Rogue Element

Raptor watched the destruction from his dress-circle position. The 747’s outboard engine was utterly destroyed. The monster staggered, smoke trailing from the wound like a long piece of gauze dressing.

‘Jesus, what the hell…’ said Joe as the plane bucked and kicked unexpectedly, bouncing the Apple off his table and into his lap. The sleeping passengers woke, bewildered. The cabin was rapidly filling with engine noise and the smell of burning grease. Joe looked around to see what was happening. There was confusion on the faces of the passengers he could see. Their mouths were slightly open and they were looking around, like him, trying to establish what was going on.

Joe was immune to the usual aircraft noises and jolts he considered normal. He believed himself a comfortable flyer because he had done so much of it. The whirrs, pops and bangs that usually alarmed less seasoned travellers he took in his stride. But now that the plane was behaving in a manner outside his experience, Joe realised how genuinely afraid of flying he was. There was obviously something very wrong, only his conscious mind was refusing to accept the full and terrifying implications. Namely, that the aircraft was somehow poised on a knife’s edge of destruction and that, as a consequence, so was he.

The groan of metal tearing and breaking underscored the vibration increasing in intensity. Joe realised then that the plane was ripping itself apart.

The last of the sleeping passengers woke. The quiet, vaguely uncomfortable environment they’d dozed off in was now filled with ear-splitting noise and a shaking that was jarring them out of their seats. Their reaction to this frightening new dawn was unanimous. They panicked.

The routine work of the flight deck suddenly became anything but. The sudden jolt followed by a high frequency vibration told them that there was a serious problem somewhere. Alarms began to sound. Both pilots scoured the sea of lights and dials to discover exactly what that problem was.

‘Disengaging autopilot,’ said Flemming.

‘Autopilot disengaged,’ confirmed Granger after the appropriate switch had been flicked. Flemming instantly felt an unusual weight on his control column.

The digital temperature readout for number four engine was unbelievably high, and climbing. While he watched it with a morbid interest, the Engine Overheat light illuminated, followed an instant later by the warning bell. The Fire Warning switch also glowed with an array of other lights that had, only moments before, been dim.

‘Jesus Christ,’ exclaimed Granger. ‘Engine fire!’ What the hell caused that? He hit the Bell Cutout switch on the glare shield, silencing the alarm that filled the cockpit and his ’phones.

‘Identify fire,’ said Flemming.

‘Engine fire number four,’ Granger replied.

Luke stared at the electronic dials on the panel between them. Temps in the right-hand outboard engine had climbed way into the danger zone. All the instruments for fuel flow, even temperatures, had been absolutely normal not five minutes ago. Whatever it was, it was catastrophic. From the vicious shaking of the aircraft, it was probably a severe engine failure caused by…? What? Jet engines, while delicately balanced, were also extremely robust.

What they had here was not a phantom problem, neither was it a drill. A fire on an aircraft, no matter how big or small the plane, was a major concern. The temperatures produced inside a jet turbine were easily hot enough to melt aluminium, and that’s exactly what the wing above the engine was made of.

‘Number four thrust lever,’ called Flemming.

‘Confirmed,’ said Granger, seeing his captain’s hand on the correct lever.

Flemming responded by snapping closed the throttle lever for number four engine. ‘Closed,’ he said.

‘Number four cut-off switch,’ said Flemming. When he saw that Granger’s hand was on the correct switch he commanded, ‘Cut off!’

Granger shifted the switch to the appropriate position. ‘Cut off,’ he confirmed.

‘Number four fire warning switch,’ Flemming said. Granger had fallen behind the sequence. Granger quickly placed his hand on the glowing switch. He glanced at Flemming.

‘Pull!’ commanded the captain.

Granger tugged the switch. ‘Pulled!’

Instantly, shut-off valves for the hydraulic, engine bleed air and fuel were activated, starving the fire of combustible mixtures.

Flemming and Granger both stared at the Fire Warning light. It remained illuminated.

‘Fire the bottle,’ said Flemming.

Granger rotated the switch that discharged a canister containing fire-suppressing foam in the engine nacelle. ‘Bottle fired!’ A light came on announcing that the bottle had indeed been discharged.

Luke found himself leaning forward in his seat, willing the array of illuminated fire warning lights in front of him to go out. They did not. The engine was shut down, starved of fuel, oil and air, covered in fire retardant foam but, according to the instrument lights, a fire still burned out there under the wing. Jesus!

‘Fire the second bottle,’ Flemming said.