“Three-six left’s clear!” someone in the tower shouted.
Thank God, Gayze thought. On the radio, he called, “Express-107, you are clear to land, runway three-six left, winds calm, eight thousand three hundred feet available, rescue equipment has been alerted. Ident if you can hear me, over.” Still no response.
“107’s deviating right,” the tower supervisor shouted. “The other inbound is deviating right. Neither one of them is executing the proper missed approach, but at least they’re not on a collision course. Still at about five hundred feet… Jesus, the other Universal flight is accelerating past two- forty.” There was a speed limit of 240 miles per hour inside Class B airspace — the aircraft that was trying to land on runway two-seven was about to blow past that. “What in hell is going on? They look like they’re doing the exact same thing — they’re both accelerating, both flying at five hundred feet, both screaming towards the runway—”
“Like a friggin’ air show,” someone else remarked.
“Think they got stuck flight controls?” another controller wondered aloud. “Or are they trying to rendezvous? Maybe they’re military.”
“I hope this isn’t some kind of joke,” the tower supervisor said. “I’m gonna kick some asses up in Universal if this is some kind of company stunt.”
Gayze was still talking on the radios, trying to coach a few of the inbound flights on the proper go-around procedures and coordinating with Memphis Approach for handing off all these airplanes into their lap again. Suddenly he paused, and he looked at the spot of dark sky where Universal flight 107 was, as if he could see directly into the cockpit at the pilot. That voice, the pilot’s voice — not the young kid, but the newcomer, the older, more experienced voice…
It was foreign, slightly French, although the pilot tried hard to conceal it under a phony southern accent. Phony accent, phony call sign, now radio-out and coming in hot… “Jesus, I think this is an attack!” Gayze shouted. “/ think we ’re under attack! ”
“What? What did you say, Bill?”
“Damn it, we gotta warn—” But he stopped, confused. Who could they warn? There was nobody to notify. “I think we should wave off Universal-107 and the other inbound Universal flight until we straighten this out.”
“That’s not the proper procedure,” the tower supervisor said. “The best place for a NORDO plane is on the ground.”
“They’re not NORDO, they’re attackingGayze shouted.
“Now hold on, Bill… ”
The Shorts Sherpa was a military utility and cargo plane, and had been fitted with a simple drop system for paratroop and small-cargo parachute drops. A long boom mounted below the pilot mast on the nose of the aircraft had three arrows on it, calibrated for drops between eight hundred and two thousand feet and two hundred knots airspeed.
One minute before drop time, Cazaux ordered Roberts to open the cargo doors and extend the ramp. When the first arrow passed across the intended drop target, Cazaux issued the get-ready signal, pushed the throttles up to full power, and hit the first green release button.
Ken Roberts watched as a small cannon shot the pilot parachute out the open cargo ramp into the slipstream, and it instantly inflated behind the airplane, putting tension on the release system. When the target — the large main terminal building at the junction of the two angled concourses— passed under the second arrow on the pilot boom, Cazaux hit a red, guarded button. The packing doors on the main parachute case popped open, the pilot parachute pulled the main parachute out of its case, and the latches holding the cargo containers released. As soon as the main parachute was fully inflated, it pulled the cargo containers out of the Shorts’ cargo bay with a tremendous thundering sound, like a freight train whizzing by at full speed.
The chains connecting the cargo containers immediately began to break from the immense strain of the slipstream as soon as the wheels of the container ahead of it left the ramp, so the explosives did not drop together. There was nothing clean or aerodynamic about the containers — they cartwheeled, Frisbeed, and spun all across the sky during their fall to earth. The last two containers, with less inertia than the others, almost did not have enough energy to roll out of the cargo bay, but Cazaux lifted the Shorts’ nose skyward, providing the last nudge necessary. The last two explosives containers weren’t going to hit Cazaux’s intended target — but it was still going to do the job.
The eighteen-story control tower at Memphis International was located just north of the main terminal complex, where it had a clear view of most of the gates at the main, cargo, and Universal Express terminals and full view of all runways and taxiways.
Half the tower crew was staring out the windows to the east, waiting to catch a glimpse of the first emergency aircraft; Gayze and the other half were watching out toward the south, staring out into the darkness for the second Universal Express plane and alternately answering questions and vectoring aircraft away from the field. Gayze had a junior controller shining a red signal light at approximately where the northbound Universal flight should be, telling the pilot not to land. Another controller was doing the same toward the east.
Still no radio contact.
The southern part of runway three-six left’s hammerhead parking area was brilliantly lit with maintenance floodlights, and as soon as Universal Express-107 crossed just a few hundred yards east of that area, Gayze caught a glimpse of the plane and shouted, “I see 107! Jesus Christ, what is he doing?” The plane was low, but obviously too high to land unless he dumped power and the nose and made a dive for the runway. “I can see him easy — the pilot must be able to see the runway, but he’s gonna miss three- six left by a hundred yards.”
“He could be going for the right,” the tower supervisor said. Gayze got on the radio and announced that 107 was not cleared to land on runway three-six right. The eastern parallel runway’s approach end was a quarter mile farther north than three-six left, but the Universal pilot was still going to have to do some aerobatics to make it on that runway too. He looked as if he was going to overfly the main commercial terminal building — if he wasn’t careful, he could hit some of the tall antennas on top of the building. From the tower, he looked as if he was going nearly three hundred knots — there was no way he’d make it to the runway now. His altitude was not much higher than the control tower..
Suddenly, Gayze saw — well, he wasn’t sure what it was… “Trouble with Universal-107,” he said aloud. “I see debris, something falling out of the plane… I think it’s his landing gear… no, I see… a parachute! Damn it, someone’s parachuting out of the plane!”
“Here he comes,” someone in the tower cab shouted, pointing to the east. “Looks like he’s going to land on two- seven. I see a landing gear — no, it’s not a landing gear. Jesus, he’s screaming in! Is he going around? What in hell is he doing?”
Gayze turned. The westbound airliner was descending rapidly, aiming for the end of the runway. He was still off a bit to the right of centerline on radar, but his wheels were down and he looked like he was on a fast but good approach. It definitely appeared as if a low-time pilot or perhaps a stricken pilot was flying the westbound flight.
The tower supervisor punched the crash button: “Memphis crash network, this is Memphis Tower, one Universal Express 727 aircraft landing hot on runway two-seven. His gear is down. Be advised, the northbound aircraft is—”
He was going to miss the runway. At less than a halfmile to touchdown, the 727 would not be able to turn fast enough at his present speed to make the runway unless he landed well past midfield. “Crash, be advised, the 727 landing on two-seven is well north of centerline and fast. He may be going into the Air National Guard parking ramp. If he tries to turn back to the runway, he’ll mush in with his left wing… oh, shit… climb, damn you, climb… climb…”