“We’re hearing you, Captain,” someone answered.
“Okay… I’m astounded that we haven’t lost a hydraulic system, but so far so good. My biggest worry is whether we can milk down the flaps, extend them very, very cautiously, while slowing, and keep the same angle into the wind. The more flaps I can get down, the lower my pitch angle has to be for any given speed. That’s why I need to know what the performance figures say about maintaining the same angle of attack at slower airspeeds with the flaps out at different settings. My pitch angle right now is almost zero.”
There was a very loud silence on the other end for what seemed like minutes before one of the engineers responded.”
“Captain, there are really no easily accessible figures for that in our manuals. Boeing? Do you guys have anything to help?”
“Yeah, well… aside from telling you this sort of situation can’t happen and that you can’t do what you’re doing and stay airborne with wreckage on your wing, all I can tell you is that we’re in no man’s land. We can dig up test figures and parameters and all that but… zero pitch, did you say, Captain?”
“Yes.”
“See, I couldn’t even predict that with the graphs and charts I have.”
A quick discussion ensued on the other end culminating in the completely useless information that no one really knew what to do.
Obviously, Marty thought, they were struggling to help, but appreciation was overshadowed by a long-ago disaster over Iowa when a United Airlines DC-10 had lost all hydraulics to an engine explosion. The crew of United 232 desperately needed help from their operations experts, but there was simply no data for a total hydraulic failure and now he knew exactly how Captain Al Haynes had felt.
“Really, gentlemen?” Marty said, trying unsuccessfully to keep the frustration out of his voice. “Come on. I need analysis. I mean, if we got the flaps down to five degrees, and I keep the same airspeed, the flaps would give me additional lift and I could lower the nose a bit to compensate. But if, as we bring the flaps out, I slow the airplane to keep the same angle of attack, producing equal lift with a slower airspeed and more flaps, how far can I slow?”
“Captain, we’ll work on it. We just don’t know.”
“So I have to play test pilot up here?”
A new voice broke in.
“Captain Mitchell, Paul Butterfield here in Central Operations. I’m the head guy tonight. We’re doing and will do everything humanly possible to answer your questions, but we’ve got no basis for that particular answer. As you can imagine, that’s not something we normally need to calculate.”
“Okay, I get that,” Marty said, “but please do your best as fast as you can. In less than an hour I’m going have to just experiment.”
“No… we don’t want you playing test pilot up there, any more than you have to.”
“Then, gentlemen, get me the figures so I know what I’m doing. Of course, this might all be a moot discussion. I may not be able to physically extend the flaps at all.”
Marty could hear a brief exchange from the right seat between the copilot and ATC regarding another heading change. His right hand trembled as it held the satellite phone handset, and a sort of roaring started in his mind, as if everything he was facing was accelerating toward some critical mass.
He forced himself to take a breath and answer a bunch of well-meaning suits who obviously had no clue what he was saying.
“Mr. Butterfield… all of you… I know you’re trying to help, but if we can’t answer my question about slowly bringing the flaps out, then answer this, please. Let me ask you some stuff based on a no flap emergency landing, cause I know we’ve got test data on that.”
“Yes, we do.”
“Captain,” another voice interjected, “we’ve run the numbers for a no flap landing given the one remaining runway they’re telling us is still open at Denver, Runway Seven. Your approach speed — what I guess you pilots call your bug speed — will be one hundred eighty-two knots. With full braking and full reverse and touchdown on or before the numbers, you can just barely stop before the overrun. And, as I’m sure you know, the overrun on that runway ends in a hundred foot downslope.”
Marty bit his lip as he watched Ryan struggling with the airplane and ran the statement from Operations through his head.
“Okay, but at that airspeed, one hundred eighty-two knots… what will my angle of attack be?”
“You have to slow her down for landing, Captain. I don’t think there’s a choice about that. You can’t stop in the available runway otherwise.”
“What pitch — what angle of attack or what nose-up pitch angle — would I be using with the gear down and flaps fully retracted in level flight, at one hundred eighty-two knots, versus the angle of attack I’m using right now at two hundred forty?”
More silence from Operations before a new voice answered.
“Captain, you’re… you say you’re maintaining two hundred and forty knots right now?”
“That’s right. I’ve slowed her down from two fifty. And I don’t dare slow any more without risking all the lives in that wrecked Beech on my wing. I have no damned way of knowing what speed would cant my wing up high enough to cause the slipstream to lift them off the wing and kill them.”
“Captain, Bill Baxter here at Boeing again. I’ve got a team working on it right now.”
“Thank you, Mr. Baxter. You understand what I’m asking?”
“Yes… but we’re going to have to grab for original engineering test flight data. We don’t measure things by angle of attack, or nose-up deck angle, as you know.”
“Okay. Please keep this line open and let me know the moment you’ve got something I can use.”
“Captain, Paul Butterfield here. We’ll keep the line open of course, but about your speed. I need to emphasize that you’re going to have to slow her down.”
“Mr. Butterfield, do you want me to describe the faces of the passengers in that ruined airplane on my wing?”
“Captain, your passengers’ lives depend on…”
“Hey! I’m well aware of my responsibilities, okay? I just picked up some new passengers I hadn’t planned on.”
“I’m just reminding you, sir, that you can’t safely land at that airspeed.”
“Don’t you think I fucking know that?”
There was dead silence in response for several seconds before Marty forced himself to speak. “I’m sorry. I apologize for the profanity but… I’m the one who has to make the final decisions up here.”
He pulled the handset away before Butterfield could respond and turned to motion Nancy, the lead flight attendant, back in the cockpit, to monitor the sat phone as a distant warbling reached their ears.
For several seconds it was confusing: another cockpit warning apparently corking off and he should know what it meant. But he couldn’t recall — until the realization dawned that the noise was the ringtone for his cell phone.
The last goddamned thing I have time for! Marty thought, planning to ignore it even as the insistent sound continued. But there was something in the back of his mind screaming at him that this was somehow important, and even in the jaws of the tidal wave of worries trying to engulf him, Marty ripped the phone from its belt holster and punched it on.
“Yes?”
The voice was distant, and female, and very hesitant, like someone coming out of a deep sleep realizing they’d dialed a wrong number.