by Denis Pitts
A well-trained crew will then enter a series of routines, each of them carefully worked out by the manufacturers and operators of the aircraft, to establish the cause of the fire and its immediate effect. Fire in the air is an airman’s greatest fear, and yet the seconds or minutes which follow the alarm must be devoid of all panic. The routines are carried out, again from the small black check-list manual which each member of the crew carries.
The talk is low-keyed, monotone. The concentration is absolute.
In the C 130 the warning system is contained in five inverted “T”-shaped handles which are made of transparent plastic and contain red-coloured lights. Four of these represent engines and the fifth is an alarm for the hydraulic system.
Harry Black was already tugging briskly at the flashing number one “T” handle as Martin leapt back on to the flight-deck. The alarm siren had already stopped as the captain got into his seat and rammed his intercom jack into its socket.
‘Engineer, what’s the nature of the fire?’
‘Pitch lock, Captain, in number one engine. The RPM went way over limits, turbine inlet temperature rose to eleven hundred degrees.’
‘Hit the feather button.’
‘I have. She won’t feather.’
Martin adjusted the rudder trim to counter the yawing effect on the giant aircraft caused by the sudden loss of power in the port wing. Juliet flew straight and level, but her whole frame was vibrating furiously.
‘Hit it again.’
From the corner of his eye he saw the tiny engineer lean over to the feather over-ride controls and crash his fist down on the first of them. It immediately flew up again.
The outer port propeller had stopped. It was locked in a fine pitch position which meant that four wide propeller blades were creating a wall of solid drag. The effect was rather like that of streaming a parachute from the port wing tip. The vibration increased, so did the screaming of the engines.
‘We’re losing height, Captain.’
‘Thank you, Co-pilot.’
‘Two hundred feet a minute.’
‘Thank you.’ The captain’s voice was almost absurdly polite. He looked at his altimeter. It showed 3,000 feet. He said very precisely, ‘Mr Engineer, you have fifteen minutes to get that propeller turning. We will begin to dump fuel in five minutes.’
The little engineer was thumbing through pages of circuitry diagrams. The co-pilot held a chart on his lap and made rapid calculations with a slide rule.
‘For your information, Captain, if we lighten the fuel load by one hundred kilos a minute, we could possibly make Oman. Or we could return to Karachi.’
‘Negative!’ Martin almost spat it out. ‘Hold the present course.’
He leaned forward and looked at the outer engine blades. The propeller appeared to be on the point of buckling against the force of the air, but he knew it would hold.
He spoke rapidly. ‘Miss Francis, I’ll explain what is happening. We have an emergency. With our present cargo and fuel load, unless Stubbles can feather number one propeller, we may have to ditch.
‘You will find lifejackets under the bunk behind you. Put one on and place one by each member of the crew. Then strap yourself firmly in your seat and wait.’
*
Natalia Rogov did not bother to hide her considerable anger as she sat down at the walnut ministry table. She had insisted on an immediate meeting with Andrei Gromyko, the Foreign Minister. Instead, she faced the fat and slow-speaking Stephanovich Tchakev, the Third Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, a man renowned in the Soviet structure for his heavy-handed pedantry and capacity for survival.
‘I take it the Comrade Minister has read my report?’ she snapped.
‘No more than your summation and recommendations, Comrade Rogov.’
‘And?’
‘You realise the extreme seriousness of what you are suggesting?’
It was a typically soulless, functional committee room on the fourth floor of the Soviet Foreign Ministry. The woodwork was brown and the walls, originally washed white, were yellow and faded. Lenin’s portrait scowled and Brezhnev’s beamed from one wall. And on a blackboard at the end of the room was a map of Africa.
There were five men and one woman around the walnut table. Two of the men were Foreign Ministry officers who said nothing during the meeting but nodded agreement continually with the Third Deputy Minister. The other two were dressed in the smart olive-green uniforms of the Red Air Force. They too said nothing, but made continual notes.
At another table an elderly woman in a black dress, her grey hair swept severely back, sat and made shorthand notes of all that was said. She occasionally looked up to glower over her spectacles at the Head of African Affairs, who wore this morning a tight black sweater and ivory-coloured slacks.
‘The danger is obvious, Comrade Rogov. You are recommending that this aircraft should be shot down. How do we know that it may not be on an entirely legitimate journey with an entirely legal cargo? If we, or our allies, molest it in any way, the Soviet Union would be open to the charge of conspiracy to international piracy.’
Natalia opened a heavy file on the table in front of her.
‘I have ample evidence, Comrade Minister.’
‘Produce your evidence.’
‘You realise the extreme urgency of this matter, Comrade Minister?’ she said.
The Third Deputy Minister took off his heavy horn-rimmed glasses and polished them with a white handkerchief. ‘I am a lawyer, Comrade,’ he said. ‘I wish to see all the facts before I make any recommendation for any action, no matter how urgent you may think it may be.’
‘Very well, but I do ask for the maximum speed and decision. Firstly the crew of this aircraft. The captain. His name is Martin Michael Gore, he is aged thirty-six. He is the only son of Sir Peter Gore of Pewsey in Wiltshire. The young Gore was educated at Marlborough College which is a Public School in England and expelled for a series of pranks which led to the burning down of the college gymnasium. He joined the Royal Air Force and became a Hercules pilot at Lyneham in Wiltshire and achieved the rank of Flight Lieutenant before he was cashiered after four years’ service for striking a superior officer. For two or three years after this it is known that he was a freelance charter pilot and, as you will see from the attached records, he went to America. There it is believed that he spent some considerable time at the special Services Training Establishment which is a Central Intelligence Agency affiliate at Pompano, Florida. His exact function at that institute is not known but it is generally believed that his particular skills as a low-level pilot were put to use by the CIA. Until six months ago he was the personal pilot of Amin, the President of Uganda.’
‘So?’ The Third Deputy Minister had put his glasses back on and assumed a look of disinterest. He scarcely glanced at the paper which Natalia put in front of him.
‘Comrade Minister, Captain Gore is clearly an aristocratic renegade. The CIA connection is important in this matter.’
‘You have a point.’
‘The co-pilot,’ Natalia was speaking rapidly now with little emotion. ‘Harold Irving Black, aged thirty-five, an American citizen. He was educated privately and then at the University of Texas where he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree with Class One Honours. He was conscripted into the United States Air Force in 1967 and flew seventy-six missions in this type of aircraft. He was wounded three times, awarded the Air Force Cross for Gallantry. His service record, a copy of which is also produced, shows that he spent a year in the same establishment in Florida as Martin Gore. He was Gore’s co-pilot with General Amin.’
‘Continue, Comrade.’
‘Comrade Minister, the fact is that the co-pilot of this aircraft is a negro.’
Tchekov tapped his spectacle case with his finger-tips impatiently.
‘There are many negro flyers.’
‘Comrade Minister, I cannot truly believe that a black pilot would be prepared to fly arms to the white renegade army in Rhodesi
a, unless ordered to do so.’
‘You have a point, Comrade.’
‘The engineer of this aircraft is Madison George Sroka, a second generation Polish-American, also a Vietnam veteran. He was honourably discharged from the US Air Force two years ago. He has been a civilian maintenance man at the Guam airbase until recently.’
Tchakev continued to tap his fingers.
‘This is interesting, but it is not evidence, Comrade. There is nothing at all to suggest that this aircraft is flying to Rhodesia, nor that it is carrying arms.’
Natalia opened a gold cigarette case from her handbag and lit a Benson and Hedges. She noticed that one of the Air Force colonels had his eyes gazing fixedly on her bosom.
‘Please let me continue. There is a fourth member of this crew, according to the manifest, a copy of which I received this morning from the agent in Karachi. Her name is Sorrel Francis. She is twenty-four years old, also an American citizen. This woman has, for the past two years, been secretary to James O’Keefe Murphy who is the Managing Director of Interguns Inc of Brussels, which is known to be a nominee company owned by organised crime in the United States. KGB report of January 4th, 1974 shows clearly that this company, while outwardly concerned with the import and export of steel tubes, is ninety per cent concerned with the import and export of illicit arms, mainly from American War-Surplus supplies in the Far East to African states and other emergent countries. You will have seen my memorandum of this morning concerning the Mafia and its involvement with this company.
‘The woman Francis flew from Brussels to Karachi yesterday. It is my belief that the reason for her flight was to instruct the crew to divert the aircraft from its intended journey to Cyprus to Rhodesia. I do not need to remind the Minister of the present situation in Rhodesia. The outlaw Ian Smith and his co-conspirators continue to defy international opinion and face a violent struggle against the freedom fighters of the black countries surrounding them. They are desperate for arms and we have substantial evidence of their dealings with various companies in the West. Interguns is the most unscrupulous of all these arms-dealing companies and you will find attached to this report a number of cables and telex messages between the Ministry of Defence in Salisbury and Interguns offices in Brussels, Monte Carlo and Naples.’
There was a long silence in the committee room. Then the Minister spoke.
‘I need to be absolutely certain that this aircraft is flying arms, Comrade. You realise the implications of what you are suggesting. You are asking for an aircraft to be brought down, possibly with fatal results. The Soviet Union would face extreme international embarrassment were it to be proved that this aircraft was carrying a consignment of woolly dolls.’
Natalia, who now fought desperately hard to avoid showing her total impatience, brought a new edge to her voice as she said, ‘Minister, if you would care to examine Appendix E of this file which has been on your desk since before 6.00 am this morning, you will see that it is a copy of the cargo manifest of C 130 H JMO which is attached to a copy of the flight plan from Karachi to Cyprus. Would you like me to read it to you? Item. Red-eye missiles (F 2 & 3) complete, Number 180. Fragmentation grenades, 2,000. M 16 1A1 5.6mm rifles, each with two spare magazines, quantity 1,000. Body-heat activated anti-guerrilla mines, 500… Do I need to continue, Comrade Minister? Do they sound like woolly dolls?’
Tchakev put his hand out and took Natalia’s cigarette box from the table. He admired it for a moment, then opened it and took out a cigarette.
‘English, eh? Anything else, Comrade Rogov?’ He lit the cigarette with a spluttering Russian match.
‘There was an attempt to stop the aircraft from taking off this morning,’ she said. ‘Our agent reports that someone, possibly the CIA, became interested in the fact that we were interested.’
Tchakev looked at the papers on the table in front of him.
‘Very well, Comrade Rogov, I am sufficiently convinced to speak immediately to Comrade Minister Gromyko. But I must point out that the decision to bring down the U2 spy plane in such a way as to leave it largely undamaged and to save the pilot for international exhibition was taken at the level of the President of the USSR and the General Secretary of the Communist Party. It was also ratified by the Central Committee. You realise the responsibility which you are undertaking?’
‘Most certainly, Comrade Minister.’
Tchakev stood up, gathered the papers and smiled a watery smile around the table.
Before he could leave the room, however, Natalia stood as well. Her eyes were fierce now, her voice trembling.
‘Comrade Minister, I have tried to stress the urgency. This aircraft is already in flight. Unless we act immediately, it may well be that these arms will be used against the People’s Armies of Mozambique and Zambia by the illegal forces of the reactionary Smith and his regime in Rhodesia.’
Tchakev sighed.
‘Comrade Rogov, I admire the passion of your advocacy. I think I must tell you now that I would be grateful if you would remain, all of you, sitting around this table. I shall see the minister with the strongest recommendations that the course of action which you have proposed is implemented immediately. I would be grateful if our comrades from the Red Air Force would consider how best this aircraft can be brought down leaving the maximum amount of evidence and preferably saving the lives of the crew members in order that they can be put on an international show trial in the very near future.’
Natalia glanced at her wristwatch.
It would take an hour at least for Gromyko to make up his mind. Then Brezhnev would have to make the final decision. She looked at Gore’s picture on the table. Even in the service identity photograph he was trying to repress a smile.
‘I’ll make you grin, you bastard,’ she thought.
*
Sorrel Francis sat at the Navigator’s table in Juliet Mike Oscar and watched the three men fighting at the controls to save the aircraft as it continued its slow but inevitable descent towards the sea beneath them. There, at the back of the flight-deck, encased in a mae-west lifejacket, she could see it all with a curious detachment. For one thing, she marvelled that she was not afraid. The low flying had been almost exhilarating until the sea itself had begun to splash and salt settle on the windshield, and there had been a moment of true terror when the fire alarm had sounded.
But now, listening to the men talk through her earphones and only half understanding the involved technicalities which they muttered, she felt little fear.
Had I been in the back of any scheduled airliner in an emergency, she thought, I would have been terrified near to death by now. I would be clutching on to anything, I’d probably be screaming my head off and wetting my pants.
‘2,000 feet, Captain.’
‘Roger.’
She could sense the two pilots willing the giant plane to keep height. There was no sense of strain in Martin’s movement, especially in the way he moved the controls, gently, feather-like, back and forth. Earlier on the airport approach, as he was waiting anxiously to take-off, his knuckles had been white and she had seen the muscles tauten on the back of his neck. Now, faced with a real emergency, he was almost relaxed.
‘Engineer.’
‘Captain?’
‘You’ve no way of losing that propeller altogether?’
‘Sorry, captain.’
She was intrigued by the speed with which the engineer worked. He leapt from side to side on the flight-deck checking instruments on both sides, looking at diagram after diagram in his flight manual and all the while seeming to ignore the colossal shuddering of the aircraft as three good propellers sucked up the air which their fouled neighbour battered with its four two-feet wide blades. At one point he found time to turn to her and wink.
‘Captain, we should start to jettison now.’
Harry Black held up a chart which he had drawn in a chinagraph pencil on a large piece of plastic which had been divided into graph squares.
‘The red line is us
,’ he said. The red line on the plastic dropped directly to the bottom. Martin looked at it.
‘You know what you are saying?’
‘I’ve had time to look at the sea, Captain,’ said Harry. ‘We’ll never ditch. If we lighten the fuel load we can gain height and maybe land in one of the Gulf States at least.’
‘They’ll impound the cargo.’
‘Don’t I know?’
‘150,000 bucks, we’ve lost.’
‘I have also looked at the Aviators’ Almanac. That’s a shark-infested sea down there. And looking at the state of these lifejackets I wouldn’t give much chance for the dinghy. And one more thing. At least if we gain height we might be able to make short wave contact with the contractors. Perhaps they’ll have some sort of idea.’
They were dropping slowly into low, scudding clouds between which the occasional sudden glimpse of the sea became even more ominous. They were close to the water now and Martin could see that the other pilot was right. The waves had grown in height and the sea was ragged. There were no even troughs into which he might make any kind of landing, even if he could maintain control in that wind with an aircraft in this condition.
‘Engineer, stop everything else and get ready to blow fuel,’ he said. ‘Co-pilot, how much to take us to 20,000 feet?’
‘Call it 50,000 lbs, Captain.’
‘You heard him, Stubbles. Jettison fuel.’
From her seat in the back of the flight-deck, Sorrel watched the small engineer reach up and open a red-lined glass-covered case and flick a series of switches.
At the very tip of each wing a small valve was opened electrically and two powerful hydraulic pumps began to blast air into the main wing-tip fuel tanks, forcing a steady flood of JP1 kerosene into the atmosphere at ten gallons per second. Two great streams of vapour began to widen rapidly behind Juliet Mike Oscar.
Harry Black tapped hard on the climb and descent indicator. He watched the needle. It did not move at first. And then it began to quiver very slightly towards the horizontal line.
‘She’s flying level.’
