“I got this, C,” he told her as the runway grew larger before them. He could now read the large, white 13R on the threshold, could see the perimeter fence, could see other aircraft lined up on the taxiways.
“I know you do,” she told him, still chewing on her lip.
In the end, it was almost anticlimactic. He touched down neatly on the center line just a hundred feet beyond the threshold. There was a slight thump as the wheels made contact with mother Earth once again and then he throttled down completely and applied the brakes. The rollout took quite a bit more runway length than normal, but he was able to slow to taxi speed well before he was even close to running out of room. He would have, in fact, been just fine landing on 13L had he chosen that route.
“All right,” Jake said. “Nothing to it.”
“Nothing to it,” Celia said, breathing a great sigh of relief.
Jake asked for and was given permission to taxi his aircraft over to Westside Aircraft Maintenance, the private business that leased space at the airport and provided maintenance and repair services for anything from a Cessna 150 all the way up to business jets. Jake had never used their services before—if he needed maintenance done on his plane while in Oregon, he used the facilities at North Bend—but he was familiar with their reputation, which was that they were expensive but excellent.
One of the mechanics—an early thirties man in blue coveralls with smudges of grease on them here and there—met him as he parked in the service area. He was already examining the damage when Jake and Celia stepped out of the aircraft.
“Would it be a little gauche of me to kneel down and kiss the ground right now?” Celia asked. Now that they were safe, she was shaking a little from the adrenaline rush.
“It’s okay with me,” Jake said, “although we were never really in any danger.”
“Uh huh,” she said. “What if that bird would have hit the engine, or the windshield?”
“We likely would have still been fine,” Jake assured her. “It’s a two-engine plane, so even if we’d lost one, I still would’ve got us down safely. And as for the windshield, it’s designed to survive a bird strike. It would’ve been messy, but intact.”
“Oh ... I see,” she said, seemingly disappointed that her near-death experience had not been as near as she had thought. “Can’t you let me freak out just a little? Haven’t I earned that?”
“I suppose,” he said, pulling her against him and giving her a quick, one-armed hug. She accepted it gratefully.
He released the embrace and then walked over to the mechanic. “Howdy,” he greeted. “Jake Kingsley.”
“Brad Martinez,” the mechanic said, holding out his hand. “It’s an honor to meet you, Jake. I’ve always enjoyed your music.”
“Thank you,” Jake said, looking at the wing of his plane. The leading edge seemed to be in good shape, although there was quite a bit of blood with fuzzy white feather clumps in it smeared across the underside. The smear stretched all the way to the underside of the flap, which was still deployed at fifteen degrees. “It looks like it was a bird strike all right.” And I’m thinking that the bird in question didn’t fare so well.
“Yep,” Brad said. “A Canada goose would be my guess, based on the damage that was done. How high were you when the strike happened?”
“We were just passing through twelve hundred,” Jake said.
“That’s a goose for sure then,” he said. “We get seagull and duck strikes here on occasion, but they don’t tend to fly that high. This airport is right underneath the Pacific Flyway, the primary migratory route for birds on the west coast of North and South America. We’re past the migration time for the Canadian geese, but there are a few flocks that hang out in this area—the lazy ones I guess, the ones who think Portland is as far south as they need to go.”
“I guess that turned out to be a bad decision for Mr. Goose, huh?” Jake asked.
“Apparently so,” Brad said. He leaned down and got up under the wing, his eyes looking at the flap itself. “It looks like it hit the leading edge and then got sucked under the wing by the air pressure. The body then slammed into the flap right here.” He pointed to the junction where the flap connected to the wing. “It looks like he bent the flap itself and some of the debris got into the pivot points. They told me you weren’t able to deploy the flap beyond fifteen?”
“That’s right,” Jake said. “It was jammed. When I tried to lower it to thirty, the motor began to whine loudly and the pull to the left got worse.”
“Did you try to retract the flaps after you landed?”
“I did,” Jake said. “They wouldn’t retract either. They’re jammed in that position.”
Brad nodded and then pulled himself out from under the wing. “I assume you have insurance on this aircraft?”
“Full coverage,” Jake confirmed. “The bank that financed my loan kind of insisted upon it.”
“That’s the good news then,” Brad said. “I can see that I’m going to have to replace that section of the flap completely and probably the motor and the push-arms as well. I would also recommend a complete safety inspection of the entire wing and everything attached to it or associated with it.”
“Fair enough,” Jake said. He had a five thousand dollar deductible for damage repair. And, since this would not be an at-fault incident, his premiums probably would not go up. “How long will it take?”
“At least two days,” Brad told him. “The work itself can be done in a few hours, but it’ll take a day or two to get the parts in.”
Jake sighed. “Well ... I guess we’re not going to get out of here in front of that storm after all.”
“I’m thinking you’re not,” Brad agreed.
They had to stay at the airport until an official from the FAA drove over from PDX to interview Jake and examine the damage. His name was Martin Rollins and he was a sixty year old engineer approaching retirement age. He had no idea who Jake or Celia were, but he did raise his eyebrows a bit when Jake told him “musician” when he was asked what his occupation was for the form.
“A musician?” Rollins asked. “That’s all you do?”
“That’s all I do,” Jake assured him.
“And you make enough money doing that to afford a two hundred thousand dollar aircraft?”
“Well ... I’m partial owner of the record label we play for as well.”
“Are you now?” Rollins asked, his tired eyes looking into Jake’s.
“I am.”
The intense gaze intensified a little more. “You’re not making this all up, are you?” he asked Jake. “This is an official investigation into an aircraft incident, you know.”
“Trust me,” Jake said. “The last thing in the world I would do is lie to the federal government. I’m a professional musician and I am part owner of KVA Records. So is Celia, by the way.”
Rollins looked over at the beautiful brunette, who had bummed a cigarette from one of the mechanics and was now puffing away just outside the hangar. “Which one?”
“Which one what?” Jake asked.
“Is she a professional musician or a part owner of the record company?”
“Both,” Jake said. “We’re comrades and business partners.”
“I see,” Rollins said, giving a knowing look. Jake could almost read the thought bubble above his head: He’s boning her.
“I’m not boning her,” Jake said, as if the investigator had said the thought aloud.
Rollins looked sharply at Jake for a moment and then back at Celia. “A pity,” he remarked. “Now then. How about we go through the events of the morning one by one. Let’s start with when you left Coos Bay this morning and what your business here in Portland was.”
“All right,” Jake said with a sigh. He began to speak.