CHAPTER EIGHT

Cockpit, Pangia 10 (2110 Zulu)

The tension in the cockpit was thick enough to slice. Not that the past four hours had been anything but correct and collegial, but Captain Jerry Tollefson had no doubt that Dan Horneman was eager to continue arguing about the Anchorage incident, the arrogance of the Arctic Eagles, and how discriminated against he felt for being shamelessly rich.

Screw him! Jerry thought. He could have just apologized and left it at that, but no, he had to attack me for letting him be a lousy pilot! Bullshit!

But there didn’t seem to be any point to reigniting the argument. Horneman, he had concluded, was a weak pilot slumming in a world that neither needed nor wanted misfits. And somehow, he was trying to evade the reality that a competent, properly trained pilot simply doesn’t have the luxury of making fundamental mistakes.

Rehabilitating a pilot’s reputation once he’s shown himself to be dangerously slow at the controls is impossible, Jerry thought. The rumor mill, after all, communicated weakness faster than light. He resented Horneman’s use of the phrase “right stuff” and mud-slinging North Star’s Anchorage-based pilots. Horneman didn’t have it, and he never would.

He’s right about one thing, Jerry thought. None of us can be comfortable flying with a man who already has the money and success we all want. If you’re insanely rich, why do this? Why play airline pilot? It was hard to even imagine what it would be like to have $500 million or what would he do with it if he had such wealth?

Jerry brought his eyes back to the windscreen where a streaming cocktail of darkness and high-altitude cirrus clouds made the view indistinguishable from that of a simulator. There were stars somewhat visible overhead through the clouds, but he did little more than glance at them. Astronomy had never interested him, although a spectacularly starry night was always exhilarating.

They were entering a patch of turbulence, just light chop at first, but for some reason the slight bouncing was promising to get worse. He glanced down at the glowing computer screens that formed the front panels of the Airbus, checking the radar, which showed nothing of significance as the turbulence increased slightly to just below the moderate level. Jerry caught himself wondering almost casually why, at the exact same moment, the entire forward panel and all the cockpit lights went pitch black.

“What the hell?”

Dan Horneman’s voice echoed his own thoughts. Jerry sat back suddenly as if struck. The entire instrument panel, consisting of four cutting-edge sophisticated video screens and including the Electronic Centralized Aircraft Monitor, or ECAM, were blank. Normally they conveyed all the information pilots needed to fly.

“What happened?’ Jerry asked. “What did you do, Dan?”

“What did I do? Nothing! We’ve just lost all our displays… ECAM… everything!”

The turbulence had grown to the level of “moderate,” and from habit, Jerry reached up and turned on the seat belt sign.

“Where’s a flashlight?” Jerry asked, his voice betraying confusion.

“Hold it… I have mine…” Dan said, pulling a small penlight from his shirt pocket and shining it around the forward panel.

Is there a procedure for this? I can’t recall one? Dan thought. How the hell can we lose everything?

“Let me… get the checklist…” Dan said, scrambling to play the small beam of light to the right in search of the Quick Reference Handbook.

“I’ve got a big flashlight here somewhere in my bag…” Jerry said.

“Was there anything on the radar?”

“No! It was clear.”

“Never thought we’d ever need a flashlight in a Scarebus!”

“Dan, do we have a reset button for the generators?”

“I’m… I’m pulling the checklist… hold it. I don’t think so… as such…”

“What the hell is going on here? Are we turning?”

“What?”

“It felt like…” Jerry began, straining to look out and up. “I guess not. Engines are still running.”

“I’ve got the Quick Reference Handbook,” Dan announced. “Lemme get into it.”

“I think we’ve lost all the generators, Dan.”

“Yeah, but… where’s the battery and the RAT, the ram air turbine? It should have dropped into the airstream by now and provided emergency power.”

“Okay, run the checklist.”

“Which one?”

“Loss of all electrics.”

“I don’t think we have one like that… let me look… jeez!”

“Wait… Dan, I can see light under the cockpit door.”

“Sorry?”

“I just looked back… the cabin’s still lit up.”

“Okay, then it’s not the generators.”

“This damn plane can’t lose all the displays,” Jerry said, “It’s supposed to be impossible! We’ve got zero instruments except for the standby attitude.”

“Okay, here’s the loss of electrics checklist in the QRH.” Dan began reading the items, holding the small flashlight in his teeth, searching the overhead panel for a reset button as Jerry found his flashlight and frantically tried to make sense of what was happening.

And just as suddenly, everything came back on line, all the computer screens snapping back to their previous illumination levels and the cockpit lights back on.

“Thank God, Dan! What did you do?”

“Again, nothing!” Dan mumbled, the small penlight still in his mouth.

“Well, you must have done something. Check the heading!”

“Steady on course, two seven zero degrees. Speed’s the same.”

Jerry could see Dan shaking his head as he stared alternately at the ceiling panel and back to the QRH. He pulled the penlight out of his mouth and turned to the captain. “I’m telling you, Jerry, I didn’t do a bloody thing! I was still searching for something TO do!”

“Then, what the hell happened?”

“I guess it cured itself, but we’d better start troubleshooting. Something knocked everything off line. It could happen again.”

Jerry had leaned forward, his eyes racing around the flight display.

“We’re still on course, on altitude… on airspeed. Everything. I don’t think it even knocked off the autoflight system.”

“Autothrottles still good?” Dan asked, verifying the indications were still correct.

“Yes.”

“I’ve never seen anything like that. Have you?” Dan asked.

“No.”

“Did I miss anything in training?”

“No… I mean, individual screen failures, but they’re all independent.”

Both men sat stock still as if any movement might once again plunge the cockpit into darkness, both of them studying the panels and trying out various theories, the silence building before Jerry spoke again.

“There are no error messages on the ECAM, Dan. You notice that?”

“Yes.”

He punched at the center display. “Nothing. We didn’t imagine it, right?”

“No, it was real. We were dark for maybe a minute. It felt like a freaking eternity!”

“Jesus! I’m wide awake now.”

“Me, too. Should we, maybe, advise maintenance?”

“Yeah,” Jerry responded. “You want to type in the story?”

“Yes. Got it.” Dan began punching in an abbreviated narrative of what had just happened to transmit to Pangia’s command center in Chicago.

“As soon as you’re done with that, Dan, ask Shanwick for higher. I’m tired of this cirrus,” Jerry said.

“Will do.”

Dan typed in both messages and triggered the send function as Jerry scanned every panel for a clue to what had happened. The captain could see the copilot leaning forward again, scrutinizing something on the screen controlling the radio systems and the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, known as ACARS.

“What?” Jerry asked.

“It’s not going through,” Dan replied. “I’ve got no indication of a transmission.”

“Maybe it’s just not reporting properly. You think?”

“I don’t know what to think, Jerry. Hold on, let me try getting Shanwick with a CPDLC message,” he said, referring to the Controller-Pilot Data Link Communication system. His fingers moved over the appropriate virtual buttons on the computer screen to send a message directly by satellite to Shanwick, then tried the HF channel, but the call went unanswered, as did the next attempt to reach the company over the satellite phone.

Jerry watched him work with increasing concern as the copilot went through the entire array of available communication devices controlled through the touch screens, until Dan looked up and met his gaze.

“Nothing, Jerry. We’ve got nothing!”

“You tried VHF?”

“Yes, 123.5. No one’s answering, and there have to be aircraft all around us.”

“Okay, there’s got to be a way to reset these radios.”

“There is a procedure to reset the satellite phone, but it stands to reason, Jerry. Whatever blacked us out up here probably tripped a whole bunch of breakers in the E and E compartment.”

Jerry handed over the checklist. “You know how to go down there?”

“I’ve only been in the compartment once, but… yeah, I know how.”

“We’re supposed to get company approval first.”

“Okay, so once we reset the radios, I’ll ask them for the okay,” Dan chuckled.

“Good plan.”

Dan was lifting himself out of the seat but Jerry reached out to stop him. “How much time before we hit the coast, Dan?”

“Three hours, twenty minutes to Newfoundland,” Dan replied. “And we’ve got five hours to JFK with six hours thirty minutes fuel remaining.”

“Okay.”

“At least the computers are with us again. I just don’t understand what the hell happened back there.”

“Tell me about it,” the captain replied, his eyes on some distant point beyond the nose. “This is a frickin’ electric jet. I don’t know how it’s even possible!”

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