A new, blaring siren on the panel informed us that engine one was shutting down due to fuel starvation. Even knowing it was going to happen, the change in thrust was a shock. The cockpit lights flickered and the plane dipped sideways.
“Increase engine two thrust,” said Ross. “Descend to thirty-two thousand feet.” Then he stood and put down his headset, placing a finger atop his wrist as if to take his pulse. “Kids, my blood pressure is…” He wove on his feet.
“Are you having a heart attack right now?” I asked. There wasn’t time for niceties. “Are you having a medical emergency?”
“No, no.” Ross waved a hand. “I’m light headed. My heart is racing, but there’s no pain.”
“Do me a favor and don’t have a goddamned stroke on top of everything else going on right now.”
Ayal ignored my outburst and spoke to the captain in a soothing voice. “Go sit down in the back, Mike. Chew some aspirin and try to relax.” She turned to me. “Can your friends look after him? You’re going to have to help me do this.”
“I will. Give me a minute.”
She turned away, taking brisk instructions from Portugal’s air-traffic control officials. I held the door open and guided Ross through, watching him for signs of an impending heart attack or stroke. He kept apologizing. At least it let me know he wasn’t in active trauma.
“I don’t want you to worry about anything,” I told him. I gestured to my friends. “Get up, please. You all have to go to the back of the plane and buckle yourselves in.”
Fort stood, ready to help. “What’s happening?”
“We’re having some fuel issues, so we’re going to land early. I’ll answer questions later. For now, please go. Move to the back as quickly as you can.”
The flight attendants scurried before me, securing hatches and making quick preparations for an emergency landing. I didn’t have to tell them it was necessary. They knew from the sound of my voice that things weren’t okay. Fort and Juliet followed the attendants, and I brought up the rear with Captain Ross and Ella, who shook in my arms, on the verge of total mental breakdown. Shit, shit, shit. I loved making women scared, but not this way. These weren’t the kind of tears I enjoyed.
“Are we going to die?” She clung to each row as we passed it, weaving like a drunken sailor. “Oh God, what’s happening? Is there a fire?”
“There’s no fire. We lost some fuel, so we’re going to land early, but everything’s going to be okay.”
“Land where?” she cried. “We’re flying over the ocean.”
“Lucky for us, there are islands in the ocean.” I lowered my voice, tipped up her chin, and made her look at me. “I know I promised to stay with you the whole time, but I can’t right now. You need to be brave. You need to be a good fucking girl, Ella, and keep your shit together. Do you understand?”
I’d said those words to her last night. You’re a good fucking girl, because she was. I wondered if she remembered. I couldn’t ask her about it now, couldn’t let on that I’d been the one tormenting her last evening while she was blindfolded, because this definitely wasn’t the time.
I guided her into the back row and helped Ross into the adjacent seat, buckling his belt. “Sit here beside the captain and look after him, because he’s not feeling well. Keep your seat belt on, put your head down when I tell you to, and brace yourself until we’re on the ground.”
“Brace myself? We’re going to crash?” The words choked in her throat as I checked her belt. “Are we going to crash in the water?”
“I told you, we’re headed to some islands. It’s going to be okay.”
“I can hear the alarms going off all the way back here.”
I cupped her face, trying to stave off her hysteria. “Don’t be scared. Be brave. Once we land, you need to be ready to move. You need to be ready to help Captain Ross if he passes out, because his blood pressure is bothering him right now.”
The flight attendants would handle Captain Ross if it came to that, but giving her a job might calm her a little. I stroked fingers across her tear-streaked cheeks, and then glanced at Ross, who looked stable if not healthy. “I wish I could stay with you, but I have to return to the cockpit. I’ll see you when we’re on the ground.”
I moved back up the aisle, leaving Ella in tears. I was leaving her when I said I wouldn’t, but she’d have to find a way to cope. As for me, I was too adrenalized to be fearful, and too practical to obsess over what-ifs. There was no time for that, no time for anything but focusing on the instruments and bringing our crippled plane to a runway, or, barring that, some flat, solid land.
I could hear the second engine strain as Ayal worked to maintain our altitude. We needed all the height we could get, although our current climb was taxing the scant fuel supplies we had left.
“How many miles out are we?” I asked as I entered the cockpit.
“I don’t know, I can’t see anything.” Ayal squinted out the front windows at the dark ocean below.
“How many miles?” I repeated. If Ayal lost her shit, a difficult landing could become impossible. At my sharp tone, she pulled herself together and relayed the messages from ground control.
“One hundred and twenty miles to Santa Maria Airport, two hundred and thirty-four to Horta.”
She listed a few more airports I’d never heard of before, and military air traffic controllers joined the fray as the fuel indicator continued to blink.
“Look,” she said. “We’re almost out of fuel. We’re going to run dry over the ocean.”
“We’ll still make it.”
She tapped the onboard monitor. “We’re going to lose engine two.” It was already operating at a lower frequency. A moment later the sputtering started, and the alarms.
“Gibraltar 451 to ground control,” Ayal cried into her headset. “Mayday. Repeat, mayday.” Her usually quiet voice cracked with urgency. “Engine two power loss is imminent. Both engines inoperable due to fuel starvation. We’re gliding toward the Azores. Request landing assistance.”
“Roger, 451. Stand by. Maintain altitude.”
“Roger.”
I pressed my lips together, keeping the plane’s nose tipped up. The only sound was the air rushing over the windshield and wings. In all my years of flying, I’d never heard anything like this silence, the lack of the engines’ rumble and hum. “Need radar backup,” I barked.
“We’ll guide you in,” said the man from ground control.
His voice in my ear was calm, but I wasn’t calm. The radio was powered by supplemental electricity that could blink out at any time, but I couldn’t think about that. I wondered what was going on in the cabin. Were they crying? Praying? Trusting that Ayal and I could land them safely? Was Captain Ross okay? The cabin would continue to lose pressure with each kilometer traveled. Ayal and I put on our oxygen masks, and then propped open the door and yelled for everyone in the back to do the same.
“Taking you to LPPD on São Miguel,” said one of the voices in my ear. “Runway is five miles out. Can you get a visual?”
“No. Bad cloud cover.”
“If you miss it, we’ll try Lajes Airfield or Horta.”
“Lots of choices,” Ayal muttered beside me. We worked in tandem to orient the plane according to the directions that air control fed us, staying aloft, flying by instrument only and manipulating the controls with sweating palms. Somehow, we managed to maintain the altitude we needed. The winds were on our side at the moment, but they’d become a problem when we landed, when we needed to stop the multi-ton aircraft without functioning systems.
“Are you ready to brake?” she asked.
“As soon as we touch down.” Without hydraulic control, I’d have to slam on the brakes, and they’d definitely lock up. The landing gear would gouge holes in the tarmac if we were lucky, or snap off completely if we weren’t. “There shouldn’t be fire,” I pointed out, the one bright spot. “No fuel left to ignite.”
The danger would be in the impact, or
the ocean landing if we overshot the runway. I turned to the open cockpit door, yelling loudly enough to be heard in the back. “Put your heads down. Brace for a hard landing. Hardest fucking landing of your lives.”