“Before anyone knew they’d regained control?”
“Yes, sir,” the colonel confirmed.
“Have we asked Tel Aviv that question? Who fired?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“Do it, please.”
The president was chewing his lip in thought, weighing the probabilities that Gershorn Zamir had issued the shootdown order, and how to keep a lid on it.
“Status of the aircraft?” the president asked.
“Out of fuel, having control problems, about thirty miles east of Baghdad and trying to make it to the airport.”
“And the Iranian fighters?”
“The Iranians have lost five fighters, sir. Casualties are uncertain. Israel has had two F-15s hit, but one is limping back to base. The pilot of the other one ejected in Iraqi territory and is being picked up. The remaining Iranians have bugged out.”
“Any ground launches?”
“If you mean surface to air, no sir… not that we’ve detected.”
“I mean ballistic. ‘Wipe Israel off the map’ launches.”
“No, sir. At least five missiles are fueled and ready on their respective launch pads, but the Iranian command channels are deathly quiet. Of course, they could issue a launch order at any second. “
“As can Israel, I imagine.”
Aboard Pangia 10
“What’s the situation, Tom?”
Dan asked the question with his eyes unconsciously closed, as if waiting for a final exam score he just knew would be rotten. And indeed there was a long and worrisome hesitation measured in milliseconds from the back before the copilot’s voice returned to his ear, but a slight tone of excitement sounded an up note.
“It’s better, he said. “Much better! I can still see sparks coming off, but the flame front… if that’s what you call it… it’s gone. I’m coming back forward.”
“Keep watching. Call if there’s a change.”
“Dan? Status?’ Jerry asked.
Dan summarized Tom’s report, adding the distance and altitude left to the Baghdad runway. “Thirty-three miles to go, Jerry! Energy’s good. We’re descending through 18,000, and that means we can glide no wind about fifty miles.”
“You ever dead stick the simulator?” Jerry asked, his voice low and urgent, the question anything but casual. The term was all but archaic, “dead stick” being the traditional term-of-art for landing a powered aircraft without power, a maneuver for which you had one chance alone.
“Yes. In a 737, and once in this beast.”
“How’d it work out?”
Caution lights blared at him from his personal mental dashboard, another aviating embarrassment he’d rather forget.
“You keep the numbers under control, it’s a piece of cake,” Dan answered, hoping the captain wouldn’t ask more.
“I hate that phrase! Piece of friggin’ cake indeed.”
“So do I, now that I think about it.”
“I’m full left deflection, Danny. I don’t have anything more.”
The words shattered what had been a fragile growing confidence. Slower speed would mean the need for more roll control, more aileron deflection, wouldn’t it? What else could they use?
“Are you hitting the rudder as well?”
“Is the Pope Catholic?” Jerry shot back.
“We can’t split the flaps…”
“We can’t even get the flaps, what with the fire on the right wing!”
“You’re still wings level, though,” Dan said. “Speed’s 260 knots. Is she getting worse as you slow?”
“What’s our altitude?” Jerry demanded.
“Ah… coming through sixteen now, thirty miles out.”
“I’m slowing. The control pressure to the left wasn’t as great when I was diving. Now it’s full.”
“Want me to try mine?”
“I doubt there’s anything wrong with the stick on my side, Dan.”
“Jerry, nothing else has worked right in this airplane for the past six hours, and God knows what we screwed up downstairs trying to regain control.”
He could see his partner take a deep breath and decide.
“Okay… take it and go immediately full left aileron. Hit the priority button just in case. If it’s the same as what I’ve got, I’ll take her back.”
Dan positioned himself in the copilot’s seat and wrapped his right hand around the sidestick controller and pressed the top button.
“Priority right,” the female computer voice intoned as he immediately deflected the stick full left, not quite believing it when the big Airbus obeyed with a sudden roll to the left.
“Jesus! Level the wings, Dan!”
“Already… doing it!”
“Holy moly… you were right!”
“That sometimes happens,” Dan replied through the shock that wasn’t wearing off fast enough.
“What happens? That the sticks are mismatched?”
“No, that I’m right.”
“Well, you’ve got her now, partner, for better or worse. How’s she flying?”
“Reasonably steady. I can’t believe it!”
“Okay, lemme get oriented here. I’ll talk you in.”
“Roger that. At least this time I can’t screw up the autothrottles,” Dan said, unprepared for the belly laugh from the left seat.
“Okay, we’re down to 12,500, and twenty-four miles from the runway,” Jerry reported. “We’ll probably have the gear, depending on how much damage there was to the right side, but we’ll have no flaps and no reverse, of course, and only raw brakes.”
“We need to run the checklist.”
“Yeah. That’s right.” Jerry reached forward to trigger the appropriate page on the ECAM, but the number of failure items and pages scrolling across the screen was beyond overwhelming.
Tom Wilson re-entered the cockpit and slipped back into the jump seat behind Dan.
“Too much here!” Jerry was saying. “I’ll have to do it from memory. We’ll add thirty knots for no flaps. We’ll be faster than hell, Dan.”
“I know it.”
“The runway is more than two miles long and with a desert to overrun into, but we can’t get too slow on final or too high.”
“I know how to slip a bird, Jerry.”
“We may have to, but we’re going to run out of hydraulic pressure when we get too slow. We’ve got one windmilling engine and the RAT providing the hydraulic pressure.”
“Got it.”
“Of course the brakes have an accumulator.”
“Rog.”
“We’re coming through 10,000 now, Dan. Speed is 220 knots, eighteen miles. I can see the runway ahead.”
“Can we get an ILS up for the glide slope?”
“I… no. Not needed, Dan. We’ll be a light year above the glide slope anyway.”
“Oh. Yeah, I get that.”
“Keep her at 220.”
“Jerry, shouldn’t we allow for aerodynamic damage out there?”
“What do you mean?”
“Stall speeds could have increased. We’re essentially test pilots right now.”
The captain hesitated, grimacing as he took it in. “You could be right. We were really shaking.”
“Still are. Maybe we should test the touchdown speed while we’ve got excess altitude,” Dan said.
“You’re joking?”
“No… really, I’m not. If we’re going to touchdown at 220, we need to make sure that’s not stall speed, right? Let’s slow briefly to 200 and make sure she’s still controllable.”
“Then speed up?”
“Absolutely.”
“Seventeen miles out. I’ve got some ground contact out there. Okay, slow her up, but the second we start getting an excessive descent rate…”