“Yes! I need to get away from the front range.”
“Understood, sir. Come left this time to a vector heading of one-zero-zero degrees. I’m going to clear out everyone ahead of you and bring you into Denver for an ILS to runway nine left. Weather at Denver is indefinite ceiling, visibility one-half mile, runway visual range on nine left is three thousand feet, temperature twenty-nine, dew point seven, altimeter two nine seven four, winds calm.”
“Roger. I’m descending through nine thousand feet!”
“Okay, sir, you’ve got twenty-six miles to go, ground speed shows to be one hundred twenty knots, and I show you descending at about two hundred feet per minute. You should be fine.”
“Denver, we’re still picking up ice!”
Jay felt a sudden shuddering of the aircraft.
David shoved the control column forward, partially lifting them from their seats as the nose came down. Again he let the speed build back and slowly raised the nose.
“What… was that?” Jay asked in a voice barely above a squeak.
“Stall. We stalled. I’ve got to keep the speed up faster than normal because we’re carrying a heavy load of ice and it’s redesigning the wing.”
“Oh, wonderful.”
David was breathing hard, his eyes all over the instrument panel as the voice of the Denver controller returned.
“Okay, Juliet November. I see you suddenly lost several hundred feet there. You okay?”
“I… almost stalled, Denver.”
“Call me Bill, okay?” The controller said. “And your name?”
“Uh… Dave… David,” he swallowed hard.
“Okay, David, we’re gonna get you in. I’m a pilot, too. Just keep that speed at least five knots above wherever she wanted to stall. What’s your descent rate?”
David leaned forward, peering at another round dial before answering.
“Ah… three hundred feet per minute… about.”
“Still should work. Now, David, don’t try to look up anything, I’m going to read you the frequencies and all you’ll need to do is the ILS. You are, of course, instrument rated?”
“Yeah. Yeah, don’t worry. I’m IFR rated.”
“Good. I was sure you were, but we have to check. Okay, I want you to carefully dial in the ILS frequency one one two point four and visually check to make sure it’s in your navigation radio and not your communication radio.”
“Got it,” David replied, after quickly rotating the knobs.
“Altitude, David?”
“Ah, eight thousand four hundred. Still three hundred feet per minute down, speed one twenty-five.”
“Very well. You’re twenty-two miles out, and we need to make a decision here. I can try to land you at Centennial Airport, which is south of you about five miles, or we can continue on to Denver International. You could make Centennial just fine, but the ILS is out, and while they’re reporting a three-hundred-foot ceiling, it’s an automated ASOS report. Fact is, sometimes the ASOS can’t detect rapidly changing conditions. It could be much worse there.”
“Okay.” David glanced at his passenger, calculating the reason for the flight to begin with and the danger of descending closer to the front range of the Rockies to find a fog-shrouded Centennial.
“Ah… International. Denver International,” he said.
“Okay. Are you out of the icing?”
David looked to the left at the wing and then through the windscreen at the cowling before answering.
“Yeah… I think we’re out of it. But it’s not melting.”
“Nineteen miles out, David, and your altitude is still good.”
“Okay.”
“Now, put your course selector on the ILS inbound heading of zero nine zero degrees.”
“Okay. Done. Am I going to change to Denver Approach?”
“No, David, I’ll stay with you the whole way. Denver Approach is keeping everyone else away.”
“I’m sorry!”
“Don’t worry about it. You’re approaching the localizer.”
“What’s a localizer?” Jay heard himself ask.
“It’s… this needle…” David answered, pointing to the Horizontal Situation Indicator on the forward panel. “When it slides over to the center, it means I’m on course to the runway.”
“Okay.”
David triggered the transmitter. “Intercepting localizer, Denver. I’m turning on course.”
“Roger. Sixteen miles to the runway.”
Shuddering coursed through the aircraft again and once more David shoved the nose over, waiting for the airspeed to come up before shallowing the rate of descent.
“What’s your altitude, David?”
“I had to lose some to avoid stalling. Seventy four hundred.”
“Okay, you’re fourteen miles out, doing two miles per minute, we’ve got to keep you airborne for seven minutes more, the field is at five thousand three hundred feet above sea level, which means you can’t descend at more than three hundred feet per minute maximum. As a fellow Cessna driver, let me advise you not to use flaps. Don’t do anything to increase your drag.”
“Understood,” David replied, his heart in his throat as he did the math in his head and watched the rate of climb indicator holding just under three hundred feet per minute rate of descent.
“He’s not going to make it, Bill,” the supervisor said.
The controller nodded reluctantly, his blood running cold at the thought that he might have steered the panicked pilot wrong. Only plowed fields surrounded Denver International, though. If he couldn’t make the runway, perhaps he could put it down safely in a field.
The controller swallowed hard and looked over at his supervisor. “Alert DIA to get the fire trucks ready to look for touchdown short of runway nine left.”
“Okay.”
“He might still make it.”
The supervisor picked up the tie-line handset without comment and punched the appropriate buttons.
TWENTY-FIVE
Captain Swanson took the unexpected call from the foreign minister of Italy at his desk, where he’d been sitting in thought, rubbing his eyes and wondering if there was anything else he should be doing to defuse the situation on his ramp.
“Yes, sir?”
“Commander Swanson?”
“Captain, actually.”
“Very well. This is Giuseppe Anselmo, and this call has never happened.”
“Ah, you mean this is completely off the record?”
“If that’s the correct phrase.”
“Very well, sir. Go ahead.”
“I will be brief. I am aware that you know all the appropriate names. Mr. Campbell’s representatives have been at the home of one of our highest judges asking that our interpretation of the lease on your base be changed to include immediate Italian jurisdiction over the flight line.”
“Yes?” Swanson said with a sinking feeling.
“The judge is considering his request. We have no control over that, any more than you control your courts in the United States.”
“Yes, sir. I understand. If the captain of that aircraft wants to leave Italy, will you protest?”
“That’s a diplomatic question, Captain,” Anselmo replied with a chuckle. “A military officer should not be so astute. Let me answer in this manner. As of this moment, no request for an air traffic clearance for that aircraft would be handled in any other manner than normal and routine. In other words, the government of Italy has no interest in blocking or interfering with air traffic at Sigonella at this moment.”
“But… if the judge rules otherwise…”
“Then we shall behave in accordance with the law, and even though our government may appeal any court order or decision, we may still have to honor it in the meantime.”
“How long, sir? When is the judge likely to rule?”
“Not until noon on the day after tomorrow. He has refused to make a decision until then, and has set this for a hearing. Nothing changes until then. After that, who knows?”