On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

Perot brought Rashid to the flight deck. Rashid had never flown until yesterday, and he wanted to sit with the crew. Perot said to Carlen: "Let's have a really spectacular takeoff."

"You got it," said Carlen. He taxied to the runway, then took off in a very steep climb.

In the passenger cabin Gayden was laughing: he had just heard that, after six weeks in jail with all-male company, Paul had been forced to sit through an X-rated movie; and he thought it was funny as hell.

Perot popped a champagne cork and proposed a toast. "Here's to the men who said what they were going to do, then went out and did it."

Ralph Boulware sipped his champagne and felt a warm glow. That's right, he thought. We said what we were going to do; then we went out and did it. Right.

He had another reason to be happy. Next Monday was Kecia's birthday: she would be seven. Every time he had called Mary she had said: "Get home in time for Kecia's birthday." It looked like he was going to make it.

Bill began to relax at last. Now there's nothing but a plane ride between me and America and Emily and the kids, he thought. Now I'm safe.

He had imagined himself safe before: when he reached the Hyatt in Tehran, when he crossed the border into Turkey, when he took off from Van, and when he landed in Frankfurt. He had been wrong each time.

And he was wrong now.

3_____

Paul had always been crazy about airplanes, and now he took the opportunity to sit on the flight deck of the Boeing 707.

As the plane flew across the north of England, he realized that pilot John Carlen, engineer Ken Lenz, and first officer Joe Fosnot were having trouble. On autopilot the plane was drifting, first to the left and then to the right. The compass had failed, rendering the inertial navigation system erratic.

"What does all that mean?" Paul asked.

"It means we'll have to hand-fly this thing all the way across the Atlantic," said Carlen. "We can do it--it's kind of exhausting, that's all."

A few minutes later the plane became very cold, then very hot. Its pressurization system was failing.

Carlen took the plane down low.

"We can't cross the Atlantic at this height," he told Paul.

"Why not?"

"We don't have enough fuel--an aircraft uses much more fuel at low altitudes."

"Why can't we fly high?"

"Can't breathe up there."

"The plane has oxygen masks."

"But not enough oxygen to cross the Atlantic. No plane carries that much oxygen."

Carlen and his crew fiddled with the controls for a while; then Carlen sighed and said: "Would you get Ross up here, Paul?"

Paul fetched Perot.

Carlen said: "Mr. Perot, I think we ought to take this thing and land it as soon as we can." He explained again why they could not cross the Atlantic with a faulty pressure system.

Paul said: "John, I'll be forever grateful to you if we don't have to land in Germany."

"Don't worry," said Carlen. "We'll head for London, Heathrow."

Perot went back to tell the others. Carlen called London Air Traffic Control on the radio. It was one in the morning, and he was told Heathrow was closed. This is an emergency, he replied. They gave him permission to land.

Paul could hardly believe it. An emergency landing, after all he had been through!

Ken Lenz began to dump fuel to reduce the plane below its maximum landing weight.

London told Carlen there was fog over southern England, but at the moment visibility was up to half a mile at Heathrow.

When Ken Lenz shut off the fuel-dump valves, a red light that should have gone out stayed on. "A dump chute hasn't retracted," said Lenz.

"I can't believe this," said Paul. He lit a cigarette.

Carlen said: "Paul, can I have a cigarette?"

Paul stared at him. "You told me you quit smoking ten years ago."

"Just give me a cigarette, would you?"

Paul gave him a cigarette and said: "Now I'm really scared."

Paul went back into the passenger cabin. The stewardesses had everyone busy stowing trays, bottles, and baggage, securing all loose objects, in preparation for landing.

Paul went into the bedroom. Simons was lying on the bed. He had shaved in cold water and there were bits of stickum tape all over his face. He was fast asleep.

Paul left him. He said to Jay Coburn: "Does Simons know what's going on?"

"Sure does," Coburn replied. "He said he doesn't know how to fly a plane and there's nothing he can do, so he was going to take a nap."

Paul shook his head in amazement. How cool could you get?

He returned to the flight deck. Carlen was as laid-back as ever, his voice calm, his hands steady; but that cigarette worried Paul.

A couple of minutes later the red light went out. The dump chute had retracted.

They approached Heathrow in dense cloud and began to lose height. Paul watched the altimeter. As it dropped through six hundred feet, then five hundred, there was still nothing outside but swirling gray fog.

At three hundred feet it was the same. Then, suddenly, they dropped out of the cloud and there was the runway, straight ahead, lit up like a Christmas tree. Paul breathed a sigh of relief.