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“WE’RE GOING DOWN”
“What
the hell?” the captain thought, sitting up in her seat, staring intently at the
engine instrument panel. The plane, carrying 205 passengers and crew, was at cruise
altitude, flight level 390 or thirty-nine thousand feet, when the left side engine
started to burp, slightly jerking the plane to the left. “Strike,” she said to
her copilot, “Call ATC (Air Traffic Control), and tell them we need a lower
altitude. Tell them we want flight level 280.”
“Why?” Strike, asked casually. “For a couple of bumps in the road?. Let’s
just stay here at 390 and save a little gas?” he responded as he pulled the
handle on his seat back, putting the first officer’s seat into a more relaxed
position. He’d been second guessing every decision she’d made over and she was
getting damned tired of it.
Kathy let Strike’s insubordinate response go. She was trying to avoid a
fight, something she, sadly had been doing all her life. Her limp reaction was
wrong and she knew it. She found herself literally biting her lip as she picked
up the microphone. “Center, this is Southwestern two-niner, requesting an immediate
descent to flight level 280.” There was a faint taste of blood in her mouth,
giving her a strong signal to stop biting down so hard. “Dumb,” she thought to
herself as she tried to relax her jaw.
“Southwestern 29, do you have a problem?”
ATC inquired.
“Affirmative,” she replied.
Three days earlier
Thirty-three-year old Kathy Sharkey kissed
her six[LN2] -year-old
daughter goodbye and hugged her mother, a mother whom she loved dearly for
helping out but resented terribly for her weakness whenever Kathy had to deal
with her father. She hopped into her maroon, 2015 Suburu, a small, inexpensive
concession to the divorce she had gone through two years ago, and headed for
the airport. It was an hour-long drive and she preferred to be early.
As she maneuvered her car onto the
freeway, increasing speed to blend in with early evening traffic, she allowed
herself a moment for reflection.
A former Naval aviator, Kathy “Shark”
Sharkey was one of the Navy’s first female F/A 18 Hornet pilots. She was tall,
blonde, attractive. She was serious, hard -working to a fault and well respected
for her flying skills and ability to focus. She’d married another fighter pilot
and, except for their beautiful daughter,
handily admitted that doing so was a big mistake. “God, that guy was a
schmuck,” she said to herself, yielding a slight grin. As she pulled into the
airport parking lot, she started to get excited about tonight’s flight. It was
a milk run to New York out of Denver but she was excited, nonetheless.
The Southwestern Airlines operations office
was a small, efficiently laid out square box of a room with the tables, chairs
and computer plug-ins important to pilots preparing international and domestic flight
plans. The walls were battleship gray and, to some, entering the office was reminiscent
of going inside the lower decks of an aircraft carrier. Pictures of early
Southwestern airplanes festooned all four walls and there was a large photo of
a Boeing 737 hanging just above the entrance door.
As she entered ops, she recognized a tall, attractive man standing in the
middle of the room. She walked towards him. “Hi, I’m Kathy Sharkey,” she said, introducing
herself to Steve Syke, her copilot for the next few days. Looking to be of
Mediterranean descent, he had dark hair, eyes that were deep brown in color, a square
jaw and bright, very white teeth. “Looks like we’re flying together tonight,” she
said.
Steve Syke responded. “Call me Strike. That’s my Air Force fighter call
sign.” She stared up at him, a puzzled look on her face. Most pilots dropped
the military call signs when they started working for the airline.
“OK, Strike. Whatever you say,” she said, with no small amount of sarcasm.
Kathy turned towards the small
desk holding the flight paperwork.
“There is something about this guy I don’t
like,” she pondered. “I can’t quite pin it down, but there is something.”Letting
the thought go, she picked up the flight papers and headed for the plane.
On the plane, they went through their
preflight duties, checking switch positions, calling for clearances. Then Strike
turned to Kathy and said something that confirmed her earlier perceptions.
“I know who you are. You’re ‘B-1,” he said
with an oddly twisted, half smile on his face.
“B-1?” she asked, puzzled, as she worked
to finish her preflight duties.
“Yeah,” Strike offered. “Bitch 1.’ Yeah, the most senior woman pilot on
the airline, “he explained, following it with a laugh that made her wonder just
how long Ol’ Strike was going to keep this job.
“Not long,” she figured. Kathy thought of a rumor she’d heard about
another pilot wanting to punch Strike out. “I wouldn’t blame the guy,” she
considered. “Not one damn bit.”
She let the comment slide. There were few things in Kathy Sharkey’s life
that she feared and loathed more than verbal confrontation and, as she typed
flight information into the aircraft computers, she considered where that fear
had come from. She recalled clearly. Her father had unloaded on her with some
regularity when she was young and the more she fought him, the louder, more
vicious he got. She shook her head, clearing it. She needed to concentrate on
the flight.
Steve Syke was known to be a misogynistic,
self-centered, over bearing ass. He was a former Air Force combat pilot and
loved being called, “Strike.” At six feet two inches tall, well-built and quite
handsome, he’d had little problem meeting women. His sexist comments were
legendary at the ariline, having landed him in the chef pilot’s office more
than once for explanations. His macho attitude bled over into his cockpit
behavior and many captains simply would not fly with him.Lots of “telling”
here. You can allow the readers to reach their own conclusions simply by
letting them watch and listen.
Present
“Southwestern two-niner, you are cleared
to descend to and maintain…”
“BAM.” “BAM.”
The noises were so loud Kathy couldn’t make out what the controller said. She
watched in horror as the digital indicators for the left engine, located in the
center instrument panel, wound down, the aircraft yawing violently to the left.
She grabbed the yoke and stepped heavily on the rudder, fighting to gain
control of the plane.
“BAM.” Another explosion rocked the aircraft.
This one filled the cockpit with a milky white mist followed closely by a
deafening, whooshing noise. A musty smell accompanied the mist. It seemed as if
every bell and horn on cockpit’s warning system was ringing or blaring. The one
that immediately caught Kathy’s eye was the warning light indicating there was
a hole in the aircraft.
Knowing she had an engine failure and most
likely a hole in the plane, she pushed the necessary buttons to silence the
warning horns, reached down with her left hand and grabbed the oxygen mask that
was tucked firmly into its compartment. She pulled it out, pressed the button
to inflate it around her head and put it on. She turned to her copilot,
yelling, “Strike, get your mask on and check in.” [LN3] Strike
was looking straight ahead, frozen in place, eyes wide open, skin turning light
blue from early onset hypoxia.
Turning back to the aircraft, Kathy was
trying desperately to keep the plane under control. She forced herself to recall
what she had learned in Navy flight training. Aviate, navigate, communicate.
First, she needed to aviate. Fly the plane. There is a trim knob located on the
center console and she turned it hard to get the plane to fly as straight as
possible. She was struggling mightily.
Acutely aware of, “time of useful
consciousness,” time in minutes used to tell how long someone can live without
oxygen, Kathy put the plane into a steady descent while tuning the transponder frequency
to 7700 to send a signal to ATC that she was in trouble. She knew Strike wouldn’t
live long if she didn’t get his mask on, so she unbuckled her seat belt,
reached over him, grabbed his mask and fitted it onto his head. It would take a
few minutes for the oxygen to take hold so she sat back in her seat, buckled
up, grabbed hold of the yoke and took a quick look at the lights of the cities
below. She could tell by the sheer number of lights that she was approaching
Chicago. Now, to communicate.
“Center, this is Southwestern two-niner
declaring an emergency. We have a number one engine failure with an explosive
decompression and are descending to niner-thousand feet. How copy?” Her voice
was calm, clear.
“Southwestern two-niner, roger. Understand
you are declaring an emergency and descending to niner-thousand feet. You are
cleared as requested. How many souls on board?” ATC requested.
“Two hundred five souls on board.
Southwestern two-niner is going to need a vector to Chicago O’Hare’s longest
runway, fire trucks and ambulances standing by.” Kathy continued. “We’re
passing flight level 280, descending to niner-thousand.”
“Roger, Southwestern two-niner. Fly your
current heading, stand by for a vector,” ATC replied.
“Wilco,” was all she had time to say.
There were checklists to complete and Strike had still not recovered. She heard
a groan to her right and looked over at her copilot. She thought he was
starting to come around.
“Thank God,” she thought. “I need this
guy.” Eighteen minutes had passed since the engine blew up and her grip on the
yoke was starting to slip. She took a deep breath, released the yoke for a
moment and shook her left hard to increase circulation.
“Bing,” the intercom from the cabin went
off. Kathy didn’t hear it.
Kathy
reached over and shoved hard on the left arm of her copilot, trying to get him
to come around.
“Strike, you have got to wake up and get in here.” she implored. Strike’s
head rolled over and faced her. “What could be wrong with him?” she wondered,
growing desperate. She grabbed his left hand and looked at his finger-tips.
They were blue. She
started to panic. She pulled hard on his oxygen mask and saw that his lips were
a deep blue, his eyes closed. “My God,” she said to herself. “Hypoxia! His
oxygen is off!”[LN4]
Checking
that the plane was flying straight and in a descent, passing 24,000 feet, she
unbuckled her seat belt, reached across her copilot and switched his oxygen to
one hundred-per-cent. She slid back into her seat and continued flying. As she
retook control of the plane, she thought, “That oxygen switch is a basic preflight
item. What the hell was he thinking?”
“Bing, Bing,” rang the cabin intercom.
She grabbed the mike with her right hand.
“This is the captain,” Kathy said, her
voice, still under control, but the strain more noticeable.
“Captain, this is Linda, your lead flight
attendant. We have some real problems back here. The left engine is gone. There
is nothing there but a hole. A piece of the engine took out a window and two of
the passengers were seriously injured.” She sounded tired.
“Linda, did all the oxygen masks deploy.” Kathy
asked.
“Yes, they all have oxygen,” she
responded. “Do you you want to talk to them?”
“Not now. Maybe in a few minutes, if I
have time. Now listen to me. My first officer is unconscious. We are descending.
When we pass ten thousand feet, everyone’s masks can come off. This is a ‘Red
Emergency.’ That gives you thirty minutes to prep the cabin. Is all of that
clear?”
Linda responded
clearly, professionally.
“Red emergency. Thirty minutes. Got it!” They
both hung up.
“Whoa, what the hell is going on?” Strike
woke up with a jolt. “Why are we descending?” he asked, looking at Kathy. He
was pulling off the oxygen mask as he tried to figure things out.
“Don’t pull that mask off, Strike. Not
yet. We’re descending to nine thousand feet, speed 240 knots, passing twenty-two
thousand feet. How are you feeling?” she responded as she worked hard to keep the
aircraft on a steady course and descent.
“Never mind how I’m feeling, what the hell
are you doing? Are the checklists complete? What engine is gone? Have you
talked with ATC?” he demanded, talking rapidly, loudly, almost incoherently.
Shocked by what she was hearing, Kathy
looked over at her copilot. “You better take a deep breath, Strike. Collect
yourself and I’ll explain everything.”
“To
hell with collecting myself. Christ, this is all I need. A major emergency and
a woman for a captain. “Listen,” he said as he turned towards Kathy. “I’ll get
ATC on the line. You just fly for now.” He grabbed the mike. Kathy’s jaw
dropped. He was trying to take control. This could not be happening.
“Center, Southwestern two-niner, passing
eighteen thousand feet, descending to niner-thousand. Give us a heading to
Chicago Midway Airport. Do it now,” Strike demanded.
“Southwestern
two-niner, stand by,” the controller responded.
“Strike.
STRIKE!” Kathy shouted. “What do you think you’re doing? I don’t want to go to
Chicago Midway. The runways are too short.”
“You
listen to me,” Steve replied, his voice overpowering, reminding Kathy of her
father. “You got us into this mess, now I’m going to get us out. We both know
there isn’t a woman alive who can fly as well as a man and Midway Airport works
just fine. You fly for now and I’ll read the descent checklist,” he said, proud
of his ability to take control of the flight from “B-1.” “I’ll take over the
plane for landing.”
“Bing.” Strike picked up the microphone,
knocking Kathy’s hand out of the way. “This is Strike,” he answered.
“This
is Linda. I need to talk with the captain,” she said, the strain in her voice clearly
coming through the handset.
“You
can talk to me. What do you want?” Steve asked, brusquely.
Surprised,
Linda continued.
We’re running out of time. These two injured passengers are slipping fast.
How much longer?”
“Maybe fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. Steve
replied. “We’re busy. Don’t call up here
again.” Steve hung up.
“What did Linda want?” Kathy asked, thinking
hard about how she was going to regain control of the situation. She knew it
was her gut-level fear of confrontation that was keeping her from stopping this
guy, but something deep inside would not let her say what needed to be said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Strike replied,
cockily.
“Southwestern two-niner, this is approach
control,” the controller barked over the radio. “Are you sure you want to go to
Midway? How about Chicago O’hare?” The controller knew going to Midway made no
sense. Kathy grabbed her mike but before she could speak, Steve replied.
“We
want Midway. We’ve got an emergency up here, center. Give us a lower altitude
and get us vectors to Midway and do it now!” he demanded. Kathy’s anger was
growing. She was still struggling with the plane and the thought of confronting
Strike forced her stomach into knots.
“Stand
by,” approach control responded, angrily. He was not happy with the way this
pilot was talking to him.
“BAM.
BURP. BAM.”
“What’s
that?” Steve shouted, his voice high pitched, looking hard at the right engine
instruments.
“We have a compressor stall on
number two,” Kathy replied. She pulled the power back slowly, both pilots realizing
that the second engine may fail any minute. Kathy knew she had to do something
fast. Strike had effectively taken control and was making one bad decision
after another, decisions that he had no business making and the right engine
was coming apart. Below ten thousand feet now, she removed her mask.
As she leveled the plane at nine
thousand feet, she knew people’s lives depended on her dealing with her fear of
confrontation and regaining control of the aircraft. It had to be now.
Kathy looked towards Strike.
“Strike, please take the controls for a minute. My arms are really tired,” she
asked, gently.
Strike looked at her, moved his seat into
a better position to fly, and said, almost triumphantly, “I’ve got the
aircraft.”
Kathy
swallowed, her mouth dry as a bone. As she started to speak, her voice was low,
gruff, determined. “Now
you listen to me and you listen very carefully. I’m the captain of this plane,
whether you like it or not.” She kept going. “You will do what I say, when I
say it. I have had it with your macho bullshit. We are in big trouble here and
we need to work together. You get your crap wired or sit still and stay out of
my way. Is that absolutely clear?”[LN5]
Strike did not get a chance to answer.
“Bam,” Thump.”
“I’ve got the aircraft,” Kathy
ordered.
“You’ve got the plane,” Strike
responded, taking his hands off the controls. The right engine was failing.
Kathy expertly worked the power lever on the right engine, using just enough
power to keep the aircraft in the air. She was exhausted. A few minutes went
by.
“Let me fly,” Strike said in a voice that Kathy
could barely hear in her headset.
“Let me fly, please,” Strike repeated, this time a little louder.
Kathy wasn’t sure she heard her
copilot correctly. “What did you say?” she asked.
“Let me fly. You’re exhausted.
Strike turned towards Kathy. “I have been a complete ass. I know it and I’m
sorry. But please, let me fly the goddamn plane. You look beat.” He smiled.
Forcing back tears, there by way
of exhaustion and the fact that her copilot was finally going to help her, she
said, “You’ve got the plane.” She took a deep breath and realized that she’d a
cup of Starbucks coffee sitting in the coffee holder, purchased before takeoff,
that she’d never touched. She took a sip. It was cold but, for some reason
tasted great.
“Southwestern two-niner, are you
ready for an approach? The controller asked.
Kathy looked over at Strike, said nothing
and watched as he responded to the controller’s question with a nod. “We’re
ready,” she replied.
“Bam, thump,” the engine stuttered
again, this time, much worse than before. “Pull the power lever back a little
more, Strike,” Kathy said as she stared at the engine instruments.
“Can do,” Strike responded as he
inched the lever back. They both knew this would be their only try.
“Cleared to land, Runway 31
Center. Fire and emergency vehicles standing by. Good luck, two-niner,” said
the tower controller.
“Cleared to land, Three One Center,”
Kathy replied. “Strike, we’re ten miles out, on final for Three One Center,
landing checklist complete, cleared to land.” Despite all that had happened, Kathy
felt more at ease than she had all night. Strike was flying beautifully.
Strike began to feel sick. At
first, he said nothing. “Ten more minutes,” he thought as he steered the
wounded aircraft along the flight path. Suddenly he grabbed his forehead with
both hands and screamed. “Ahhh…Christ, my head feels like it’s going to
explode. Kathy, take the plane, NOW!” he yelled, the pain in his head
intensifying.
Kathy responded immediately as
the plane started to veer off the flight path, going high on the glides slope. As
she adjusted the power lever, working the plane back on to the path, she
glanced over at Strike. He had torn his headset off, his fists clenched as he
pressed his hands tightly to his eyes, as if trying to push the pain push from his
head.
“Four miles to go,’ she thought
as she held on tightly to the yoke, her leg and left arm muscles straining.
“Southwestern two-niner, winds
310 degrees at five knots, cleared to land,” offered the tower operator. Kathy
didn’t respond.
A quick look at Strike and she
knew he was in trouble. He was leaning to his right, unconscious, shoulder
straps the only thing preventing him from slumping forward over the yoke.
“Fifty feet, twenty feet, ten feet,” she
counted as the aircraft closed on the runway surface. “Boom,” the main tires
struck the pavement, rapidly spinning up to meet the speed of the aircraft as
it moved down the runway. Kathy slammed the right power lever back to the stops
and pushed as hard as she could on the brakes. Every ounce of energy she had
remaining was funneled from her legs to the brake pedals as she pushed them to
the floor. “Boom,” the nose wheel struck, hard. She was down, but far from
safe.
As the plane continued down the
runway, she grabbed the nose wheel steering handle located just below her left
arm to steer the plane, keeping it on centerline. The plane started to drift
left. Ahead of her, on the left side of the runway, were the fire trucks and
ambulances she had requested, all lined up and directly in the plane’s path.
The left main wheel went off the runway and was now in the dirt as she struggled
to steer the plane back.
Pushing as hard as she could on
the brakes, trying to use the right brake and nose wheel steering handle to get
the plane back on the runway, she put her right hand on the steering handle to
assist. The plane started to correct back to center line. As the left main
wheel jumped back up onto the runway, she kept the pressure on the brake pedals
until the plane came to a stop, thirty or so feet from the end of runway 31C.
Kathy grabbed the mike, selected
PA so she’d be heard by every person on board and said, loudly, “Evacuate the
aircraft.” Three times. The flight attendants flew into action, popping open
doors, deploying rubber slides and directing passengers. Within five minutes
the plane was empty except for the two pilots.
As she finished securing the
aircraft, two medics came into the cockpit. “He’s pretty sick,” Kathy said. “Take care of him. He’s a good
man.”
Three hours later, as she stood in her
shower, Kathy’s mind was spinning. The engine failure, decompression, Strikes’
reaction to the hypoxia, all came rushing in. She sat down in the shower,
allowing the water cover her as if it could wash all that had happened away.
She put her head in her hands and cried.
Three months later
“How are you feeling, Strike?” she asked as
she walked around the foot his hospital bed, trying to find a place to sit. The
place smelled of rubbing alcohol.
“Hangin in there,” Strike replied. His head was wrapped in bandages, one
eye covered. It gave him the look of a mummy from a science fiction movie. To
his left, hanging by a hook was a drip bag, a tube running down to his left
arm. The arm, too was covered in gauze. Kathy’s stomach felt queasy. She really
didn’t like this place.
“I heard you had some surgery,” she said, more
of a question than a statement.
“Yeah. I guess I burst a blood
vessel in my brain. May have had something to do with that hypoxic episode,” he
answered.
“When are you coming back to
flying. People are asking about you, like you and I are eternal buddies or
something. I guess that flight cemented us in the history books, side by side,
forever,” she said, jokingly.
Strike grew silent. He stared
out the window for a long minute before responding. “I’m not coming back. They
took part of my brain out. I’m done flying.” Kathy noticed a tear had formed in
Strikes’ left eye and was running down his cheek.
“Let me grab you a hanky,” she
said as she reached for the small box that was sitting on the night stand. She
felt sorry for him, wanted to take his hand but knew she was no good at stuff
like that so she sat back down.
“What will you do?” she asked,
gently.
“Well, I always wanted to go to
law school. Who knows, maybe I’ll become a shyster lawyer, you know, get rich.
Hell, some of the nurses said I should even try modeling. Can you imagine me, a
model?” he inquired, wiping his nose and another tear that had appeared.
“Jesus, Strike, I am so sorry. I
know how much you love flying,” Kathy said, sadness in her voice.
“I guess the “Stones” song from back
in the day rings true, eh? ‘You can’t always get what you want.’”
“Yeah,” she responded, quietly. “I
suppose.”
“Listen, Kathy. Thanks for not telling
the world about that night. Knowing that was my last flight, well, I just
wouldn’t want the rest of the pilots to know what I did.”
“Strike, don’t kid yourself. When you woke up, yeah you were a little
disoriented but when I needed you most you were there. Don’t ever think
otherwise,” she said with as much conviction as she could muster.
“Thanks,” he replied. And thanks
for coming down here today. I really appreciate it. Can you do me a favor?”
“Sure. Anything,” she answered, not sure
where this was going.
“Please, don’t visit me again. You’re a
reminder of everything I’ve lost. It’s not your fault. It’s me. You are one
hell of a pilot, Captain Sharkey, and I would be proud to fly with you anytime,
any place. Now, could you please go,” he said as the tears welled up once
again.
“OK, Strike. Take care.” She then did
something that surprised even her. She walked over to his bed, grabbed his left
hand, squeezed it, then leaned over and kissed his cheek.
“Oh, Kathy,” he said as she opened the
door to leave. “Please…, call me Steve.”
“Wilco, Steve,” she responded, giving him
a half smile and a two-fingered salute, touching her forehead much like the Boy
Scouts do, then turned and left. She couldn’t be sure but, as she walked down
the corridor, she thought she could hear him crying.
