“Practice engine failure. Go. Lever down. Right pedal. Establish sixty knot airspeed for autorotation…Needles split. Maintain sixty knots. Rate of descent sixteen hundred feet per minute. Begin the flare at sixty feet from ground. Nose in the air. Pushing the cyclic forward to level the aircraft. Touchdown while maintaining heading with pedals.”
He watched as the altimeter passed thirty-two-hundred feet. Still rising, but only for a few more seconds. At this altitude, once the engine failed, he would have about two minutes before the Seahawk hit the ground.
Where and how they hit the ground, and where they wound up, were in the hands of God.
Inside the cargo bay, where the SEAL team was strapped in, the hum of the helicopter’s engines and rotors seemed normal enough, providing the illusion of a false sense of security. Brave SEAL warriors gazed at one another with hard looks of stone, as Diane clutched Zack’s hand, praying silently that their lives would not end. Zack and Captain Noble both looked amazingly unflappable, as if unconcerned with the entire situation.
And then…
The engine sputtered. Then coughed. Then recovered. Coughed again. Sputtered. Recovered. Then two more consecutive sputters. The chopper wobbled a bit.
Then…silence…The eerie sound of air whooshing around the helicopter.
For a millisecond, the world stood still, as if they were perched motionless on the edge of a cliff. Then…
Their stomachs leapt through their throats as Diane held her breath and closed her eyes and clenched her teeth to fight the primordial urge to scream.
The chopper was a free-falling rock, plunging helplessly through the dark skies.
And then…a braking sensation…as if a parachute had deployed to slow their mortal plunge.
Diane opened her eyes. Brave, rugged SEALs were visibly exhaling…for now.
The helicopter was falling, but no longer in a free fall. Still, it felt like they were falling fast enough that when they hit the ground, the end might come.
“Okay, listen up,” Captain Noble spoke up. “When we hit the ground, the good news is that we’re highly armed, we have handheld GPS devices, we have an ability to communicate, and although there are only a few of us, we’re still better trained by far than anyone the Indonesians can throw at us.
“They’ll be looking for us, but we’ve got the advantage of darkness, and we own the night.
“We’re gonna spread out in teams of three, avoid detection, and try to make contact with headquarters. Try to ascertain our new orders.”
More wind wisped across the fuselage, as the chopper continued to drop.
“They may want us back in Jakarta. They may want us to head to the coast. Whatever, be ready.” He glanced over at Diane. “You okay, Commander?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Everybody with me?”
“Aye, Captain.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’re with you, sir.”
“Very well,” he said. A solid confidence resonated in his voice. “Hang on tight.” He eyed them all. “It’s going to be a rough ride down.”
In the cockpit, Lieutenant Cameron glued his eyes to the airspeed indicator, which at the moment was showing ninety knots. “Too fast. Too fast,” he said aloud, and pulled back slightly on the cyclic stick. The chopper’s nose flared slightly, and the airspeed indicator started dropping.
Eighty-five…eighty…seventy-five…seventy…
“Come on, baby.”
Seventy…
“Slow down. Slow down.” He feathered the stick back a quarter of an inch. He had to get the speed down if they were to have any chance of surviving the impact. But this was a potentially dangerous maneuver. If he slowed the chopper too much, they would stall out and fall quickly to the earth like a rock.
Seventy…sixty-five…sixty…
“Hold there.” He pushed the stick a bit forward. “How’s it looking out there?” he asked his copilot.
“Dark,” the copilot said.
“One day, they’ll invent night vision goggles that work from this altitude,” Cameron muttered, as he looked down over the dark landscape, searching, somehow, for a landing spot. Sporadic lights dotting the darkness were off the left and right. But the area just in front of the rapidly descending helicopter was a dark chasm.
Perhaps it would be a rural area, which could be ideal for an emergency landing. Or perhaps wooded or rough terrain, which could be disastrous.
The altimeter crossed under sixteen hundred feet. Fifteen hundred feet…Fourteen hundred feet. The ground, whatever was down there, was moving up fast now. Cameron picked up the microphone, opening a speaker to the cargo bay.
“SEAL team members. We will be on the ground in about one minute. Brace yourselves. It could be a rough landing.”
Cameron checked his watch. Less than one minute to impact.
Only God could control their fate now.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…”
Zack looked over and saw Diane whispering the Lord’s prayer. Lord, if you pull us through this, I’m going to ask her to marry me. He put his arm around her and pulled her close to him.
“Thirty seconds to impact.”
Twenty seconds,” the copilot said, as Lieutenant Cameron looked feverishly out the windshield for something…anything…praying that they would miss trees, power lines, rocks, and buildings.
“Ten seconds.”
Altitude eighty feet…seventy feet…sixty feet.
“Now,” Cameron said, pulling up on the cyclic.
The helicopter’s nose rotated forty-five degrees to the sky, revealing a bright canopy of stars, then leveled out as they dropped.
THUD.
Cheering erupted from the cargo bay.
Lieutenant Cameron exchanged glances with his copilot, who exhaled, then broke into a smile.
Thank you, Jesus,” Diane whispered under her breath.
Zack reached over and gave her a quick peck on the cheek.
“Told you it would be a piece of cake,” he said.
“Get your night goggles and your weapons,” Captain Noble said. “Let’s move.”
Zack helped Diane strap on a pair of night vision goggles as the SEALs ripped open the bay door and quickly stepped out of the helicopter.
Zack took Diane’s hand and led her out onto the grass.
The pilot, Lieutenant Cameron, was already outside and suggesting that they move quickly away from the chopper in case it exploded.
Single file, they moved quickly up a hill about two hundred yards, and then gathered quickly in a semicircle. Green bushes, about knee-deep, were growing all around the helicopter.
“You got a fix on where we are, Lieutenant?” Captain Noble directed this question to the pilot, Lieutenant Cameron.
“Yes, sir. I’ve got our coordinates, and we’re about sixty miles southeast of Jakarta. Maybe twenty miles north of the coastline. According to our charts, this is tea plantation country, and I think these plants are tea plants…”
“That’s exactly what they are,” Petty Officer Rodriguez spoke up. “My parents were missionaries to Indonesia. I’ve been in this part of the world before.”
“Thanks, Rodriguez,” Lieutenant Cameron continued. “There’s a road about a mile north of here that connects Bogor and Bandung. The region north of that between here and Jakarta is hilly, mountainous, and largely uninhabited. That’s probably the best place to head if we want to avoid detection.”
“You got a navigational map, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir,” Cameron said. Quickly, the pilot unfolded the map and laid it carefully on the grass. “Here’s our location, sir. We’re at approximately seven degrees south latitude and one hundred seven degrees east longitude. The city of Bogor is just over here to our west. The city of Cianjur is just to our east. Here’s that road, and that mountain range is just to our north.”