.

  ‘We follow procedure for as long as we’re able to,’ Reed replied, not bridling at Jason’s faux pas.

  That was a plan that Jason could stick to and he nodded as he grabbed the checklists, eager to put the error behind him.

  Jason began the pre–descent checks as Captain Reed monitored the autopilot and their closure on Keflavik, preparing for the moment when he would command the autopilot to begin the descent into the airfield. Below them, the upper cloud layers looked every bit as turbulent as they had over southern England, if not more so. Jason found himself unusually anxious that this was going to be a rough descent, but he drew comfort from the fact that unless the entire Keflavik airfield had been erased from the surface of the earth, they would be landing soon. For the first time in a long time he began looking forward to being back on the ground, and an old adage from one of his flying instructors back at Blackbushe in the United Kingdom floated unbidden through the vaults of his mind.

  Better to be down here, wishing you were up there than up there, wishing you were down here.

  ‘Traffic, one o’clock.’

  Jason said the words automatically as he spotted a fast–moving speck emerge from the cloud layer below, just to the right of their airplane’s nose. Captain Reed glanced across and spotted the other aircraft climbing up out of the weather and into the clear blue sky.

  ‘Another A318,’ Jason identified it, ‘must be FlyBe two four two.’

  They watched as the airliner climbed toward them, trailing vapour from its engines in brilliant white lines as it raced past a few miles away in the opposite direction. Jason craned his neck to watch it go behind them, heading south east toward the Faroe Islands.

  For some reason, as he watched it go he felt an odd sense of desolation, as though the FlyBe jet was heading away to safety and they were about to descend into something far worse. The radio crackled and the premonition vanished.

  ‘Phoenix three seven five, for your information FlyBe two four two reports heavy weather all the way out of Keflavik, wind shear and CBs. QNH niner niner one and falling, surface winds estimated at twenty to twenty–five knots south westerly, gusts up to fifty with scattered virga, visibility between one and five miles with cloud base below one thousand feet.’

  ‘Copy weather, Phoenix three seven five.’

  Jason’s training gave him the same mental picture of the conditions on the ground as the captain would have, gleaned from years of experience. Gusts of up to fifty knots were close to what the A318 could land in even when they were coming straight down the runway, let alone coming in as a crosswind as they were at Keflavik. That was because an aircraft landing into thirty knot gusts that suddenly vanished would find all of the lift beneath its wings dramatically reduced and could drop like a rock if the pilot was not quick on the stick and throttle. Of greater concern though were the reports of scattered CBs, an acronym for the giant cumulonimbus clouds that created thunderstorms, within which violent updrafts, wind shears, hailstone storms and lightning could threaten an aircraft of any size.

  But worse than all of that was the presence of “virga”, a common occurrence in and around the trailing base of major storm clouds. Just as there were updrafts near the leeward side of any such cloud, virga were equally immense downdrafts found at the windward side so powerful that they had been known to plunge even the largest aircraft to their doom, no matter how much power was applied to the engines. In low visibility Jason and the captain would have little to no warning of where the storms might be, and the A318’s internal weather radar would only give them the briefest of opportunities to avoid the lethal meteorlogical phenomenon before it sent them crashing into the ground. Capable of detecting rainfall from clouds, the weather radar gave the crew at least some idea of where the worst of the weather was, and thus a means to try to avoid it.

  The final concern was the low and falling QNH, a measure of air pressure in the area. Fast–falling pressure meant an incoming storm front, which meant that the weather would likely only worsen as time went by, just as was predicted at Akureyri.

  ‘We also have to think about the mountains to the east of the field,’ Reed added.

  Jason nodded. Mountains created severe updrafts and rolling vortices of air that could likewise entrap an unwary aircraft, forcing it into a collision with terrain. Several aircraft had been lost over the years flying into Keflavik in poor weather after hitting the mountains near the airport.

  ‘Apart from that, everything’s rosy,’ Jason replied.

  Captain Reed glanced at him and they both smiled. Despite everything that faced them, they had been trained to handle situations like this. They knew what to do and how to do it, and the knowledge fortified Jason. They also had enough fuel to make several practice approaches into Keflavik if necessary, waiting for the right one where the weather conditions allowed them to touch down safely. Furthermore, they still had daylight at the surface. Attempting this approach at night would instantly have doubled the stress that they were already under.

  ‘Pre–descent che
cks complete,’ Jason said. ‘We’re good to go.’

  Captain Reed took a deep breath and nodded.

  ‘Okay, let’s follow the approach plates to the letter, stay calm and bring the plane in. We have the field to ourselves and if we’re lucky, Keflavik will come back on line before we make the runway.’

  Captain Reed set the controls on the autopilot, dialling in a standard descent rate and autothrottle settings. The nose of the Airbus A318 dropped gently and Jason saw the dense layer of cloud a few thousand feet below them appear in the windscreen as his ears popped gently with the change of air pressure.

  He turned his attention to the instruments and watched as the altimeter began winding down.

  ***

  VI

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are now beginning our descent into Keflavik. Please ensure that you have disposed of any rubbish and we ask that you please stow your trays and ensure that your seatbelts are fastened. Thank you.’

  Rebecca Ward had never gotten used to the sound of her own voice over the speakers as she stood in the tiny galley at the rear of the Airbus A318 and directed the other stewardess on the flight with her. She watched as Chloe began moving through the airplane with a small trolley and a waste bag, into which the passengers dumped whatever debris they had created during the flight.

  ‘Becca, there’s a child who’s been sick in Row Four.’

  Chloe, one of the airline’s newer recruits, gestured to the front of the airplane as she hurried back to join Rebecca in the galley. Five years younger than Becca, Chloe was the image of the air hostess; blonde, smiley, tall. A hard worker, about the only thing she couldn’t face was puke. Besides, the front of the plane was Becca’s territory.

  ‘I’ve got it,’ Becca sighed as she checked her pony tail of long dark hair and put the perma–smile back on her face. ‘You want me to save you some?’

  ‘Gross,’ Chloe blanched, ‘only if you want me to hurl as well.’

  Becca eased past the trash trolley and made her way to row four, although even without Chloe’s warning she would have known where to go, the faint odour of vomit drifting through the cabin. She stopped alongside the row, where a brown–haired boy about six years of age with a puffy red face and wet eyes looked up at her apologetically. The boy’s mother was holding a carrier bag that swilled with fluid.

  ‘I’m so sorry, I told him not to eat too much candy but he wouldn’t listen.’

  Becca took the bag with a smile and ruffled the boy’s head. ‘I did the same thing when I was a child. Last week.’

  The boy grinned shyly and the mother cuddled him as Becca made her way back toward the galley, feeling as though she were walking uphill as the aircraft descended, its nose low. She saw the seatbelt lights come on and glanced left and right as she checked that trays were stowed and seatbelts were fastened.

  Brilliant sunlight was streaming through the windows either side of the cabin, but the light began to flicker rapidly and she knew that they were reaching the cloud layer. She had heard Captain Reed’s announcement about the weather and although she wasn’t a pilot, experience told her that reaching the cloud layer this early in a descent generally spelled trouble. As if on cue she heard the captain’s voice on the broadcast system.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen this is your captain speaking, we’ve had reports of some bumpy weather ahead as we approach Keflavik, so if you could please remain in your seats and ensure that your belts are fastened that would be of great help to the flight attendants. Thank you.’

  As she reached the galley and dumped the unsavoury bag of vomit into the trash, a telephone on the wall beeped and she picked it up. A direct line to the cockpit, she heard Jason’s voice confirming her fears.

  ‘Make sure the troops are all strapped in early,’ he said. ‘This’ll probably be a rough one.’

  There was something in his tones that set Becca slightly on edge. Jason was one of the nicer pilots, new to the airline and the job, which meant that being a pilot hadn’t gone to his head yet. He was more friendly and considerate toward the stewardesses, still human enough to help out without considering it beneath his station, and that had made him stand out to Rebecca.

  Although fraternising among the staff was discouraged by the company, everyone knew that it happened all the time and Becca had noticed the young pilot the moment he had joined the company. Her attention had not been reciprocated, however, largely because like most new pilots Jason was utterly absorbed in the workload and learning how to keep up with the highly demanding routine on the flight deck. However, he had always been courteous and easy going, with just enough of a sparkle in his eyes to suggest that he may harbour more than a passing interest in her.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Everything’s fine, just get them belted in and take your stations as soon as you can.’

  The line went silent and Becca hung up the phone. Even before she had time to think about the call she felt a tremor ripple through the A318’s fuselage, as the aircraft hit the first waves of turbulence rising up from the storms that she felt certain were raging somewhere below them. Perched in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, Iceland wasn’t a place known for clement weather, and if things there were considered rough by the pilots then this could be one hell of a ride down.

  ‘Chloe?’

  The blonde stewardess hurried to Becca’s side. ‘S’up?’

  ‘Get everything locked down and check one last time that the passengers are belted in, we’re heading into stormy weather.’

  Chloe nodded without concern and began working her way forward through the cabin, checking all the seats as Becca grabbed a hand–counter and began totting up the number of passengers in their seats. The last thing she wanted now was someone locked in the toilet going about their business when they flew through a major downdraft.

  The aircraft juddered and twisted as it dropped down through a layer of wispy clouds that raced past the windows of the cramped cabin. Becca remained on her feet, smiling by unthinking reflex at anyone who caught her eye.

  ‘How come we’re being asked to strap in so early?’ a man asked from her left. ‘We’re still above thirty thousand feet.’

  ‘There’s some turbulence ahead,’ Becca explained, ‘it’s just precautionary when the pilots think the descent might be a little bumpy.’

  ‘But I need to use the toilet.’

  ‘We’ll be on the ground shortly, sir,’ she promised and moved on, not wishing to debate the matter any further.

  She reached the toilet and checked quickly inside, finding it empty. Broken sunlight flickered through the cabin as she made her way forward, following Chloe as she counted the passengers and reached the front of the aircraft. Satisfied with the count, she sat down alongside Chloe in two seats at the front of the plane and reached down to strap herself in.

  The Airbus shuddered and she felt the wings rock from side to side as the aircraft hit a wall of turbulence, rougher this time than the last. In her time as a flight assistant Rebecca had experienced storm systems that had given even the hardiest of flyers cause for concern, so the rippling turbulence now assaulting the aircraft was not enough to worry her. Despite that she could not get Jason’s voice out of her mind, and on impulse she stood up again and made her way to the cockpit door. Normally she would not have bothered the flight deck during descent and landing, usually the busiest part of any flight for the pilots, but something was bugging her intuition and she couldn’t shake it off.

  Beside the cockpit door, just below the keypad that allowed entry, was a small speaker system that allowed her to communicate with the pilots, who due to terrorism concerns now always flew with the cockpit securely locked. She pressed the intercom switch and a small beep informed her that the intercom was open to the cockpit.

  ‘It’s Becca, everything all right in there?’

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ came the response from Captain Reed, sounding unconcerned. ‘This could be a bit bumpy though, so m
ake sure you and the other girls are strapped in too.’

  ‘Will do.’

  Becca shut off the intercom and then staggered sideways as a violent crosswind struck the A318 from her port side. The aircraft lurched and Becca collided against a wall with a hefty thump before she was able to steady herself. This time she heard a rush of gasps and whispers from the passengers in the cabin and she sensed immediately their concern as the Airbus continued its descent.

  Becca gathered herself together, sucked in a deep breath and stepped back into view of the cabin. She passed Chloe by and made her way down the length of the airplane, checking once again that all the passenger’s seat belts were fastened and that all trays were stowed. There was no need for the extra check of course, but Becca knew from experience that the passengers would see her moving through the aircraft, apparently unconcerned by the turbulence, and that in itself would calm their nerves and prevent any sense of panic from pervading the cabin.

  The light from the windows was now a pale white and devoid of the brilliant sunshine of the past couple of hours. The cabin lights were also out as she made her way back up the plane, forcing herself not to hurry despite the jolts and thumps reverberating through the aircraft, as though giant fists were pounding the fuselage from outside as it raced past through the clouds.

  Becca made it back to her seat and gratefully strapped back in as the Airbus rocked from side to side.

  ‘They weren’t kidding about the turbulence,’ Chloe remarked, her own features slightly drawn. ‘Have you ever had it this bad?’

  Becca smiled and nodded, not wanting Chloe to have any concerns.

  ‘Trust me, this is nothing. Jason and Harry have seen far worse conditions than this.’