Altitude (Power Reads Book 1)

by Dean Crawford

  ‘We’re going towards it!’ Becca yelped as she appeared in the cockpit doorway.

  ‘Better than taking off into it!’ Jason snapped back, focusing only on getting into the air as quickly as possible.

  There was no time for the usual redundancy and safety checks, the routines that were by law required by all pilots to perform to ensure the safety of the passengers in their charge. This was an emergency, and Jason wanted only to get the airplane the hell out of Keflavik before they were all roasted alive.

  He saw the grass verge in the glow of the landing lights moving away from him as the entrance to runway two–niner appeared, and he followed it as accurately as he could. There was a real and present danger that he might bury one of the main undercarriage wheels in soft mud and ice if he judged the turn incorrectly, stranding them to their gruesome fate. As the Airbus turned for the runway so Penrose got his first good look at the pyroclastic flow through his own window.

  ‘We might need to make haste,’ he uttered in typically understated fashion.

  Jason glanced across the cockpit and saw the gargantuan wall of searing debris rushing toward them, filling the night sky now as it raced across the bay to the east of Keflavik, the lights of the town of Vogar on the far side vanishing abruptly as they were consumed by the scorching ash.

  Jason scanned the display screen showing engine data, saw the temperatures and pressures all reading in the green as he taxied onto the runway and swung the nose away from the onrushing pyroclastic flow to point as best as he could down the runway centreline.

  ‘Now would be good!’ Penrose yelled, straining behind him to watch the explosive ash cloud rushing upon them.

  The lights of the town behind them blinked out one by one in rapid succession, homes and vehicles swallowed, bursting into flames as they were consumed by the hellish fury of the ash. Jason thrust the throttles fully forward and the Airbus surged as it accelerated down the runway, her engines roaring once again and the fuselage trembling as though alive.

  ‘Airspeed,’ Penrose said as the instruments began registering their velocity. ‘Sixty knots.’

  Jason kept the throttles pinned forward with one hand as with the other he applied aileron into the wind and rudder with his boots to keep them straight on the runway centreline. The windsock had been gusting at twenty knots from the south west and he felt the Airbus heave to the right as she caught the wind down her left side.

  The rudder pedals fought back against Jason as he struggled to maintain his position on the runway as they hurtled along, his vision ahead completely obscured by the opaque windshield.

  ‘One hundred and twenty knots!’ Penrose snapped as he glanced out of the side window behind them. ‘It’s right behind us!’

  Jason kept his gaze to his right, the edge of the runway visible as the pin–prick lights raced by alongside them, and then he saw the ash cloud looming up behind the starboard wing. The lights of the airport suddenly dimmed as the edge of the cloud plunged past the wings. He saw a fuel bowser near the airport terminal explode as it was seared by the heat, the fumes of aviation fuel ignited in a brilliant and blossoming fireball only for the explosion to be consumed instantly within a scorching darkness.

  And then he saw a figure in the darkness.

  Far out across the airfield and silhouetted in front of the terminal lights, he saw the distant shape of a man running with an awkward gait. The figure seemed to become aware of something nearby, then stopped running and stared to the east. A moment later Jason saw the figure suddenly burst into a vibrant puff of flame and then the pyroclastic flow consumed Grant in a thousand–degree embrace.

  The lights of the terminal vanished as they were swallowed by the pyroclastic flow, and then Jason felt his guts turn to slime within him as he saw a tumbling wall of flame and sparks racing them down the runway as the grass verges burst into flame.

  ***

  XXXVI

  ‘One hundred and fifty knots!’

  The Airbus rattled and gyrated on the runway as Jason eased back on the control column and prayed that the Airbus’s tail was not at that point consumed by flame somewhere far behind them. If the searing heat of the pyroclastic flow melted her rudder or the control surfaces on the wings, they would be dead even if they did get off the ground.

  The Airbus’s nose lifted as the lights of the airport vanished, the scorching cloud of volcanic debris rising over the airplane like a black wave, and Jason glimpsed the Airbus’s powerful engine exhaust blasting debris clear of their wings. The only thing keeping them from certain death now was their airspeed. If the ash cloud got ahead of them and into the engine intakes they would lose power and their fate would be sealed.

  He heard cries of alarm from the passenger cabin as the people sitting at the rear of the airplane saw the fearsome, fiery cloud bearing down upon them and consuming the airport.

  ‘One hundred and seventy knots!’

  Jason felt the Airbus twist on the runway and then his stomach tingled as the wheels left the asphalt and he felt her climb up into the cold air, the furnace of ash right upon their tail. In the blackness of the night through his side window he could see violent vortexes of burning embers spiralling through the air as though reaching out for the airplane’s wings to drag her back into the scorching blackness. The heat from the cloud seared the air around the Airbus and he felt the lift beneath the airplane’s wings falter as the hot air replaced the denser cold air.

  ‘Wheels up!’ he bellowed.

  Penrose reacted instantly and retracted the undercarriage, cleaning up the airframe and allowing them to accelerate faster. Jason heard the undercarriage whine upward beneath the airplane and he saw the airspeed indicator start to climb. Right now, he didn’t care about his altitude as much as he did about staying ahead of the cloud of death still racing along behind them.

  ‘Two hundred and twenty knots and climbing,’ Penrose said, his voice tense with anxiety.

  The Airbus thundered along barely thirty feet above the ground, the end of the runway threshold flashing past beneath the nose as the airplane rocketed at two hundred and fifty miles per hour across the glacial terrain. Jason glanced at the altitude indicator, the digital ticker tape rock steady at little more than rooftop height as the Airbus thundered out over the churning black Atlantic Ocean. Jason spotted the crests of violent waves in the brilliant beams of the Airbus’s landing lights that flashed past them, close enough it seemed to touch, the airspeed climbing rapidly now.

  ‘Flaps stage one!’

  Penrose lifted the flaps lever and Jason looked again at the airspeed indicator. It increased even faster now and he pulled back on the control column and looked at the altimeter.

  Fifty feet.

  Sixty feet.

  One hundred feet.

  He heard Penrose issue a sigh of relief as he noticed the altitude indicator climbing. Jason looked out of his side window again and as he did so he saw the rippling line of flame falling away behind them, still moving at tremendous speed but unable to compete with the Airbus as it climbed away. Violent gusts of turbulence tugged and pushed the wings this way and that, but Jason barely noticed them as he reached out and retracted the last stage of flap and cleaned the airplane up.

  Penrose stared into the distance, his gaze vacant as he looked at the opaque windshield, the splintered glass glinting in the light from the darkened cockpit’s glowing instruments. On an impulse, the old man reached out and keyed the public address system.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we’d like to thank you for flying Phoenix Air and trust you’ve had a pleasant experience.’

  Jason had no idea how many thousands of hours Penrose had on his license, or of how many amazing things he had seen in his career, but he had already guessed that today’s flight was a first for him. He heard gusts of laughter and sudden cheers and shouts from the passenger cabin behind them as they realised that they were clear and away from Keflavik.

  Jason turned the Airbus left onto a southerly
heading as they climbed up through the storms still gusting across the North Atlantic. Violent squalls of rain pelted the windshield and buffeted the wings and fuselage as they climbed, Jason flying on manual control and fighting the winds once again. Lightning strikes flared all around them as though the gods themselves were outraged that they should have escaped the fiery apocalypse below.

  ‘Set two hundred and fifty knots on the autopilot, heading one six zero magnetic and flight level three zero zero,’ he said to Penrose. ‘We’ll switch over as soon as you’re ready.’

  ‘With pleasure, captain.’

  Jason maintained the climb and airspeed until the autopilot controls were set, and then they switched over and the Airbus settled as the on–board computers took control of the airplane and flew her more smoothly through the turbulence than any human pilot could manage.

  ‘Fifteen thousand feet and climbing,’ Penrose reported.

  Jason checked the fuel load and began transferring fuel from the starboard wing to the port wing to even the balance. As he did so Penrose frowned as he saw the displays.

  ‘We don’t have full tanks,’ he reminded Jason.

  Jason nodded as he pulled out his flight computer. ‘The crews were only half done when the pyroclastic flow was spotted.’

  ‘Is it enough?’ Penrose asked.

  Jason looked at the fuel totals and did a quick mental calculation, the rule of thumb that he would then apply to check that more accurate computations were in the right ball park. He input the data into the computer, and then added the tail winds he knew would be up there and chasing them all the way home. If they were lucky, they might get enough of a push to get them to Stornoway in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides islands.

  ‘Is it enough?’ Penrose asked again.

  The computer returned a figure, and Jason leaned back in his seat and dragged his hand down his face. He shook his head.

  ‘I’m afraid our options are limited.’ Penrose offered him an appalled look and Jason managed the first genuine smile of that night, felt his jaw ache as he tried to suppress it. ‘We can only make Stornoway, and the food’s bloody awful there.’

  Penrose sagged with relief in his seat and closed his eyes for a few moments with his hands clasped in his lap. Jason couldn’t tell if he was saying a prayer or was just exhausted, but right now he didn’t care as he let the autopilot climb the airplane until it finally broke free of the cloud layer. Through his side window he saw a perfect night sky appear filled with sparkling stars, and below them the vast panorama of turbulent clouds was lit with vivid blue and flashes as lighting storms raged within them.

  ‘Phoenix three seven five, please respond.’

  Jason blinked in surprise. He had almost forgotten about the controller at Narsarsuaq. He keyed the transmit switch on his control column.

  ‘Narsarsuaq, this is Phoenix three seven five, we’re airborne and clear of Keflavik with fuel sufficient for Stornoway, United Kingdom. We’re reporting two casualties, one on board, one lost at Keflavik plus some minor injuries.’

  He heard the response come back instantly.

  ‘Roger that three seven five, well done from us all, condolences for the loss of life aboard. Escort call–sign Razor flight will be with you in four minutes, they’re on channel and will stay with you to your destination. You’re to route to Stornoway and we will pass on your details. Do you have plates and charts?’

  ‘Copy that, and yes we have a chart for Stornoway.’

  ‘Phoenix three seven five, contact Shanwick Oceanic on one two seven decimal six five zero, have a good flight.’

  ‘Contact Shanwick Oceanic on one two seven decimal six five zero, thanks Narsarsuaq, Phoenix three seven five.’

  Jason switched the radio channel, and then he hesitated and activated the airplane’s intercom broadcast.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Make yourself as comfortable as you can. We’re heading home.’

  ***

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I have no doubt that many readers of this book will have questions about just how likely it is that an airliner en route to a location like Iceland might find itself unable to find an alternative airfield at which to land. To put the minds of nervous fliers to rest, I can assure you all that no commercial flight would ever find itself in quite the dire straits that the crew and passengers of Phoenix Flight 375 found themselves in. To face so many threats on a single three–hour flight is highly unlikely, to say the least.

  That said, every single event featured in the book has happened for real, in isolation. The Lake Nyos tragedy of 1986 that killed thousands with a toxic blanket of carbon dioxide gas really did occur, and the volcanoes in Iceland’s Blue Mountains really are active and sit on a highly volatile tectonic fault line. Likewise, methane releases from the ocean floor and clathrate–gun events are real and considered a genuine threat in light of current global climate change trends. Such an event close to the coast of an island like Iceland could produce enough gas to both sink vessels and cause widespread fatalities downwind of the event. Both Keflavik and Reykjavik airports were closed during part of the Eyjafjallajokull 2010 eruption, but both Akureyri and Egilsstadir airports in the north and west of Iceland remained open throughout.

  Katla, Iceland’s most dangerous and powerful volcano, is close enough to Keflavik to cause serious disruption if it should erupt ( it is overdue to do so ), while ancient ash and magma floes from prehistoric Katla eruptions currently form the bedrock of the south–western coast of Iceland. The mountain sits very close to the more famous Eyjafjallajokull. Passengers aboard commercial aircraft routinely attempt access to the cockpit during flights and try to open emergency exits while in flight, and more ashamedly they routinely abuse and assault flight attendants going about their duties. Hailstones shattered the windshield of Air China Flight CZ3483 from Guangzhou to Chengdu in July 2016, but the plane landed safely on instruments. In 2008, British Airways Flight 38 from China to the United Kingdom, callsign Speedbird three–eight, found itself out of fuel moments before it was due to touch down at Heathrow, due to extremely cold temperatures during high–altitude transit and ice crystals in the fuel–oil heat exchangers conspiring to clog the engines. The airplane landed safely, just reaching the airport and coming to rest alongside the runway. As a result, the European Aviation Safety Agency mandated that all aircraft with the same exchangers were to be fitted with a modification before January 1st, 2011, thus ensuring that the same event could not occur again. This process, of identifying flaws and ensuring that all airlines act to correct them, is what keeps our skies safe and has doubtlessly prevented countless accidents and tremendous loss of life since.

  But there is often little that can be done about the human mind. The tragedy of Germanwings Flight 9525 in March 2015 reveals that sometimes the most complex computer in the known universe, the human brain, can cause within people a madness that is beyond the understanding of those devoid of it. We are all at the mercy of the mental health of those around us, and can only hope that one day the spectre of insanity and the loathesome grief suffered by those with psychotic depression can be successfully treated.

  Aviation is without a doubt the safest form of travel in our modern world. Airliners fly literally millions of fault–free hours per year, and the chances of finding yourself involved in a fatal air accident are less than the chance of you being struck by lightning. The efforts of the Civil Aviation Authority in the UK, the Federal Aviation Authority in the United States and similar organisations in all countries around the globe ensure that when faults are found, all airlines are required by law to correct those faults in line with reccomendations. It is this insistence upon learning from prior mistakes and errors that has given us such a safe form of transport.

  That said, Air Accident Investigation Board reports of air crashes routinely note that aviation disasters are often not the result of a single, proximal cause, but rather caused by numerous events that conspire to create the tr
agedies that occasionally befall the passengers and crews of commercial aircraft. While one can never say never, if you’re reading this on a stormy winter’s afternoon flight to Keflavik, rest assured that you’re probably going to arrive at your destination safe and sound.

  Probably…

  ***

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Dean Crawford is the author of more than twenty novels, including the internationally published series of thrillers featuring Ethan Warner, a former United States Marine now employed by a government agency tasked with investigating unusual scientific phenomena. The novels have been Sunday Times paperback best-sellers and have gained the interest of major Hollywood production studios. He is also the enthusiastic author of many independently published thrillers and Science Fiction novels.