The Himalayan Mountains, some of the most rugged terrain anywhere in the world, bordered India, Nepal, Tibet, Pakistan, and China. Snow covered this “Wonder of the World” area at the high altitudes, black and gray in color in the daytime and full of hard granite rock. Only the most daring and professional climbers attempted to conquer them. It had the ten highest peaks in the world, with five of the main ones somewhat near Ford and Pinky: K2, Mount Everest, Kanchenjunga, Annapurna, and Nanga Parbat Peak. The most popular mountain, Mount Everest, generally located in Nepal and Tibet, was just over twenty-nine thousand feet. This was just one of thirty Himalayan peaks that rose to over twenty-four thousand feet in height.
Straight ahead to the north, Ford could see the overcast skies down below from the cloud layer, and based upon cold weather and infamous history, a likely snow storm.
“This is some jet, Ford. Very nice. Smooth. I can’t imagine what weapons this thing can deliver, especially in congested airspace and territories. Undetected on radar, too,” Pinky commented.
Ford kept up his instrument scan, although the jet was on autopilot at the moment. He looked at the moving map display, fuel flow, and levels, then the outside air temperature. He was surprised it was only -23 degrees Fahrenheit. “Hey, not too cold up here. Good gear from Robert, huh? Not too cold at all.”
Wearing multiple layers of cold weather gear, they were both much larger in body size: polypropylene underwear, then insulated flight suits, two layers of flight gloves, a baklava, and parkas to round it off.
“Yup, I’m not that cold either. But this oxygen mask will hurt for another five hours, sucking on the air,” Pinky replied, laughing.
“From your earlier comment. Now we know why we grabbed another one. Another jet, that is. I mean, you know, they stole our cyber technology and used our US smarts, so… we’re only taking back what’s ours. Right?” Ford said with a chuckle.
“When does it end, Ford? I mean, they take from us, we take from them,” Pinky asked, reflecting on the smoke-and-mirrors game.
“Pinky, this stuff has been going on between humans and their countries for two thousand years. It will never change. The players will, but defending one’s nation and people will remain the same for our kids and our kids’ kids. What complicates it now is cyber.”
They sat alone, looking at the dark below them for another minute, taking in the jet and the dark below them.
“So, Ford. Speaking of kids one day. What’s up with you and Emily? Are you going to get engaged and—”
Suddenly, out of nowhere, the intercom between them went dead. The Black Scorpion, pushing out thrust and slicing through the sky with ease, instantaneously went silent and dark. The whoosh of the air coming from the missing cockpit roof was now the only thing heard. From behind them, they could hear and feel the turbines winding down. No intercom between the pilots, no cockpit lights, no flight instruments — a complete electrical and four-engine failure in an instant. All engines were completely dead and were providing zero thrust.
“Christ,” Ford said in his mask. What the fuck is this? Ford said silently. Class-one emergency brewing.
“Pinky! Hey, can you hear me!” Ford yelled as loud as he could. “Air start! Air start!” No intercom between them meant they couldn’t talk internally or externally. Not even a mayday to the outside world if they tried.
He moved the throttles immediately to what he thought may be the air start position and struggled to find the ignition switches in the dark. He used his small flashlight in an attempt to find the switches, looking around and fumbling in this strange cockpit. Ford found and toggled the ignition switches multiple times, but nothing happened, as the jet remained dead and silent.
Ford looked around the dark cockpit, not a lick of light illuminating from anywhere. He went from a cockpit lit up like a bright Christmas tree to a dark alley in a nanosecond. This is a hell of a time to have an electrical failure, Ford said quietly. We got a major shit show boiling here.
The powerless glider they were riding in was now lifeless, and they were paying the price for the actions of others. Ford and Pinky were suffering from three issues outside of their grasp.
First, the outdated 1946 International Harvester fuel truck that provided them fuel was, unfortunately, filled with both Jet A fuel and water, not fully cleaned out from the driver’s last use hours ago. This meant that the fuel tank on the truck pumped an overwhelming mix of water, along with Jet A fuel, into the Black Scorpion’s fuel tanks.
Second, the torrid, freezing air at altitude seeped into the small, unseen left-wing openings from where the bird strikes occurred recently, causing super cold air to surround the wing fuel tanks and lines. The chief of maintenance and the chief of engineering patched it up, but the wing was never the same. At twenty-three degrees below zero, the water ice crystals multiplied at an alarming rate, causing ice to form inside the fuel tank and lines. From the tank, the ice continued to form into the main fuel lines and jammed up the fuel pumps. With no fuel pumping into the engines due to blockage, fuel starvation occurred. No engines meant no generators to produce electricity for the avionics.
Lastly, the fuel lines all joined behind the first one-third of the fuselage so sharing of the fuel tanks could take place for aircraft weight and balance. With the freezing air being plunged in from the missing roof, the interior and exterior of the entire jet was cold soaked. Heated fuel from the engines, which was the normal process in many modern aircraft, could not keep up with the frigid air. The laws of physics were just not on their side.
Pinky kept looking around and had no idea what to say or do, especially since she couldn’t hear Ford. This wasn’t her jet, and although Pinky was a stellar pilot, she wasn’t trained in any memorized procedures for emergencies in this make and model of aircraft.
Ford knew right away they were descending, gliding, and attempted to move the flight controls. First the stick, then rudder pedals. Nothing happened to the attitude of the jet, as Black Scorpion continued with her nose low, dropping out of the sky.
“Pinky! Air start didn’t work! Try moving your controls!” he yelled again, but she could not hear him. Ford leaned over to her stick and moved it cross-cockpit, but nothing happened. No control inputs from her side either.
Immediately Ford started thinking of glide ratios and lift-to-drag math formulas from aerodynamics and how far this jet could go without engines. They were heavy, and it definitely would affect how far they could glide.
In his mind, he recalled Air Canada Flight 143, a Boeing 767 that in 1983 had to glide eighty miles due to fuel starvation. It was known in the aviation community as the “Gimli Glider.” The pilots glided the aircraft down to a racetrack at a closed air force base and landed there. The Boeing aircraft flew with conventional manual flight controls using cables and pulleys, but today Black Scorpion was a modern, fly-by-wire system, with a complete electronic interface. No power meant no moveable flight control surfaces. After a few seconds of thought, Ford also didn’t give a crap because they couldn’t turn the jet, even if he wanted.
Pinky tried to locate a page in the flight checklists, a section for ram air turbines — something they could extend into the slipstream air to turn and generate power, but she could not read Chinese. The sections Ford translated to English were clearly marked, but no area labeled ram air that she could find. This definitely complicated their situation. Pinky looked out the window on the right side and could now see they were below the mountain ridges on her side.