GOING DOWN
By Jeff S. Martindale
 

The reddish-orange horizon divided the night from the approaching day. Night held sway to starboard. Under the flickering glow to port, an experienced eye could discern a new glow, almost steel blue, so faint that one could hardly make it out. The sun rose in some part of the world beneath them.

“It's time,” said the third man, tapping the captain on the shoulder.

“Oh, good,” he said. “I could use the rest.”

He reached down with his right hand and gave a button a series of short prods: the electric motor controlling the pilot's seat moved it back a little each time. He stretched out his legs and released the seat belt by turning the lock mechanism resting against his stomach.

The two straps fell away in either direction.

They always fastened their belts when in the cockpit. At take-off and landing, they fastened all five straps, but over the Atlantic the two that go around the waist would suffice. It was uncomfortable, but he felt naked without his seat belt fastened.

The second officer took his place in the left-hand seat. The captain leaned back in the reclined flight engineer's seat for a power nap. The worn sheepskin cover was warm and slightly damp from the body previously stretched out on it. He belted up and adjusted his eye shade to block out the instrument lights. He listened to the comforting din of the engines, and felt himself nodding off.

The aircraft shuddered; probably a little turbulence, he thought. He turned onto his side and laid his right arm on the rest, regretting that sleep would be difficult. The seat tilted back enough that they used it as a lounger. If he propped his feet on the assistant observer's seat, he could achieve a position close to lying down.

“Take a muffin each,” said a flight attendant, entering the cockpit door, extending a plate between the reclining captain and the first officer.

He liked her. It was easy to like a woman who could smile like that early in the morning over the North Atlantic. He'd happily eat a dozen just for her sake. But he wasn’t hungry.

“I just want some coffee,” said the captain.

“I'm on a diet,” said the first officer, “so I'd better have one with lots of fiber.”

He took a large one with blueberries.

“There's a boy in the galley,” said the attendant. “He'd like to come in and have a look at the cockpit.”

“Sure,” said the captain. “Let him in.”

In walked a pudgy little lad.

“Hi, Captain,” he said in a darling French accent, waving his hand.

He told them he was on his way to visit family in America. He looked to be an age that made the captain wonder what his own son might be doing at that moment.

“Please, come in,” said the captain, gesturing with his whole hand.

The boy seemed comfortable obeying orders and sat down on the edge of the chair.

* * * *

Morning sunlight peaked through the windows in the coach section. Sun sparkled off the wings; the engines droned quietly.

Jodi Miller yawned. In the seat next to her, her son, Joey, rubbed his eyes as the penetrating morning glow lit his face. He looked at his mother through squinting eyes and extended his arms, which was to say ‘hold me.’

She raised the toddler onto her shoulder, and began to rub his back. Much to her surprise, he had slept through the night, all the way from Paris. Jodi slept unusually well on planes, despite the nerves that always plagued her.

“Good morning, tiger,” said her husband, Gene, from the seat behind her, looking at his son. “We’ll be home soon. Have they served breakfast yet?”

“No. Not yet,” Jodi said, planting a kiss on her son’s forehead. “Should be soon, though.”

The flight from Paris had been pleasant enough—they sat in an empty row—but they were anxious to get home. They had flown to Paris to attend a friend’s wedding. They saved some of Gene’s salary each month to pay for the trip. Not that a teacher had much disposable income but they made do.

Jodi’s stomach rumbled, and she regretted sleeping through dinner last night. She craned her neck around towards the rear, to see if any flight attendants might be serving breakfast, but the aisle was empty except for a small queue waiting for the rear lavatory. Looking forward, she saw through the open cockpit door the flight crew entertaining a child. She remembered the pilots walking the aisles the night before. She figured they must be stretching their legs, but it still made her nervous. How could they respond to an emergency, she thought, when they’re flirting with the flight attendants? It was probably nothing, of course, but it didn’t ease her anxiety about flying.

Jodi returned Joey to the adjacent seat, where he stood up and gazed back at his father with a big, glowing smile.

“Ooh, this would be a great picture,” Gene said. He retrieved a camera from the bag under his seat and aimed it at his son. He quickly snapped the photo, marveling quietly that he didn’t have to do anything silly to get his attention.

“Do you like flying, Joey? Is this fun?”

Joey giggled and clapped his hands.

“Keep it up and he’ll probably start screaming,” Jodi said. Joey had just turned a year old, and had learned, to his parents’ chagrin, that loud noises were fun and easy to make.

Gene trained the camera on his wife.

“How about you, Mommy?” he said, grinning slightly. “How do you like flying?”

“Stop it, Gene,” she said, thrusting her palm over the lens. “You know the answer, and don’t you dare take my picture.”
She must look awful, she thought.  Seven hours in a cramped coach seat did little for her disposition, much less her looks.

“Something wrong?”

“Not really,” she said. “I’m just tired and hungry. I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed tonight.”

“Amen,” Gene said.

“And eat American food,” she said, “like a thick rib-eye. And a baked potato.”

“You too, eh?” Gene said, placing the camera in his lap.

Joey bounced in his seat with his hands on the seat back. He smiled at Gene, and appeared to wink.

“Did you see that, Jodi?” Gene said, laughing. “Joey winked at me.”

Jodi heard a booming sound. She snapped her head around.

“What was that?”

“What?” Gene said, still laughing.

Joey laughed, too, chuckling like his father.

“I didn’t hear anything,” Gene said.

“I don’t like this,” Jodi said. “I don’t like this at all.”

But even as she spoke, the roar of the left engine—a noise reassuring in its steadiness—quieted. The right engine whined louder, and the nose of the plane turned down. Suddenly the plane tilted at an awkward angle. Jodi felt Joey sliding toward her. She grabbed him, pulling him close. The plane felt like it was turning toward the ground. Joey giggled.

Gene said, “What the hell is going on?”

* * * *

Behind the cockpit door, all hell had broken loose.

As soon as the engine failed, a chaotic clamor filled the cockpit. Chimes signaled a master warning: Ding, ding, ding. Then came a synthesized woman's voice meant to alarm, a voice known cynically to pilots as "The Bitch."

The Bitch called out: "Autopilot, engine control, oil."

The second officer—still flying the plane—and the first officer struggled to maintain control of the plane.

"We got a left engine out," said the second officer as the shuddering intensified.

The chaotic clamor: Ding, ding, ding . . . "Autopilot, engine control, oil."

"I need some help here," he said.

The plane pulled hard left, trying to turn itself, flip and spiral into the ground.

"What the hell's going on?" asked the captain, quickly returning to his seat at the controls.

He and the first officer took on the machine, white-knuckling their steering columns and staring wide-eyed into instrument panels for heading, altitude, air speed and the power setting on the good engine.

Together, they fought to regain control. They put on their headsets, and then the captain’s call went out. "New York control. AC eleven ten, declaring an emergency. We've had an engine failure. We're out at twenty-six three at this time," he said, referring to the altitude.

New York control responded, "AC eleven ten, roger, right turn direct Boston." They turned to Boston and hoped to land there.

* * * *

The plane yawed and fell sharply to the left. A cup of coffee spilled at the feet of a young flight attendant in the aisle. Napping passengers shot up in their seats. Everyone instinctively turned left toward the noise.

The plane fell nearly 6,000 feet in the next minute.

For almost a minute, the aircraft shook, at times violently. Passengers focused on what had happened to the left engine. Once sleek, it now resembled a junk pile. The metal covering of the engine had ripped apart and peeled back, exposing the machinery's guts. Wires flapped in the winds. Hydraulic fluid, oil, and jet fuel poured into the airstream. Part of the wing had disappeared. Jodi looked out and thought a bomb had exploded in the engine. After all these years of flying without kids, she thought, now it happens! A nervous flier even before the plane took off, she found that sleep or reading a book helped ease her nerves. A cocktail or two also took the edge off.

Dumbstruck, she watched the fluids spray. This can't be! she told herself. She feared an engine fire. She couldn't take her eyes off the left wing.

Gene slid open the window shade in his row to see for himself. The sight of the mangled machinery made him shut the shade at once.

Passengers, turning from the engine, looked to the flight attendants for an explanation.

At 20,000 feet and falling, looking out at the many frightened eyes fixed on her, the head attendant felt as if she had dozens of children on board.

The passengers had many questions:

"What happened?”

“Are we going to be OK?"

She placed her hands reassuringly on their shoulders and said, "These planes are designed to fly on one engine."
She knew this to be true when an inoperable engine had been shut down, but not, as in this case, when it was deformed.

She told passengers, "It's one of the first things flight crews practice—going in with one engine." Again, she knew, this applied to shutdowns.

One by one, she snapped shut the window shades on the left side of the plane.

"We don't need to be looking at that," she said.

The plane stopped shaking. Her composure helped her credibility with the passengers. So did the clouds, which kept them from recognizing the rate of their descent.

But violent tremors soon undid her work.

"That's just what turbulence feels like with one engine," she lied.

When she reached her row, Jodi blurted: "Do you think we’re going to make it?" Her voice was thick with tension and loud enough to be heard across the aisle. The head attendant assured her, "Of course we're going to make it." But Jodi kept talking, an edge to her voice. "How can we fly like that?"

Fearing her alarm could infect the other passengers, the attendant stepped to the next row.

She heard a ding-dong and saw a small red light flashing on the wall panel in back. The cockpit wanted to talk to her.

* * * *

To the captain, the first officer said, "I'll tell Anne what's going on." He hit the call button.

If the head attendant had hoped for a soothing call, she didn't get it. Hoping to hear the captain, she got the first officer instead.

This troubled her because she knew the captain liked to be in contact with the cabin, in total control of his plane.

"Okay, we had an uncontained port engine failure, Anne," the first officer said. "And we’re missing part of the wing. We've declared an emergency. We're diverting to Boston. Go ahead and, uh, brief the passengers. It’ll be an emergency landing back in."

Trained to ask questions in such moments – How much time do we have? Will there be a warning or bells? What is my signal for evacuation? – Anne didn't think to ask one. She simply said, "All right. Thanks."

At 17,000 feet, still in the clouds, the captain realized they would never make it to Boston. He told the first officer, "We need an airport quick."

He at once radioed New York Control: "We need an airport quick, and, uh, roll the trucks and everything for us."
Control replied that Halifax Airport was 85 miles away.

A lump in his throat, he said to his first officer, "Engine failure checklist, please."

* * * *

Anne took a deep breath, gathered herself, pushed the P.A. button, and turned to face the frightened passengers. Repeating what she had been told, she announced the plane was headed to Canada. Halifax, specifically. She sounded firm even though she had never been more frightened in flight.

She announced, "The cockpit crew has confirmed we have an emergency. We have an engine problem."

Jodi thought to herself, Yeah, you have an engine problem, all right!

Anne reiterated that the plane could fly on one engine.

She told passengers they needed to prepare, just in case: Make certain your seat belt is low and tight, place your feet flat on the floor, review your emergency card.

Then she explained the brace position - crossed wrists against the seat back in front of you, foreheads pressed against the wrists - and told passengers she wanted individual demonstrations.

"You'll have to prove this to me," she said.

She asked for questions. No one had any.

Anne hurriedly cleared the galley. 

On the left side of the plane, passengers inched up their window shades.

* * * *

The plane lurched forward, continuing its dive, but faster now. Much faster.

At 15,000 feet, this gave the captain a dreaded foreboding.

Then, suddenly, it pitched toward the ground.

Abruptly, Jodi was lifted off the seat, her seat belt cutting into her thighs. She felt light and nauseous. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gene bounce out of his seat, his head slamming into the overhead compartment, the camera flying past his face. He hadn’t been wearing his seat belt.

Jodi heard the screaming alarms and synthesized voices in the cockpit. She heard the pilots shouting at each other, working frantically to control the plane. All over the plane, passengers screamed, some hysterically.

The plane continued its steep dive. Jodi saw a woman sliding down the aisle on her back. A young man followed, tumbling head over heels. Jodi looked at Gene, but he lay across the row, face down and unconscious. A yellow oxygen mask dangled in front of her face, but she couldn’t reach for it lest she lose hold of her baby.

The forces of the dive — an incredibly loud whining dive — pressed her into her seat. Loose objects flew through the air, bouncing off the ceiling, floor, and people.

Jodi turned forward, and suddenly something heavy struck her in the head—a sudden blow, pain, and stars. She felt faint, but she knew she couldn’t pass out. The alarms roared in her ears. The passengers screamed for their lives. The plane still dived.

Jodi clutched her son to her chest and began to pray.

* * * *

At 5,000 feet, a mere mile above the ocean, the pilots struggled to level the plane, which continued its unplanned descent toward the black waters beneath them.

Anne and the other flight attendants, some having their own injuries, found it difficult to hide their fear. Seeing bloody faces registering shock and disbelief made it hard for them to revert to their training and put on a strong face.
Despite the hardships, they checked passengers and showed them the correct brace position: head down, elbows up and out.

Jodi continued to pray: "Dear Lord, if this plane crashes and I die, please make it painless for my family.” She wanted to die quickly. Then she prayed that her father will have the strength to raise their three-year-old daughter, too sick to make the trip, and that she might remember her parents’ love.

Then her thoughts turned more macabre.

What does it feel like to crash in the ocean and have your body torn to shreds?

Will I feel anything?

Will I go to heaven?

The thoughts sent a chill down her spine.

* * * *

For the first time, the captain peered over his left shoulder and saw the damage to the left engine and wing.
"It's just hanging out there," he said.

The cockpit chaos continued.

"En-, Enj-, engine checklist, please," said the captain, never a stutterer until now.

"Where . . . is it?" replied the first officer.

The second officer had his own question: "Where's the airport?"

Seconds later, New York Control gave him his answer: fifty miles away.
Still too far, thought the captain.

Anne stood in the galley. A voice deep within told her to hurry forward to her jump seat. So she headed up the aisle. Standing by the front row, she realized they had broken through the clouds.

From the cockpit, speed and altitude dropping, the pilots saw nothing but the expanse of ocean all around them. The plane trembled. In the cockpit, a synthesized male voice warned that the plane's altitude had dropped to a thousand feet.

The landing gear and flaps remained retracted.

"Too Low Gear," The Bitch warned.

Anne saw the water and quickly backed the last few steps toward her jump seat. She shouted, "Brace position! Brace position! Stay down! Stay down!"

In the 12th row, Jodi, seeing the water, shut her window shade for the first time. She told herself, You're dead. She hugged her son even tighter against her chest. I hope this doesn’t hurt, she thought.

She raised her head one last time to look at Gene, still unconscious.

“I love you, honey,” she said. Seeing this, Anne shouted, "Heads down! Heads down!"

Behind her, in the cockpit, she heard the recorded warnings through the closed panel door.

She'd never heard The Bitch before. The sound terrified her.

Anne tightened the strap on her jump seat. Holding her head upright and rigid, she placed both hands beneath her thighs in her own brace position. She shouted to her children, "Hold on, everybody! This is going to be rough!"
She closed her eyes.

Several breaths from impact, the first officer didn't hear her. He had wanted to be a pilot since the age of eight. Now, nearly touching the water, feeling the plane's vibrations, hearing the warnings and The Bitch and the captain’s voice in his headset, "Help me, help me hold it, help me hold, help me hold it,” he squeezed the steering column, continuing the fight.

Just then, he imagined his young wife and two girls: a beautiful, last image. The first officer left his goodbye to her on the cockpit voice recorder: "Mary, I love you! Tell the girls I’ll always be their angel in heaven."

The captain, divorced with no children, had no one to call for.

Its left wing tilted slightly downward, the plane hit the ocean at nearly 200 miles per hour - slamming through the water in a violent ccollision. First the plane lost its wings, then went lower, chopping off chunks of the plane, ending lives.
In the front of the passenger cabin, a woman screamed.

The overhead compartments shattered, and the cabin depressurized, creating a wind tunnel of flying debris and body parts. Seats broke and dislodged, some with people still strapped in them.

Jodi felt the plane's belly bumping across the water. She screamed but couldn't hear herself over the sound of ripping metal. Gene’s body tossed like a rag doll's, his end had come. Joey was silent.

The pain snake-licked Jodi for a split second before she succumbed to the blackness. For those who followed, the end came quickly.

* * * *

A few hours later, in a sunlit living room hundreds of miles away, Jodi’s father broke the news to her daughter, who couldn’t understand why mommy and daddy weren’t coming home.

He told her that mommy and daddy were brave and felt no pain. She asked him when baby Joey would be home to play. It broke his heart that she would probably never remember her parents or her brother. Her memories would become photographed faces in the ether of her memory. He hoped she wouldn’t be angry at fate.

He explained that airplanes were machines and sometimes machines break.

She wanted to know when mommy and daddy would be home.

“They’re with Jesus now, honey,” he said.

“In heaven?” she asked.

He nodded, tears spilling from his eyes.

“Okay, Papaw,” she said, nonchalantly, as if he had just told her to pick up her toys. She doesn’t understand, he thought. No one did. He would gladly have died in their place to let them live. He could only wonder about his daughter’s final moments.

What was it like as they were going down?

What was she thinking?

Was she crying out?

Cursing God?

Repenting?

At the very least, he imagined, there must have been a lot of screaming.

That night, living by himself now with his three-year-old granddaughter, he lay beside her and rubbed her back for a long time before she went to sleep. As he tucked himself into bed, clouds swept in from nowhere and the rain began well before he fell asleep.