….or what was left of it.
Chapter 67
Taylor grabbed the side of the demolished cabin door and swung it aside. It came off its hinges and he peered inside. Lewis, Agins, and Milkis — all strapped to their seats — were dead. Milkis’s chair was blown completely off its bolts and nearly upside down. A gaping hole through the structure opened up to the second level below. Everything that wasn’t attached was gone: out the window. To balance himself, Taylor stretched his arms out and used the walls of the cabin for support.
There was nothing he could do for the men. The plane? Virtually all of the displays were out. Other operating systems still seemed functional. Taylor struggled to keep his eyes open. The force of the wind blasting through the windshield was almost unbearable. Oxygen! He needed more oxygen. He reached for the mask, filled his lungs, then unbuckled Lewis and tried to slide him out of his seat: an impossible task considering the air blast and the G loads. But out of nowhere, another pair of hands reached in to help him.
“Explosion on Air Force One. Repeat, explosion on Angel,” radioed Strike Eagle pilot Chester Pike. Angel was the Secret Service’s unclassified designation for the president’s plane.
“Say again,” responded the commander of the AWACS, ten miles to starboard and 6,000 feet higher.
“An explosion in or near the cabin. Colonel Lewis was in the process of reporting multiple engine malfunctions. Air Force One is rapidly losing altitude quickly. I’m staying with her.”
Rossy.
“Roger.
“One hundred yards off the left wing. Can’t see any activity in the cockpit. Assuming flight crew is disabled or dead. Request air-sea rescue emergency assistance below.”
“Roger. Scrambling ASR emergency assistance.” With the touch of a computer screen a flash message went out to the 7th Fleet. Word simultaneously was sent via satellite to the USASOCOM, the Pentagon, and Jack Evans.
Meanwhile, all planes except for the Pike’s Strike Eagle and two other escorts peeled off. They received orders to secure the area against enemy aircraft.
It took the strength of both men to pull Lewis out of his chair. Once done, Taylor jumped in, buckled, and grabbed the yoke. He pulled it back with all his strength. “Get Agins out!”
Rossy unbuckled the dead co-pilot and dragged him over the hole. He returned to the president’s side and shouted over the wind. “A bomb.”
“I don’t care what the fuck it was now. Help me pull the nose up!”
Lt. Ross helped. The president tried his foot rudder pedals to stabilize the yawing. The airplane responded. “We’ll need full flaps, Rossy. The second we get her leveled out, get those flaps down!”
They were burning off 1,000 feet of altitude every ten seconds. At this rate, they’d crash in a matter of minutes. “Harder!” They were fighting overwhelming and asymmetrical forces, the power of a 747 in an uncontrollable dive, and the increasing air speed. Everything was working against them. “Come on, Goddammit! Come on!” Thankfully, they still had thrust from number four. They’d need it if they got the nose up.
Rossy put all of his effort into the struggle. The great plane slowly angled up.
“More!” Taylor called out. The plane bucked, not wanting to be tamed. “More!”
The nose continued to rise. Every degree up gave them extra seconds of life. If they could level, they might be able to stabilize Air Force One enough to make it to an airport somewhere, or ditch.
“More!”
SAM 28000 never came completely level, but its angle of descent shallowed. “Now, Rossy! Full flaps.”
The engineer obeyed. The flaps on each wing extended out and down, increasing the drag and the lift, which slowed their speed. An immediate effect — they could hear better. The wind still rushed in, but with the flaps down, they seemed to have a fighting chance. Thirty seconds later Morgan Taylor let out his first real breath.
“Okay, emergency procedures.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Radio?”
Rossy tested the system. “Dead.”
“GPS?”
“Inoperable. All three.”
“Lights?”
Rossy threw the toggles. “Landing lights only functional on the right side.”
“Keep them off.”
“Any idea what our fuel situation is?”
“Looks like we bingo’ed on one and three. But I can’t tell you if any of the tanks were ever filled.”
“What?” the president demanded.
“Possible sabotage at fueling.”
“Who? Why?”
“One of my crew. I don’t know why.”
Rossy was amazed the cockpit was still intact. He looked around. “The bomb could have been planted for good measure. Looks like it didn’t do all the damage it could have. It was under the navigator’s seat. His metal briefcase helped contain the blast.”
“You call this contained?” the president said.
In the midst of the crisis, Lt. Ross had to smile. “Poor choice of words, sir.”
“Roger that,” Taylor said. “Now, let’s talk through the rest. We may not be able to later.” The moon, nearly full, illuminated the sky. Taylor saw blackness below, but it wasn’t the ocean. Lewis said they’d be above a storm center. They were going down through it and the turbulence could give them more trouble before impact. “How’s the cabin?”
“A mess. We’ve got casualties. Only a few people were buckled in when we decompressed. I don’t know for sure,” Rossy explained.
“Let’s see if they can hear us back there.” He tried the public address system. “This is Taylor,” he said showing as much confidence in his voice as possible. “We’ve leveled out. If you can hear me, send someone forward. Just one person. Everyone who’s not doing anything essential buckle up in secure seats.” He didn’t explain what happened in the cockpit, but if the message went out it would be clear. The flight crew was dead and the former Navy commander was flying Air Force One.
“All right. Deactivate landing gear warning system.”
“Roger,” Rossy responded. He pulled the circuit breaker even though the landing gear warning lights were inoperative.
“Deactivate TAWS and GPWS.”
Rossy turned off the terrain awareness and warning system and the ground-proximity systems to prevent unnecessary warnings.
“No change in fuel status?”
“No idea sir.
“Then set radio altimeter to fifty feet.”
“Done. We just don’t know what’s true, sir, and it’s going to be dark down there beneath the clouds.”
“Do we know how low our ceiling is?”
Rossy had seen the weather forecasts before take-off. What did they say? He tried to remember.
“Ah. I think it called for fifteen hundred to two thousand.”
The president quickly calculated. “At our current rate, we’ll have five minutes to see where the hell we are. Then…” He stopped short of finishing the thought. Another more urgent one came to mind. “Any idea how much fuel we are carrying?”
“No.”
“Check,” the president ordered. “She’s holding now, but if we lose number two or four, we’ll have to burn off more altitude. I’m gonna take her under ten thousand. We won’t need oxygen.” Without power, it was conceivable that the plane could glide. If he handled it right, they’d head down at around 240 knots — about 3,000 feet per minute. But he wanted more than three minutes to get his bearings.
“Roger,” Rossy said, unbuckling.
Air Force One picked up speed as Morgan Taylor nosed down, right into the storm center.