Chapter 3 - FLIGHT DECK CARNAGE
The reinforced cockpit door was pinned half-open by the slumped body of fifty-eight-year-old Captain Robert Miller.
The moment Marcus squeezed his broad frame into the flight deck, his senses were assaulted by the harsh, synchronized panic of modern aviation systems on the brink of death. The master warning klaxon was blaring a dual-tone wail: BEE-DOH, BEE-DOH, CAUTION. Red and amber annunciator lights flickered across the overhead panel like an angry casino marquee. The electronic flight bag on the center pedestal was cracked, and the scent of ozone and scorched copper wiring hung thick in the air.
First Officer Brian Davies, a kid who couldn't have been older than twenty-seven, was hyperventilating in the right seat. Both of his hands were clamped onto his control wheel with white-knuckle fury, pulling back with all his weight while his feet danced erratically on the rudder pedals.
“Get your hands off the trim!” Marcus barked, his voice cutting through the klaxons like a bullwhip.
Davies jumped, his bloodshot eyes darting back toward the entryway. “Who the hell are you?! Get out! We’re in an uncontrolled pitch-up!”
“Commander Vance, United States Navy,” Marcus said, reaching down with one massive arm, hooking Captain Miller beneath the shoulders, and lifting the unconscious two-hundred-pound pilot out of the captain’s seat with terrifying efficiency. “Brenda! Help me drag him into the galley!”
Brenda and a second attendant scrambled to pull the captain into the forward service area, where Arrington was already shouting for the automated external defibrillator.
Marcus dropped into the left seat. The captain’s chair was positioned too far forward for his long legs; without taking his eyes off the primary flight display, his left hand found the manual seat adjustment lever beneath the cushion and slammed it back four inches until the pins locked.
He didn't hesitate. He planted his combat boots firmly onto the rudder pedals. His gloved hands clamped onto the Boeing 777’s yoke.
The sensation was entirely wrong.
A fly-by-wire widebody like the triple-seven was supposed to feel smooth, artificial, buffered by redundant hydraulic actuators and flight-control computers designed to mimic aerodynamic resistance. But this yoke felt like a concrete piling stuck in drying cement. It was fighting him, shivering violently with a rapid, mechanical shudder that traveled straight up Marcus’s forearms.
“Talk to me, Davies,” Marcus demanded, his voice dropping into the flat, icy monotone of a naval aviator riding an uncontrolled spin. “What failed?”
“We… we were crossing the Front Range at flight level three-six-zero,” Davies stammered, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes as he fought to breathe. “Captain Miller was reaching for the center console when he just… gasped and seized up. He slumped onto the throttle quadrant. His chest shoved both engine thrust levers to full takeoff power before I could pull him off. The speed shot past VMO. Over-speed warning went off. Then… an explosion from the aft wheel well.”
Marcus glanced at the central engine-indicating and crew-alerting system display. His gray eyes swept the digital screens in three-tenths of a second.
System Center Hydraulic: ZERO PSI.
System Right Hydraulic: 450 PSI AND DROPPING.
System Left Hydraulic: NORMAL.
“Uncontained turbine failure?” Marcus muttered.
“No!” Davies yelled over the wailing klaxon. “The right engine threw a fan blade! It penetrated the unpressurized fuselage right through the hydraulic equipment bay! The center lines are severed! The right reservoir is dumping fluid into the atmosphere at thirty gallons a minute! We’ve lost our primary elevator control, our outboard ailerons, and our upper rudder!”
As if to punctuate Davies’ words, the aircraft gave a sickening, lateral shudder. The nose pitched up violently, reaching twenty-four degrees nose-high. The airspeed tape on the digital primary display began to plummet: 280 knots… 250 knots… 220 knots.
The automated voice of the stall protection system began to chant through the cockpit speakers:
STALL. STALL. PULL DOWN. STALL.
The stick shaker kicked in. Both yokes began vibrating with enough force to rattle Marcus’s teeth in his skull.
Behind them, through the cabin curtain, the screams of 247 terrified passengers erupted. Marcus could hear the distinctive, high-pitched shriek of his daughter: “DADDY!”
“I can’t push the nose down!” Davies screamed, hauling on his control column with both boots braced against the instrument panel. “The elevator is jammed in the pitch-up position by hydraulic lock! We’re going to stall and pancake into the mountains!”
“Let go of the yoke, Davies,” Marcus said coldly.
“Are you insane?! We’re dropping through two hundred knots!”
Marcus reached across the center console, grabbed the first officer by the lapel of his white uniform shirt, and shoved him back against his headrest with enough force to snap his teeth shut.
“I said take your goddamn hands off the yoke!” Marcus roared. “In a total hydraulic lock, muscle won't move those control surfaces! You’re just fighting dead steel!”
Davies let go, sobbing into his trembling hands.
The nose tilted higher. 210 knots. The airspeed indicator was creeping into the red barber pole at the bottom of the tape. In five seconds, the giant wings would lose all lift, the airflow would separate, and thirty thousand tons of composite metal and human lives would tumble end-over-end toward the granite teeth of the Continental Divide.
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Marcus Vance reached for the twin black-and-yellow engine throttles. In the cockpit of a fighter jet, thrust was speed. But in a crippled widebody with no tail authority, thrust was the only rudder he had left.
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