Low Pressure

“Yeah. I jammed the right rudder to try to bring it out of the turn. I pulled back on the yoke to try to bring the nose up and get the craft level, while bringing it back to the right to straighten it up. And it all had to be done immediately and simultaneously. There wasn’t time to think about it or talk it over. There were no options.

“Now this took seconds. Seconds. During that time, he and I are yelling at each other. He was shouting at me that it was his aircraft, and I was telling him that what I was doing had to be done. We’re shouting over each other. It was a damned good thing that CVR circuit breaker had popped. That saved us both some embarrassment later on.

“Anyway, I managed to pull us out of it. He stopped yelling. In eight, no more than ten, seconds, he’d pieced it together, realized his error and how close it had brought us to a catastrophe. He even thanked me, I think. At that point, we were both awfully busy.

r /> “Passengers were screaming. The flight attendants were trying to restore calm. We had no way of knowing the extent of the injuries or damage to the cabins. We were still flying in moderate to severe turbulence on one engine.

“I asked him if he wanted to restart that left engine, since apparently nothing was wrong with it. He opted to leave it off. He took control again and we returned to the airport. Disaster averted.”

He stared at the pattern in the carpet between his feet. “No one died, but a lot of people were injured when we pitched. One was a baby that was in his mother’s lap, not strapped in. Lawsuits were filed, and the airline paid out millions to settle.” He looked over at Bellamy and said with a bitterness that went bone deep, “You know the rest. It made big news.”

He got up and walked over to the window. Parting the drapes, he looked out. “Stopped lightning.”

“Your actions saved them.”

“I got lucky.”

“You know better. Why weren’t you hailed a hero?”

He sighed. “Because you can’t have a first officer taking over for a captain who’s flying the airplane. He had twenty years’ experience on me. He was an airline golden boy. Give him another few seconds, he would have realized what had happened and what needed to be done to fix it. He would have done exactly what I did.”

“But you didn’t have those seconds to spare.”

He shook his head. “We were going in, and it’s a miracle that we didn’t in spite of what I did.”

“Did the captain own up to his mistake?”

“Yes, but he also took some of the credit for reversing it and saving everyone.”

“You didn’t tell them otherwise?”

“No, we covered for each other. There was no voice recording to disprove us.”

“So why did you leave the airline?”

“While the NTSB was still investigating the event, a reporter for one of the networks went digging into my past and discovered that, in my youth, when my girlfriend turned up dead, I was named a suspect by the police. ‘He was later cleared of all suspicion,’” he quoted, sneering.

“Like hell I was. The implication was that, despite the spiffy uniform, I was still a shady character. The story didn’t sit well with the airline. Even after the accident report had been completed, I was urged to extend my leave. That was as good as telling me to get lost. So I got lost.”

“Letting them and everyone else think—”

“Whatever the hell they wanted to,” he snapped.

“You didn’t care?”

“No.” He crossed to the night table, picked up the bottle of beer, and drained it.

“It didn’t bother you to walk away from it?”

“No.”

“I don’t believe you on either count.”

He turned to her, poised for a fight, ready to argue, but her expression was soft and misty, and it instantly deflated him. He sat down on the side of the bed, bending his head low, and, for a moment, said nothing.

Then, “The airlines have rules and regulations for a reason. From the crew members’ socks to how they fly the airplanes, there are standards that everyone’s gotta adhere to. They’re responsible for the lives of thousands of people every day. To be good at moving all those people, to do it efficiently and safely, everything has to be done uniformly.

“But that word crawls all over me. I tolerated it while I was in the air force. We were at war. I got it. Orders had to be followed. But in the corporate world? Regulation socks?” He shook his head. “The captain was right: I wasn’t a good fit. So I didn’t mind leaving the structure.” Looking over at her, he said, “But to walk away from the flying was tough. That was bad.”