“Approach, Twelve. Okay, but no more than ten minutes. Can you keep us in a series of gentle right turns until we can rejoin the approach localizer in ten minutes?”
“Roger, Twelve. Turn right now to two five zero, turn rate your discretion, and maintain seven thousand.”
“Two five zero and seven thousand. And… are they sure of that time estimate?”
“Twelve, they’re trying to get the equipment off the runway right now.”
“You’re using the word ‘trying.’ Are they having a problem doing so?”
A telling hesitation from the approach controller raised alarms in Marty’s mind. “Don’t tell me something’s broken down on the runway?”
“Twelve, Approach. I haven’t heard about any breakdown, but those plows don’t move too fast. I’m not sugarcoating anything for you, sir. The estimate should hold.”
“Roger, Approach. It has to, or fuel is going to become critical almost immediately.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Seven Months before — January 21st
Aircraft Rescue and Firefighters’ Station #1, Denver International Airport
Clad in his yellow protective coveralls and already wearing his boots, Josh Simmons lowered his cell phone and turned back to Scott Bogosian.
“You’ve got a decent reputation with us, Scotty. The chief says he remembers that great article you did on us years back, so, you may ride along, Glad to have you.”
“Thanks.”
“Get in that gear I laid out on the chair there, and we’ll roll in about five minutes.”
Scott struggled to don the oversized overalls and boots and clambered up the side of the behemoth fire fighting machine built especially for airports, plopping himself in the back seat of the cab. He’d never been inside a so-called Crash Tender before, but the specialized machines had been described as a fire truck on steroids — capable of speeding over rugged terrain with a huge load of water and fire suppressant, the floor of the cab some four feet off the ground. Within minutes, the other members of the crew were aboard and the diesel engine roared to life as the firehouse door lifted on what could have been Prudhoe Bay in the dead of a winter storm.
Scott turned to the firefighter seated beside him.
“You know the details of what’s apparently happened here?”
“Yes, sir. A midair collision and somehow the little airplane is on their wing, or something. We’re calling this a red alert. Most of our precautionary landings are called amber alerts — not to be confused with saving kidnapped kids — but we call them as red when there’s a real possibility of death or injury. We’re stationing ourselves and three other trucks along Runway Seven.”
“Is all the plowing complete? At least whatever they’re going to do?”
“I think they’re bringing the plows in now. They gave up on all but Runway Seven almost an hour ago.”
Scott watched as the huge fire truck crunched resolutely through the fresh powder, negotiating several turns onto now-abandoned taxiways on the way to the southernmost east-west runway. For some unfathomable reason, Scott’s eyes fixated on a pair of fresh tire tracks leading off to the north as they passed the end of Runway 34R. The tracks immediately disappeared into the whiteness, heading off in the rough direction of where the approach end of the closed runway should be.
Scott turned to the young firefighter. “Do they send airport cars and trucks around checking on all parts of the airfield on a night like this?”
He shook his head. “No, sir. When they abandon an area to a major snowfall, they turn off the runway lights and kind of keep it what I would call sterile. What you’re seeing now is an all-but-shuttered airport.”
The taxiway along the only remaining runway at Denver International was ahead of them now, but the visibility through the blowing curtains of snow was less than a few hundred feet.
“All units, the flight is ten minutes out for Runway Seven. Engine Three, you’re on the eastern end, but stay back on the north edge of the parallel taxiway, and be prepared to go into the ravine at the east end if necessary.”
“Ravine?” Scott asked.
Josh handed back a map, his finger on the dropoff from the eastern end.
“Too bad they didn’t keep the sixteen thousand foot runway open. You roll off the end of that, all you’re going to tear up are prairie dog towns and a few fences.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Seven Months before — January 21st
Regal 12
With the good news that the conga line of snow plows was now off the runway, Denver Approach passed the unwelcome information that the visibility conditions for Runway 7 were now well below legal minimums and hovering at 300 feet.
“Denver, we’re going to make this a Category 3B approach,” Marty replied, referring to the high-precision approach procedure that would let a crew fly to fifty feet above the concrete before seeing the runway and landing.
“Regal, that runway is not certified for a Cat-3.”
“We have no choice, Denver. Please ask tower to turn up all the lights to the highest step but be ready to bring them down if we ask at the last minute.”
“Roger, Twelve. Turn right now to zero four five degrees, intercept the localizer at seven thousand, and you’re cleared for the approach. Tower is coming up this frequency so just stay with me.”
Mountaineer 2612
Living with the seismic bouncing of the Beech fuselage and the occasion screech of torn metal was becoming familiar, or perhaps she was just going numb. Michelle kept forward pressure on the control yoke and had become used to her feet on the rudder pedals as they vibrated and shook, the still-intact rudder of the regional aircraft’s fuselage being battered by the roiled airflow over the 757’s wing.
There was something new, however, and she had tried to convince herself that it was just hypersensitivity… but it was real. Almost a rotating moment, as if the aircraft was trying to rotate left just a bit.
As an almost unconscious remedy Michelle held her feet firmly on the vibrating rudder pedals.
With no warning a deafening screech was accompanied by a severe swing to the left, and in the space of a split second Michelle realized the Beech had lost the connection of torn metal to torn metal on the left side, and was now being held on by only the main gear strut on the right. She jammed her right foot on the right rudder pedal instantly, meeting the rotating force with a counter rotation back to the right, and realized with a sinking feeling that she was now reduced to flying the wreckage of her plane to stay on the wing.
“What was that?” Luke asked, his voice squeezed by fear.
“I’m… hard right rudder, Luke. Get your feet down there… feel it with me.”
“I don’t understand!” he answered, wide-eyed.
“Only thing holding us now is the right gear strut and holding her straight with the rudder. Nose down on the elevator, full right rudder. Help me, Luke! Keep flying her… we have to keep her attached.”
Luke felt for the rudder pedals on the right, feeling the right pedal severely displace. He could feel Michelle literally flying the fuselage nose down, and now nose right, in a continuously desperate attempt to hang on.
How long, he wondered, before the strut failed and they were in free fall?
Of course, if that happened, both of them would try to fly it all the way to the ground, but it would be no use, and suddenly, that exact fate seemed inevitable.