From the left-hand seat Lt Col Jaz Redruff depressed the transmit button on the ‘stick’.
“Gun Lead, One Four Eight.”
Arndeker responded instantly.
“Go, guy.”
“How we looking?”
“Like a fat, rich, Ft Lauderdale widow, deciding if she wants to get her feet wet.”
“Just to let you know… in one minute we will commence throttle-back.”
“Roger… luck guys.”
Redruff glanced across at Sara Pebanet after checking the gauges one last time.
“Ok?”
She nodded in reply and took her left hand off the controls, placing it atop the throttles and began to ease them backwards. Jaz Redruff kept both hands on the controls, straining to keep the nose level. The next step would be the difference between hitting the ocean at 240 knots or 160; he knew which one he preferred.
Outwardly both pilots’ were a picture of calmness, and in truth they were a hell of a lot calmer than most of the planets population would have been, if they had been in the cockpit. Training, and later experiences, had taught them that panicking pilots died that much quicker than cool ones. However, they were human and both had families that they wanted to see again, so both were saying silent prayers as the indicated airspeed reached 240.
“Flaps 20.”
With an audible whine the flaps began to extend, and then the starboard wing dropped sickeningly as the starboard flaps met resistance from buckled metal within the wing, but the port side extended smoothly. Both pilots turned deathly pale and Sara’s hand shot back toward the gated flap control. With a screech like fingernails being drawn down a blackboard, the obstruction was forced aside, and the wing rose as its lifting surface was expanded to match that of the port wing.
Five hundred metres away Lt Col Arndeker had applied hard left rudder when he saw the airliner lurch to the right like a drunk trying to find home.
As the wings came level again he cancelled the manoeuvre and realised he’d stopped breathing. Letting the air escape from his lungs in a rush, he shook his head from side to side, no way was he ever going to play high stakes poker against guys with that kind of luck!
At 190 knots he lowered his own flaps in order to stay with the big Boeing, and as he did so he saw below them the lights of a small vessel, the head of the line of waiting rescue craft. As the aircraft roared past, the lifeboats Cox’n opened the throttles to the stops, and spun the wheel to race north after them.
Despite the turbulence Jaz Redruff was able to keep the aircraft’s nose up at 2.5 degrees above the horizon, and keeping it from going beyond that, with little physical effort. His movements on the controls were transmitted electronically to motors that did the physical job of moving the aircraft’s control surfaces. The buffeting and vibration was increasing to the point where he had to raise his voice to be heard.
“Flaps 25!”
Sara’s left hand eased the lever through the next gate to the 25’ position, and with a whine the flaps extended further.
Arndeker lowered his own landing gear in order to keep station behind the Boeing as its speed decreased. Time seemed to standstill as it drew closer to the ocean surface, and then a white wake appeared as the rear of the fuselage belly slapped wave tops. Lt Col Redruff kept the aircraft’s nose up as long as he could because once the four scoop-faced General Electric engines met the ocean the deceleration, and stress on the airframe would be harsh.
From its initial nose high attitude the speed fell off rapidly, and as it did so the nose came down toward the waves.
Arndeker saw the moment that the engines dug into the ocean surface, but little else because the aircraft vanished below him in a huge cloud of spray. The weakened starboard wing came away at the damaged section and whipped up and over the fuselage, decapitating the vertical fin from the tail. The VC-25A was no long balanced; the port wing dug in and spun the airframe so it was travelling sideways for a time at over 90 knots. The pressure on the starboard cargo doors was something that had never been catered for, or envisioned by her designers. The doors were stove in and the bay instantly flooded by a deluge that smashed into the cargo containers within, tearing them free to slam into thin aluminium bulkheads. A jumbled mass of containers holding the passengers’ baggage was shunted forward by the weight of water entered the aircraft’s hull. As it hammered into the forward bulkhead it gave, along with a seam on the hull, and the edges of the seam buckled inwards against the pressure of the ocean playing on it.
When the aircraft came to a halt the cockpit and nose were already under water, 28000 was sinking fast, canted over at an angle by the weight of the port engines.
Galway’s first lifeboat received the radio message that the airliner was down and opened its throttles. She was the boat at the end of the line, nearest the southern end of Galway Bay and a mile from the crash site, but she beat the Irish minesweeper Deirdre there, despite the ships 18-knot speed. The lifeboat hit her wake at 32 knots, becoming airborne briefly as she tore past.
Two other lifeboats were already on scene when she arrived, the Boeings nose section and almost half of the fuselage was already invisible below the surface as it lay at an angle with its tail raised above the waves, and the aircraft was visibly getting lower in the water by the moment.
Lt Col Arndeker had been waved off by the AWAC, which wanted the air clear for rescue helicopters, so he climbed up above the cloud to 15,000, feeling totally impotent.
Liam McGonnigle turned in his seat briefly to say some kind words to the port engine, promising to be nice to it providing it didn’t get up to its old tricks, the words were whipped away by the cold wind as they bore into the night.
Nancy Palo had been stunned by the impact with the ocean, and the seat belt that had saved her life, had also driven the breath from her. The cabin crew of 28000, and its sister 29000, were regularly drilled using various disaster scenarios, but this one was new however. Apart from having the stuffing knocked out of her, she was plunged into total darkness in a cabin canting over thirty degrees… and then the sea burst in.
Still groggy from the crash, Nancy’s senses were restored as the freezing waters bursting open the door and drenched her. She gasped with the cold and groped for the lamp on her life vest, it showed her the three other occupants of the office, still in their seats and the level of water rising quickly. Senator Rickham was sat open mouthed and staring as he clutched at the uppermost armrest on his seat, and the PM was reaching across the table that separated himself and the German politician feeling for a pulse on the Chancellor’s neck. The German’s head hung to one side and his arms and legs were angled toward the water, the PM had to grip the edge of the table as he leant over precariously. It was a matter of public record that the Chancellor had undergone bypass surgery the previous year, but what was not was his doctors warning that it his heart condition was worsening, and a major coronary failure was a distinct possibility.
“I’m afraid he is dead sergeant, and I think we should get out of here, don’t you?” He pulled himself nimbly over on to the Chancellors seat, taking care not to tread on the dead man, and taking a firm hold on the bottom most armrest he lowered himself toward Nancy, outstretching his free hand. From the noises beyond the partition, in the cabin section nearest the tail, they could hear the sounds of the emergency exits being opened and Nancy’s colleagues shouting instructions. She should have been hearing her colleagues in the radio headset, but there was nothing at all, and she didn’t want to think of the reasons for that.