Free Fall

Seventy-One

Oklahoma

Five minutes after Seattle-bound NorthSun Airlines Flight 118 had flown over Oklahoma City, First Officer Sam Zhang blinked several times while scrutinizing their course readings.

“We seem to be veering slightly,” Zhang said.

Captain Will Miller stuck out his bottom lip after appraising the figures on display.

“Just the autopilot adjusting. Give it another few minutes.”

Five more minutes passed, and Zhang saw nothing change as the plane continued heading off course.

“Still veering,” Zhang said.

“Maybe we’ve got weather up ahead and it’s compensating.”

“But we have no weather issues showing and no advisories.”

Miller nodded and got on the radio.

“Kansas City Center, NorthSun One Eighteen. Have we got weather issues ahead?”

“Negative on weather, One Eighteen, but we show you moving out of your assigned course. Please correct and advise.”

“NorthSun One Eighteen, will do.”

Miller turned to Zhang.

“Sam, see what you can do to adjust it and get us back on the straight and narrow.”

Zhang made a number of inputs calibrating longitude and latitude. All were rejected. He reset and tried again. Nothing happened.

“It’s refusing my adjustments.”

“That’s nuts,” Miller said. “Let me try.”

The captain’s attempts met with the same result.

“How’s our separation?” Miller asked, his tone betraying a degree of frustration as he continued trying to correct the course heading.

“We’re still good,” Zhang said.

“NorthSun One Eighteen, please adjust your heading.”

“NorthSun One Eighteen here. Kansas City Center, we’re on it. Seems we have a sticky issue. We request you clear space until we resolve this.”

“NorthSun One Eighteen, identify your problem.”

“NorthSun One Eighteen. Center, that’s what we’re trying to do. Stand by.”

“Sam, take us off auto and I’ll do this manually.”

Zhang shut off the autopilot then Miller took control of the aircraft.

“All right, Sam, make the correction.”

Zhang input the changes but nothing happened. Miller exchanged a glance with him then tried directing the plane manually.

His commands were refused.

“What the hell?” Miller said. “It’s got to be a bug in the system.”

Zhang’s face was sober with concern.

“I think we should report an anomaly.”

Miller was shaking his head.

“Let’s run a diagnostic first.”

“But that will take too long and who knows where we’ll be then. Sir, I think we should first report an anomaly. We could still run the diagnostic.”

Miller licked his lips and nodded.

“Okay. All right. NorthSun One Eighteen. Kansas City Center, we’re reporting an anomaly with our flight-management system and request you clear space for heading…”