Phoenix Rising

by Nance, John J. ;

  “He’s got a rapid depressurization and an engine loss of some sort, and an on-board fire, probably in the engine,” the controller had reported. “I cleared him to fourteen thousand and then to five.”

  “But he’s now at two thousand!” The supervisor’s voice was incredulous. “Why is he down to two thousand? What’s he doing that low over the water in a 747, for God’s sake?”

  The controller could only shake his head in frustration.

  The supervisor’s hand scooped up a telephone handset. Pan American’s dispatch needed to know what was happening. If Clipper Ten’s crew couldn’t even reach the FAA’s VHF antennas, which bristled from the top of a mountain near Neah Bay on the northwesternmost point in the continental United States, they sure as hell wouldn’t be able to talk to their company’s more distant radios, back in Seattle.

  “Where does he want to go?” The supervisor held his hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone as he waited for the connection with Pan Am Dispatch. “Is he coming back to Seatac?”

  The controller kept his eyes glued to the screen as he answered. “He didn’t say. I’m ready to vector him wherever he wants … Victoria, Whidbey Naval Air Station, Paine Field, Seatac, wherever. But I’ve got to reach him first, and I’ve got to turn him. He’s too low to go over the peninsula!”

  “He may be hearing you, and not able to reply,” the supervisor suggested. The controller punched his transmit button almost instantly, inwardly angered at himself that he hadn’t reached the same conclusion.

  “Clipper Ten Heavy, if you’re hearing Seattle Center, change your squawk to 7600.”

  Seconds that felt like minutes crawled by as they watched the small data block on the screen. Finally the numbers changed to 7600.

  “All right! He hears me!” The controller jabbed the transmit button again. “Clipper Ten Heavy, come left now to a heading of zero-six-zero degrees, vector heading to the north of Neah Bay and the Tatoosh VOR. I show you forty-two miles west of Tatoosh now.”

  The supervisor’s voice was in his ear once again. “How about bringing him down in Port Angeles?”

  The image of the Port Angeles airport popped into the controller’s head. He flew small Cessnas on weekends and knew the area well. Port Angeles was on the north shoulder of the Olympic Peninsula, and the closest real airport to Clipper Ten if he planned to limp eastbound down the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

  He turned to his supervisor. “That might do it. They’ve got a new overrun, and the runway is about sixty-three hundred feet. I think a 747 could get in there.”

  The supervisor turned to one of the other controllers watching the situation.

  “Jerry, go call the Port Angeles manager’s night number. Tell him what we’ve got. Can they handle it, especially if he can’t get her stopped in the available concrete? Ask him, does he have enough people and equipment to deal with a crash as big as United 232 at Sioux City?”

  The supervisor already knew the answer, but they had to try.

  The small block of alphanumerics accompanying the blip that represented Clipper Ten was labeled PA10. Suddenly it blinked as the altitude readout changed again, from 2,000 feet to 1,800, a fact that registered instantly in the controller’s mind.

  Oh Lord, he thought, they’re still descending!

  9:15 P.M.

  Seatac Airport

  Thoroughly disgusted, Pan American’s vice-president of operations, Chad Jennings, shot out of the crowded underground shuttle and dashed up the escalator two steps at a time. It was a short subterranean ride from Seatac’s main terminal to the north satellite. Because he was late, the laconic gaggle of passengers ahead had left him dangerously steamed.

  Jennings checked his watch again. He hated being behind schedule, and yet he might just make it after all. Elizabeth Sterling and her daughter were coming to town again, this time for good. He had met her two weeks before, when she came in from New York to finalize her new position. Elizabeth had technically become an officer two days ago, a senior vice-president like him, but with a seat on the board—something he didn’t rate as yet. Meeting her flight was a courtesy—and a smart idea in the corporate hierarchy of things—but being late was not.

  The flight’s ETA was 9:25 P.M., but the flight crew had made it in a few minutes early. They were just nosing the 767 into the terminal as Chad covered the last few hundred feet to gate N-4. As he watched the jetway being moved toward the aircraft, his cellular phone began to chirp.

  Chad pulled the diminutive portable out of his inside coat pocket and punched it on, instantly recognizing the voice on the other end as that of a TV newsman from Seattle’s Channel 7.

  “Mr. Jennings, we know that your Flight Ten has had some sort of explosion off the coast and is coming back. We know they’ve declared an emergency, and we’re told he may be on fire, and that there are engine problems, and that he’s way, way down in altitude for some reason. Can you tell us anything more?”

  Jennings was stunned. He had heard nothing. The image of their beautifully refurbished 747 in flames and in trouble flitted across his mind like the movie trailer to a horror flick as he pumped the newsman for information. The reporter relayed all he knew. The 747 was some forty miles west of the coastline, and might come down somewhere other than Seatac airport. They were sending their news helicopter to wherever the captain decided to land. The betting in the newsroom was that it would be one of several other airports closer than Seatac. Would Jennings like a ride?

  The sight of United’s newly arrived passengers flowing out of the gate reached Chad’s eyes, but not his consciousness. One of his airplanes was in trouble, and that had led to momentary confusion. What should an operations chief do? Should he go to the operations control center across the field?

  Suddenly the urge to be as close as possible to the action overwhelmed him.

  “You say you’d come pick me up?”

  “Yes, sir, we could, depending on where you are.”

  “I’m at Seatac, the north satellite.”

  “Our pilot will be there in a few minutes. He’s already airborne.”

  “Listen … ah … one stipulation, okay?”

  “Tell me.”

  “I don’t want to be on camera from the helicopter and interviewed in flight unless I okay it. Especially when I talk to the crew by radio, if I get to.”

  “Sure. Sure, that’s fine. We’ll honor that. As long as you’ll give us on-camera interviews sometime tonight.”

  The helicopter would land north of the north satellite. He would have to find a United Airlines representative to get him out on the ramp. Chad had already turned and started walking the other way when he finally remembered what had brought him to the airport to begin with: Elizabeth Sterling, their new CFO.

  Elizabeth and Kelly had already left the jetway when Chad found them. He filled them in, his face a mask of ashen concern and his manner hurried.

  “I’m going to meet a news station helicopter and try to be wherever our flight lands,” Chad told Elizabeth. “I hate to say hello and goodbye, but I’ve got to run. I’ll have to let you take a cab to your hotel.”

  “No.”

  Chad Jennings stopped cold, completely puzzled.

  “No?”

  “No. How big’s the helicopter?”

  “It’s a Jet Ranger, I think, but—” Chad replied.

  “Okay, then take us with you. Rangers carry five. Two seats in the front, three seats in the back. One pilot, one photographer, and three of us. We can get our bags later.” Elizabeth turned to Kelly, who had been taking in the whole exchange in silence and nodded now with wide-eyed excitement.

  9:20 P.M.

  In flight, Clipper Ten

  Captain Jim Aaron had pushed the throttle for number-two engine back up a bit, feeling the surge in power as the huge JT-9 Pratt and Whitney turbofan pulled forward on its pylon.

  And just as quickly the exhaust gas temperature began climbing toward red-line limits. It was no use. Jim pulled it back t
o almost idle. It made sense to keep it running in case they needed a final surge of power, but it wasn’t going to keep them in the air. Either they got enough fuel dumped in time to fly on one engine, or they would have to put Ship 612 in the water.

  There! I faced it! he thought to himself. Once he knew the worst possible case, he could calm down. But there was one act of formalization necessary. He hated doing it, but he had no choice. Jim Aaron picked up the intercom handset and punched in the code for the lead flight attendant. Her voice filled his ear almost instantly.

  “One right.” The voice seemed shaky and strained, but determined.

  “June, is that you?” Jim Aaron knew the answer. June Digby was perhaps the most experienced flight attendant to join the new Pan Am, a pro with file cabinets full of complimentary letters and over thirty-two years in the air.

  “It’s me. What’s happening up there? I mean, Patrick has been keeping us informed, but what’re you planning? We going to have to swim back to Seattle or what?” It was an anemic attempt at humor, but she had hoped for instant reassurance. Instead, she triggered the last thing she wanted to hear.

  “June, I need you to get everybody ready for a possible ditching.”

  There was a soft groan from her end as Jim continued, “I don’t think I’m going to have to make that choice, but we’d better be ready.”

  “How long? How much time do we have?”

  “At worst, ten minutes. Maybe much more. If I have to do it, we’ll come down as close to shore as possible.”

  There was a long, long pause.

  “The water down there, Jim—it’s very cold.”

  “I know,” he replied. There wasn’t much else to say. She was an avid scuba diver who knew well the short survival times in the waters of Puget Sound.

  Jim Aaron replaced the handset and looked at his copilot. Judy was doing a magnificent job of holding the crippled 747 steady. The rate of descent was lessening, but they were through fourteen hundred feet now and still coming down at two hundred feet per minute.

  “Clipper Ten Heavy, Seattle Center. How do you hear?”

  Judy shook her head in disgust. “I’ve heard him for the last five minutes. I just can’t talk to him! We’re too low to reach his antennas with our radio, but his radio’s powerful enough to get through to us.”

  Jim raised the microphone and replied once again, expecting nothing, and was startled when the controller’s voice came back with open excitement.

  “Clipper Ten Heavy, read you loud and clear. How are you doing out there? We show you at fifteen hundred … uh … fourteen hundred feet.”

  “The altitude checks, Seattle.”

  “Say your condition?”

  Jim looked around at his flight engineer. Patrick was still engrossed in his panel, trying to find a way to restore more than one hydraulic system and working to keep the fuel balanced between the left and right wings. They were getting lighter bit by bit, but they were still sinking.

  He took a deep breath and tried to sound calm and collected. “Okay, Seattle, please relay this to our company dispatch, too.”

  Patrick had been unable to raise Pan Am Dispatch on VHF radio frequencies, and there had been no time to use the satellite phone.

  “Roger, Clipper Ten, we’ve got your dispatch on the line. They’re listening to you.”

  Jim Aaron grabbed his microphone and filled in the details for the dispatcher before getting to the subject of altitude.

  “I can’t stay high enough to get over the terrain, so I’m going to fly over water the whole way. If you can see us on radar, I need you to coordinate with the Coast Guard ship-traffic control people in Seattle to keep us clear of ships. We may be that low.”

  “Coordinate with … with whom, Clipper Ten?” The incredulous tone of the FAA controller was not unexpected. The whole thing sounded like a bizarre joke, Jim realized. The FAA asking for clearance from the Coast Guard for an inbound airplane was ludicrous.

  And in this case, he thought, critical.

  Jim punched the button again. “I’m not kidding, Seattle. We may be flying in ground effect as low as fifty feet or so off the water. We’re still too heavy to stay level, so we can’t afford to get too close to any big ships, and only the Coast Guard traffic control center knows where they are. I’ve toured the place. It’s in Seattle.”

  A long silence ensued. Just when he had concluded that they had lost radio contact with Seattle again, a very somber voice came back.

  “Roger, Clipper Ten. Alter your course now to a vector of zero-four-five degrees. We’re establishing contact with the Coast Guard now. All search-and-rescue forces in the area are scrambling as well. We’re checking on Port Angeles International as a possibility.… uh, for a usable airport.”

  “Port Angeles?” Jim knew he sounded shocked. He had never landed at Port Angeles. It sounded far too small an airport for a 747.

  “Roger, Clipper Ten, they’ve got sixty-three hundred feet, with a thousand-foot overrun, and are stressed for a jumbo.”

  The statement was met by silence on both ends for a few seconds while Jim Aaron ran over the possibilities. It was the closest airport, all right, but …

  “What’s their field elevation?” he asked at last.

  “Two hundred eighty-eight feet above sea level,” the controller replied.

  All three pilots looked simultaneously at the altimeters. They were under a thousand feet above the water now, and still descending at nearly two hundred feet per minute. Port Angeles was seventy miles away.

  Jim Aaron punched the transmit button and held it while he took another deep breath, the inviting proximity of Port Angeles competing with the other truths he knew he needed to face.

  “Get them ready, Seattle, but I’m not sure we can use it.”

  “Roger, Clipper Ten. What else can we do for you?”

  Jim glanced at Judy, who shot back a thin little smile of attempted encouragement.

  “Just stand by, Seattle. And a few small prayers would be in order, too.”

  Jim looked down at the navigation panel in front of him, the so-called HSI. The small numbers indicating the distance to the Tatoosh navigation radio near Neah Bay was down to twenty miles, and their altitude was now dipping under eight hundred feet.

  “Unlike Port Angeles, which is at two hundred eighty-eight feet,” Jim began slowly, “Whidbey Island …”

  “… is literally at sea level.” Judy finished the thought.

  He nodded.

  “Jim, it’s also a hundred twenty miles away.”

  “I know it,” he said, simply.

  9:35 P.M.

  In flight, Chopper 7

  Chad Jennings had borrowed a second cellular telephone from the cameraman aboard the TV news helicopter, and had been huddled in the left front seat of the Jet Ranger with a phone to each ear. At last he looked up and turned toward Elizabeth in the backseat as the magnificent backdrop of nighttime Seattle passed on their right, with Elliott Bay five hundred feet below them.

  “Okay, here’s where we are. They’re vectoring him literally down the Strait of Juan de Fuca … he’s just by Neah Bay now … and he’s thinking of landing at Port Angeles. We’re trying to coordinate …”

  The pilot had removed the left lobe of his headset and leaned in Chad’s direction with a loud “What? I didn’t hear you.”

  Chad turned slightly in his direction. “Can you head for Port Angeles airport? That’s where he may come down.”

  The pilot nodded and banked the chopper gently to the left, calculating a heading directly across Puget Sound.

  They had climbed in at Seatac from the left, Chad taking the left front copilot’s seat, Elizabeth the left rear seat. Kelly sat in the middle, next to the photographer, who was balancing his camera in the right rear, behind the chin-high barrier wall that separated the front and back seats. The pilot leaned to his left then, speaking to Chad, his voice a semi-shout. “That’s about sixty miles from here. At top speed, it’ll take u
s thirty to forty minutes. He’ll beat us there by at least fifteen minutes, depending on his speed, but I’ll do my best.” The pilot hit one of his transmit buttons to talk to his assignment desk in Seattle as Chad turned back to Elizabeth, struggling to be heard over the noise of the rotor blades and the loud background whine of the Ranger’s turbine engine.

  “Port Angeles is small, Elizabeth, but it can handle a 747. The problem is, he’s having trouble holding altitude.”

  “Who is he?” she asked. “Who’s the captain?” The thought had occurred to her that it could be Brian, but she had been too embarrassed to ask. Chad was Brian Murphy’s boss, and might know of their relationship. Besides, she reminded herself, Brian should be in Washington, D.C., tonight.

  “Captain Jim Aaron. Braniff veteran. Excellent man. He … hasn’t decided yet if he can make Port Angeles. They’re also preparing for a ditching in case he can’t keep her flying.” He had already briefed her on the engine explosions, the rapid decompression, and the hanging question of what would happen—or wouldn’t happen—when they tried to lower the landing gear.

  Jennings turned to look out to the right through the Plexiglas bubble at the passing Space Needle, a faraway look in his eye that Elizabeth knew had to be an attempt to mask tension and emotion.

  “Mr. Jennings?” The pilot was looking at Chad again.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m told we’re going to be feeding both CBS and CNN live by satellite when we get there. We’re going to do an in-flight report in a few minutes. Can I use what you just said?”

  Chad nodded as the photographer changed places with Elizabeth in the back, taking the left rear seat, from where he could focus his camera on the pilot.

  She glanced to her right then, noticing the fascinated expression on her daughter’s face as Kelly watched the city go by on their right. Kelly turned and met her gaze momentarily. “It’s beautiful, Mom. Can we see our condo?”