16 Souls

CHAPTER TWENTY

Seven Months before — January 21^st

Regal 12

“Okay, Captain, I think I have it figured out,” the copilot said, a piece of paper on his lap covered with numbers. Marty had been flying for the past few minutes while Ryan worked on how long they could stay in the air with their remaining fuel.

“And?”

“We have less than forty-five minutes. I mean, we wouldn’t flameout at forty-five, but there would be no margins left for a go around, for instance.”

“Understood. Okay, take her, I’m going to make one more attempt at getting some useful information from Minneapolis and then we’re going to get her back on the phone and try to slow.”

“Her?”

“The captain out there… Michelle.” Merely stating her name inflated a lump in his throat.

Regal Operations was still on the line, but the news was less than useful. Boeing had done their best but there were, as the engineer said, too many variables. Suddenly Marty wanted nothing more than to be rid of the call, and the men and women on other end could sense his mental disconnection.

“Okay, thanks to all of you. We’ll work it out from here.”

“Captain? Butterfield here again. May I ask what you’re next step is?”

“Yes, sir. I’m going to experiment carefully with slowing and configuring. We have to get down within a half hour.”

“Understood, Captain. I… need to relay to you from the head of the airline and myself that despite your heartfelt concern for the aircraft on your wing and those inside, we cannot take the chance of injuring our passengers with a landing speed that guarantees an accident.”

“Got it.”

“So, you’ll be guided by that?”

“I’ll be guided by my best judgment, sir. This is a major emergency, however it got started, and I am the sole decider, so to speak. Now I need to end this discussion.”

“Captain…”

But Marty had already pushed the disconnect button, the bottomless hole in his stomach communicating clearly that regardless of their success or failure, his career was probably over. He turned to the chief flight attendant who had been holding and monitoring the sat phone and his cell phone.

“Nancy?”

She held out the iPhone and he scooped it to his ear, aware of the pounding in his chest. He absolutely did not want to know what his blood pressure was reading just now.

“Michelle? Are you there”

He turned back to Nancy, his expression needing no words.

“I hadn’t heard anything from her for the last few minutes, Captain.”

He nodded, working at the screen to toggle the last number received and holding his breath that the call would go through. Cell systems were polarized to suppress calls from the air, but they had been very lucky and flying just low enough to get the signals to connect around the edges.

He heard her answer, her cell phone scraping on something before she cleared her throat and answered slowly, painfully, her voice extremely strained.

“Michelle here.”

“How are you holding out?” Marty asked.

She cleared her throat, and he could almost feel her searching for the most useful words.

“We’re very, very cold over here, but… we’re working on it.”

“Okay, Michelle, please listen. I have to try slowing and bringing the flaps out. You and your copilot are the only ones who can tell me when to stop, which will be before you sense that she might lift off the wing.”

“I understand. And I have an idea.”

“Please tell me.”

“Our controls are still connected at least to our elevator on the T-tail. I can feel the airstream in the controls. I can also sense that our center of gravity is behind me and that we’re attached to your wing behind the center, still about where the landing gear strut is dug into your wing… which means that if we push the controls forward, we’ll tend to rotate the nose down and hold us in position without lifting the strut out of your wing surface… or whatever we’re attached to down there. At least I hope that’s right.”

“I’ll go with your analysis, Michelle. But I’ll narrate everything I’m doing and I expect you to yell ‘Stop’ if it feels like we’re approaching the limit.”

“I understand. We’ll start pushing nose down pressure as you increase the angle of attack. How much longer?”

“Two minutes before starting this experiment. We have to land in the next forty minutes.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Just… trying, I guess. Good luck to us all, but I agree you’ve got to slow.”

Marty handed the phone back to Nancy.

“I need you to turn on the speakerphone as we start this and keep it close enough to my ear that I can hear her and vice versa.”

“Got it,” Nancy replied.

“And, can you get the whole team up here for a second?”

She nodded and turned to one of her crew, who summoned the others. With six flight attendants squeezed into the door and Ryan still flying, Marty pointed to the right wing and explained what they were going to try.

“When we land, it may or may not be smooth, and we may end up going off the end of the concrete. Be ready for an emergency evacuation. Be ready for anything.”

He wasn’t prepared for the number of reassuring hands on his shoulder, and his emotional response caught him off guard, but he choked back his feelings as he toggled on the PA.

Folks, this is your captain. We will begin our final approach within the next 30 minutes back to Denver International. For the next ten minutes, though, we will be attempting to slow the airplane and change the pitch angle as little as possible to hold the other aircraft on the wing. Even if we could slow to normal approach speed we could not… and I would not authorize any attempt to… open the emergency exit hatch to try a rescue. Everyone’s best bet is to set us down on the runway together. Follow your flight attendant’s orders to the letter — they speak for me. And when they say tighten your seat belt, really tighten it. As I said before, a few prayers would very definitely be in order. Thank you.