Mayday (48 page)

“John!” Sharon screamed. The ground rushed up toward them. She covered her eyes.

Waiting as long as he dared, Berry made one last and desperate pull on the flight controls with all the strength he had left.

Captain Kevin Fitzgerald’s experienced eye told him instantly that the pilot had suddenly lost control. He found himself running
toward the plummeting airliner, shouting as he ran. “He’s losing it! It’s pitching on him! Oh, goddamn it, he’s losing it.
Christ Almighty!” The pilot had managed to get the giant airliner within a half mile of the runway, and now, inexplicably,
he was letting the ship get away from him. He shouted like a coach trying to play the game from the sidelines. “Goddamn it!
Goddamn you! Hold it, you bastard, hold it! Kick the rudder. The rudder! Kick the goddamn rudder, you son-of-a-bitch!” He
suddenly stopped running.

Just before the Straton’s wheels hit the runway, Fitzgerald could see that the pilot had made one final, desperate control
input. That, coupled with the aircraft’s low airspeed, was all that averted instant and total catastrophe. But the aircraft’s
unspent downward energy was still far too great for its designed limits of strength. As Fitzgerald watched, the Straton sank
down onto its undercarriage, then the huge sets of landing gear snapped off as if they were made of glass. Broken wheels and
struts catapulted in all directions. The airliner fell onto its belly and skidded down the runway at over a hundred knots,
a shower of sparks rising beneath and behind it. The aircraft yawed left and right, dangerously close to a complete spin.
Fitzgerald could see the speed brakes extend above the wings. The rudder was still working back and forth; Fitzgerald knew
the pilot had not given up.

The crowd on the grass began running as the uncontrolled airliner, as tall as a three-story building and as long and wide
as a football field, began skidding toward them. Some of the crowd jumped on retreating vehicles; others hit the ground.

Fitzgerald knew that no place was safer than any other if the Straton went off the runway, and he stood his ground and watched.
Around him, four news cameramen stood in the grass, recording the progress of the giant airliner plowing across the runway
less than 3000 feet away. The sound of scraping and tearing metal rose above the screaming of the engines as the tortured
Straton 797 came closer.

Wayne Metz said to Ed Johnson, in an awed, faraway voice, “Did he make it?”

“Sort of.”

“Will it explode?”

“Maybe.”

They both watched as the huge aircraft continued its crabbing skid down the runway, leaving a trail of sparks, coupled with
an unbelievable sound of scraping, tearing, tortured metal.

Metz asked, “What should we do if it doesn’t explode?”

“We should go out to the aircraft and be among the first to meet the pilot.”

Metz glanced at Johnson, then back at the Straton. He said softly, “Explode and die.”

Berry felt the Straton settle hard on its landing gear, and heard the incredible sound of the gear ripping off. The airliner’s
820,000 pounds dropped jarringly onto the runway and the aircraft began to slide. Berry’s only emotion as the landing gear
collapsed was anger. Anger at himself for getting it so far and losing it at the last moment.

But it wasn’t all lost yet. He was alive, and he intended to stay that way. He glanced toward Sharon. As his hands reached
for the fuel shut-off switches, she was looking at him, and apparently had been since the impact, watching his face, trying
to see by his expression if they were going to live or die. He nodded to her, as if to say,
It’s okay.
But it wasn’t.

Berry raised the spoilers on top of the wings to act as speed brakes in a last desperate attempt to slow the careening airliner.
His feet worked the rudder pedals, but he could see it was having little effect on keeping the aircraft pointed straight down
the runway, now that the fuselage was in contact with the pavement.

For a split second, right before touchdown, he had seen himself taxiing the crippled airliner up to the parking ramp, but
now he knew he would be lucky if he could avert an explosion. For the first time since he had begun flying, he wanted to run
out of fuel. But even if the tanks were dry, there was probably enough volatile fumes in them to blow the airplane to pieces.

He saw the crowd scattering to his left, and noticed the crash trucks moving away as well. He motioned for Sharon to get into
a crash position, but she shook her head. He looked quickly over his shoulder and saw that Linda had her head between her
legs. The passengers were stumbling and falling; the deceleration had thrown many of them back into the lounge.

The sickening sound of tearing, scraping metal filled the cockpit with a noise so great that he literally could no longer
think clearly. He turned back to the front and waited out the final seconds. There was nothing left for him to do concerning
the Straton, and that, at least, was a welcome relief.

The Straton skidded toward Fitzgerald. As it came within a hundred feet of him, it suddenly spun out of control, its seven-story-high
tail coming around in a slow clockwise direction. Fitzgerald dropped to the ground. The massive Straton filled his whole field
of vision and he could actually smell its engines and feel its heat as its wing passed above him. He looked up and saw the
left wing dip down and plow into the grass. The outboard engine fell from its mounts and rolled end over end in the grass,
leaving a trail of blazing earth behind it.

People began to yell, “Fire!”

Fitzgerald looked up at the aircraft spinning and sliding away from him. He could see that the wing section around the lost
engine was a maze of severed wires, tubes, and cables. Long plumes of orange flame and black smoke trailed off the damaged
wing. Within seconds the entire left wing was ablaze, flames shooting up to the full height of the fuselage.

Fitzgerald stood quickly and began running after the moving airliner. Incredibly, on his right, he saw Edward Johnson and
Metz running too. Johnson he could understand. There was nothing cowardly about the man, no matter what one thought of him.
But Metz . . .
What the hell was going on here?

The Straton had slowed considerably as soon as its wing and engine ripped into the ground, and the spinning action further
slowed its forward momentum. The aircraft came to rest a hundred yards from Fitzgerald.

Rescue units began rushing toward the Straton, and fire vehicles converged on it with nozzles spewing foam over its length,
trying to smother the fire before the fumes and fuel in the tanks exploded.

From the captain’s seat, Berry could see the wall of flame that engulfed the left wing.

Before the airliner came to a complete stop, Berry ripped off his seat belt, stood, and reached across to Sharon Crandall.
He grabbed her arm and shook her. “Sharon! Sharon!” She was dazed, and he could tell from the gray pallor of her face that
she was in shock. He opened her belt and pulled her out of the chair.

She clung to him for a second, then picked her head up. “I’m all right. We have to get out of here.”

Berry looked around. The cockpit was jammed with twisted, moving bodies. The first whiffs of acrid smoke had already floated
up the circular stairs into the lounge, and drifted into the cockpit. Passengers from the lounge were beginning to respond
to the smoke, and began heading toward the cockpit.

Berry shouted above the noises of the injured and the sounds of the emergency units outside. “Open the emergency door. I’ll
get Linda.”

She nodded quickly and pushed her way through the stumbling forms around her.

Berry pulled away a lifeless body draped over the observer’s seat and unbuckled Linda’s belt. The girl was barely conscious,
and he lifted her over his shoulder.

He pushed his way to the door, which was still closed. “Sharon! Open the door. Open the door.”

She knelt beside the small emergency door, tears running down her face. “It’s stuck! Stuck!”

He thrust the girl into Sharon’s arms and pulled at the emergency handle. It held fast, and he pulled again, but it wouldn’t
open.
Damn it. The airframe is probably bent.
He looked around wildly. Through the cockpit door poured a stream of passengers, crawling, clawing, staggering, and with
them came clouds of black stinging smoke, darkening the cockpit. The passengers pressed against him; they were thrashing,
howling, terrified. Foam splattered against the windshields, and the cockpit became almost black. He looked up and saw that
Sharon and Linda had disappeared. He reached for them, but other bodies were forcing him back against the sidewall. Berry
dropped to one knee and rammed forward until he found the emergency door again. He grabbed blindly for the handle, and finally
located it. The smoke was overcoming him, and he couldn’t find the strength to pull. “Sharon! Linda! Where are you?”

“John, here.” Her voice sounded weak. “We’re over here. In the front.”

“Hold on. Hold on.” Berry looked up, but he couldn’t see more than a few feet through the smoke and the frightened, milling
passengers. He turned back to the emergency door. He grabbed the door handle and pulled on it with every bit of strength he
could summon. He kept pulling until he thought he would black out.