Altitude (Power Reads Book 1)

by Dean Crawford

  ‘Yes,’ came the reply, ‘listen to me very carefully and do everything that I say.’

  ***

  IX

  Captain Reed reached out and pulled the largest lever on the instrument panel before him into the down position, and Jason heard a faint whine from somewhere far behind them as the Airbus’s undercarriage extended.

  The faint roar of disturbed air from outside increased as the undercarriage was pushed out into the airflow and Jason extended the flaps to stage two, slowing the airliner further and making it easier to land. The Airbus leaped and rolled gamely on the turbulent winds as the lift was increased, the flaps increasing the pressure of the airflow beneath the wings. Jason felt his stomach tingle as the airplane’s descent rate lowered and he tapped his harness one last time, a throwback to his flight training days when he obsessed about double checking everything in an attempt to minimise the chances of mistakes.

  Jason checked one by one the fuel remaining in the airplane’s tanks, three green lights on the undercarriage indicators, the engine temperatures and pressures and myriad other instruments as the airplane lined up for its landing. Captain Reed switched the autopilot over to the ILS frequency and immediately the airplane responded, lining up more accurately to Keflavik’s runway.

  ‘Three thousand feet, ILS detected, we’re locked in.’

  Jason saw on the main multi–function display before him a cross–hair appear that signified the vertical and lateral position of the Airbus in respect of the runway’s approach glideslope and centreline, miles ahead of them through the clouds. The crosshairs were almost perfectly aligned, and the autopilot turned the Airbus a fraction to the left and eased off the throttles to maintain the glideslope.

  Another glimpse of terrain through a wispy gap in the dense cloud, and Jason began to settle in as the Airbus’s autopilot made tiny corrections throughout the descent. The wind was still buffeting them and he could feel the updrafts soaring up off the terrain as they flew over them, but it was minor compared to the violent windshear experienced throughout the earlier stages of the descent and he noted that the passenger cabin was silent now.

  ‘Final checks,’ Captain Reed announced, ‘flaps thirty.’

  Jason extended the flaps to almost full and the Airbus slowed to below two hundred knots, trailing vapor streamers through the clouds from its wingtips as the altimeter slowly wound down. Jason checked the plates one last time against their position and altitude and then he read the “go–around” procedure to Reed before placing the plates beside him on his clipboard.

  ‘We’re category two ILS,’ Captain Reed said as he judged the weather. ‘Hope the Keflavikians have put the kettle on.’

  The only landing worse than a Cat Two ILS landing was a Category Three, which meant that the pilots might not see the runway until only moments before the wheels touched down upon it. Jason had experienced that only once in his career so far, in dead–calm winter weather when he had landed at a fog–enshrouded Gatwick after a European short–haul. The weather was rougher here in Iceland, but the category meant that they should at least be able to see and confirm the runway a short distance before touchdown.

  ‘Gear down and locked, three greens, flaps full, spoilers armed,’ Jason said as he completed the final checks.

  ‘Phoenix three seven five, three greens, finals for runway two niner, Keflavik.’

  The controller at Narsarsuaq replied quickly.

  ‘Phoenix three seven five, cleared to land at your discretion, runway two niner Keflavik, report on touchdown.’

  ‘Cleared to land Keflavik two niner, wilco, Phoenix three seven five.’

  Jason rested one hand on the throttles and prepared himself to initiate a go–around if for some reason they were unable to land. The controller’s call of clearance to land at “their discretion” was a clear indicator that the final decision to touch down was theirs alone; the controller could not be responsible for a landing at an airport that he could not even see.

  ‘One thousand feet.’

  The sky ahead of them remained a featureless grey, occasional squalls of rain splattering the windshield and the wings rocking under the gusts of wind fluking between the storm cells sweeping in from the north Atlantic. The passenger cabin behind them was now deathly silent and Jason knew that every single person back there would be watching out of their tiny windows and praying for a safe landing. Almost every person on earth harboured to some degree a logical fear of flying, which was hardly surprising given the fact that they were locked inside a seventy–ton metal tube filled with aviation fuel, moving faster even at landing speed than a Formula One car. Worse, they had absolutely no control over what happened next.

  Jason peered ahead through the gloom and suddenly he saw what looked like a patch of terrain ahead of them through the heavy clouds sweeping past the airplane. He almost called it out on instinct but refrained for a few long seconds. Then suddenly the thick clouds were swept clear as the airliner descended below the cloud base and Jason almost leaped for joy.

  ‘Runway!’

  Through the gloomy afternoon light, he saw the frigid terrain of Iceland, snow and ice everywhere and the black waters of the Atlantic and the Denmark Strait in the distance. The glowing lights of Keflavik on the shore of the bay were easily outshone by the vivid runway lights of Keflavik airport stretching away before them, and he could see the flashing white beacon of the airport control tower as easily as a lighthouse at night. The gloomy conditions meant that the controllers in the tower had at least decided to illuminate the runway perhaps a little earlier than they normally would have.

  ‘Traffic?’

  Jason responded instantly to the captain’s request and scanned the airport and surrounding skies for any sign of other aircraft in the circuit or on the runway. Despite his best efforts and the sharp eyesight of youth he could see no evidence of airplanes, no landing or navigation beacons visible against the heavily bruised clouds.

  ‘Nothing,’ he replied after a moment. ‘There’s nobody in the circuit.’

  Captain Reed placed one hand gently on the control column, following the movements of the autopilot and ready to take control at a moment’s notice. Jason held the throttles and placed one hand over the go–around command switch on the base of the throttle, as the Airbus rocked and bucked under the turbulent winds whipping over the icy terrain below them. If they had to suddenly take off again due to an obstruction on the runway or similar, he could hit the switches and the Airbus would immediately advance the throttles to take off power and raise the nose to lift off again.

  He could see vast banks of cloud obscuring the mountains to the south, and he could tell by the ripped and torn cloud base that the winds were rough and were crossing runway two niner. As they descended and closed in on the runway threshold he spotted a bright orange windsock flapping in the wind.

  ‘Surface winds look like twenty knots plus from two two zero,’ he said to Reed.

  The Airbus was “crabbing” into the wind, flying slightly sideways so that the power from the engines prevented the crosswinds from pushing the aircraft off the runway centreline as it prepared to land. The disorientating attitude meant that although they were flying toward Keflavik airport, the airplane’s nose was actually pointing to a spot somewhere to the south of it.

  Captain Reed said nothing as he focused on getting the plane onto the runway. Jason realized that he was holding his breath as they descended through five hundred feet, the glaciers and snowfields starting to move quickly by beneath them.

  ‘Four hundred.’

  The automated altitude warning, a digitized female voice, counted down their height in feet as they saw the runway lights glowing brightly before them, the asphalt runway’s white markings vivid and clear, beckoning them down. A set of PAPI lights to one side of the runway showed two green and two white lights, signifying that they were on the correct glideslope for final approach.

  ‘Three hundred.’

  Jason tense
d, ready on the throttles and go–around switches as the Airbus bucked and rocked on the turbulent air. The engines whined up to catch the descent rate from a downdraft, then down again as the airplane settled once more. Jason watched the sidesticks wiggle this way and that as the autopilot kept the airplane level with countless inputs.

  ‘Two hundred.’

  The runway threshold loomed up as the autopilot and ILS brought them all the way in to landing. The Airbus’s engines changed note slightly as the computers judged the descent rate and prepared to reduce it by flaring the nose ready for touch down.

  ‘One hundred.’

  The boggy terrain before the runway threshold flashed by and the white “piano keys” at the start of the runway vanished beneath the nose as the wings rocked from left to right, wiggling in the crosswind.

  ‘Fifty.’

  The engines suddenly whined down to idle power and the airplane dropped for a moment as the thrust vanished, then the autopilot raised the nose to flare and touch down on the runway.

  ‘Forty, thirty, twenty, ten…’

  The radio suddenly crackled into life and a voice screamed at them.

  ‘Phoenix three seven five abort landing! Do not land! Repeat, abort landing NOW!!’

  ***

  X

  Jason hit the go–around switches even as Captain Reed physically slammed the throttles open, acting on pure instinct even though the autopilot was already in the process of applying maximum power to the engines. The Airbus surged as the power came back in and the autopilot rotated the nose upward in response. The aircraft shuddered as it struggled clear of the runway, drifting off the runway centreline as the crosswinds caught it and dragged it to one side.

  Jason’s guts twisted inside him as he saw the safety of the runway drift to the left, the wheels just feet from the earth that was rushing past at nearly two hundred miles per hour beneath them. The grass verges flashed by as Jason willed the autopilot to get the plane safely back into the air and not plunge them into an uncontrolled landing into icy mud and grass.

  Captain Reed disengaged the autopilot and fought for control as the left wing rose up into the air, the fierce crosswind rushing in beneath it and trying to flip the airplane over. The right wing dropped down and Jason heard screams from one side of the passenger cabin as people saw the right wingtip descend to within inches of the ground, the airplane barely at rooftop height and the terrain flashing by just a few feet beneath them.

  The huge engines finally spun up to full power and Jason felt the aircraft climb as he reached out and grabbed the undercarriage lever, slamming it into the up position. The airliner soared up and away from the runway as Captain Reed replied to air traffic control, and for once his demeanour was anything but calm.

  ‘Phoenix three seven five, going around, clear of the runway!’

  The reply that came back chilled the blood in Jason’s veins. ’Thank god.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Reed asked. ‘What’s going on?’

  There was a momentary pause before the controller at Narsarsuaq replied.

  ‘Phoenix three seven five, maintain runway heading, climb flight level three zero zero.’

  ‘Say again, Narsarsuaq,’ Reed replied immediately, ‘we are low on fuel.’

  ‘Climb flight level three zero zero and await further instructions,’ the controller confirmed, ‘we have some information for you. I’m afraid that you can’t land at Keflavik.’

  ‘Why the hell not?’ Reed demanded, dispensing with all aviation communication protocol. ‘The runway is clear, the weather is as good as it’s going to get and we only have fuel left for half an hour’s flying.’

  ‘We’re getting you the information you need right now, but I’ve been advised to tell you not to land at Keflavik under any circumstances. Climb flight level three zero zero and orbit the field, please.’

  There was something in the controller’s voice that made Jason look at the captain with a new fear churning in his belly.

  ‘Something major’s happened down there. We have enough fuel for the climb.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Reed replied angrily. ‘But will we have the weather to be able to land safely next time around? There had better be a hell of a reason for this.’

  Jason confirmed their climb out route from Keflavik to Narsarsuaq while Reed flew the plane manually and climbed back up into the gloomy, towering cloud formations. The Airbus churned and bucked as they fought their way back to altitude, and Jason found himself on the public address system to the passenger cabin.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately the crosswind at Keflavik was too high for us to safely touch down, so we’re going to wait for a better gap in the weather before trying again. We apologise for any inconvenience, but obviously we’d like to make sure that we land in the safest conditions possible. Thank you.’

  *

  ‘Are you kidding me?’

  Chloe heard the same announcement that Becca did, and neither of them bought it for an instant.

  Becca had known Captain Reed to touch down safely in strong crosswinds on many occasions before this, and what was more she hadn’t seen him abort a landing at such a late stage since she had joined the airline. Sure, it had been a rough as hell descent but the weather had looked okay over the field and she was certain that they had been about to touch down. The engines had gone through their usual routine, whining down before the wheels hit the runway, at which point they would spool up again as the reverse thrusters were deployed to help brake the airplane to a stop.

  There were no windows this far forward in the fuselage but as they were now climbing out from the airfield Becca undid her seat belt and made her way aft, hanging on to the seats to keep her balance as she moved downhill toward the galley while the airplane lurched and gyrated through the gusty skies.

  Almost immediately she saw the concerned looks on the faces of the passengers, and a flurry of requests and questions rushed out at her.

  ‘Why didn’t we land?’

  ‘The weather seemed okay at the end.’

  ‘Is there a problem on the ground?’

  ‘My little boy’s feeling sick again.’

  ‘Can we use the toilet?’

  Becca tried to answer each of them in turn as she made her way down the airplane, keeping a smile on her face as though nothing was at all wrong. She reached the galley and tucked herself out of sight for a moment as she gathered herself. The passengers would by now be worrying about everything from bombs on board to terrorist attacks on Iceland to problems with the landing gear, and she had precious little to work with.

  She picked up the phone to the cockpit and pressed the intercom button. Jason answered it quickly.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked.

  ‘I was about to ask you the same thing. We could have landed on that pass, right?’

  ‘We’re waiting for information,’ Jason replied, somewhat guardedly. ‘As soon as we learn something I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Please do,’ Becca urged, ‘the passengers are getting edgy and I don’t think they’re buying the crosswind story.’

  ‘I know,’ Jason replied, ‘I didn’t have much else to play with. Control will be back to us shortly and we’ll let everyone know what’s going on at Keflavik as soon as we know ourselves.’

  Jason cut the line off, and left Becca feeling more concerned about what was happening on the flight deck than ever before because he’d said it himself: they could have landed, so what on earth had stopped them?

  *

  ‘The herd are getting spooked,’ Jason reported to Reed. ‘Narsarsuaq had better report in fast or the girls are going to have a hard time with any cover stories.’

  The Airbus shuddered again and then bright light flickered outside for several seconds until the airplane burst free of the cloud cover once again and into blinding sunlight at twenty–six thousand feet. Jason saw anvil–shaped thunderheads glowing brilliant white in the sunlight all around them as the airplane
levelled off at thirty thousand feet and Reed glanced at the fuel display.

  ‘That climb cost us almost half of our remaining fuel,’ he said as he adjusted the throttles to conserve the remaining supply.

  Jason checked the fuel flow readings against the overall fuel capacity and shook his head.

  ‘We stay below two hundred and fifty knots, clean, and we can maybe squeeze about forty–five minutes’ endurance up here before we have to land, regardless of what Narsarsuaq say.’

  As if on cue, the Narsarsuaq controller’s voice burst onto the radio.

  ‘Phoenix three seven five, we have information for you.’

  ‘About time,’ Reed snapped back. ‘If you don’t give me a damned good reason not to land at Keflavik we’re heading straight back in there.’

  Narsarsuaq didn’t reply for a long moment, but when he did his voice was sombre.

  ‘If you land at Keflavik, every single one of you will die.’

  ***

  XI

  It took several moments for the statement that the Narsarsuaq controller had made to sink in. Jason struggled to process it, and he wondered for a moment if their plane had become the target of some new and despicable terrorist attack.

  ‘You’re going to have to give us something more than that,’ Reed replied to the controller, calm once again now as he waited to hear what the problem on the ground was.

  ‘This is all coming to us from the United States Geological Service people over in the states. They’re also talking to Shanwick control, so you’re going to have to bear with us because it’s as confusing to me as it is to everyone. Switch to guard frequency one two one decimal five zero.’

  ‘Wilco.’ Captain Reed seemed icy calm as Jason instinctively switched the channel for him, an emergency frequency available to all civilian aircraft. ‘We’re here, just tell us what the hell’s going on.’