John Nance - Headwind

“All right, Sherry. I… need to make a few more calls to verify that nothing’s changed in the British approach to the torture treaty and extradition. Have the pilot file a flight plan for London, but stand by and don’t leave for an hour. Call me back in an hour. If I’m… not available… take off, go to London, and have the President surrender to any properly constituted authority trying to serve the warrant. But, if they aren’t waiting, refuel and get as far toward the U.S. as possible. Canada would be okay.”

“What do you mean, if you’re not available?” Sherry asked, aware of his frightened tone.

“Just… don’t worry. Call me in an hour.”

Jay ended the call as David once again twirled radio frequency dials, his hand pausing suddenly over one of the knobs. Jay saw him grab the outer ring of the dual plastic knob and turn it back and forth.

“Oh, DAMN!”

“What?”

“Denver Center, Cessna Two-Two-Five Juliet November, how do you hear me now? I think I’ve fixed my radio problem.”

A male voice boomed into their headsets, the tones as welcome a deliverance as suddenly flying into clear skies would have been.

“Cessna Two-Two-Five Juliet November, Denver Center. Can you hear me, sir?”

“YES! Thank heavens!” David managed to say. “I’ve got you five by, Denver.”

“I’ve been hearing all your transmissions, Juliet November, but you apparently weren’t hearing me on any transmitter.”

“I… somehow the volume control slipped, sir. I apologize.”

“Observe your altitude to be nine thousand three hundred and descending, Juliet November. You were cleared to eleven thousand.”

“I can’t control it, Denver! I’ve picked up ice. That wasn’t an intentional descent.”

“Understand, sir. Are you declaring an emergency at this time?”

“Yes! I’ve got full power and I can’t stay level… and I got a stall warning a minute ago.” David’s voice was several levels higher than normal, the extreme stress showing in the pace and timbre of his words, and the controller had obviously picked up on it.

“Okay, stay calm, Two Five Juliet November, we’ll get you home. Are you still picking up ice?”

“Yes! I need to get away from the front range.”

“Understood, sir. Come left this time to a vector heading of one-zero-zero degrees. I’m going to clear out everyone ahead of you and bring you into Denver for an ILS to runway nine left. Weather at Denver is indefinite ceiling, visibility one-half mile, runway visual range on nine left is three thousand feet, temperature twenty-nine, dew point seven, altimeter two nine seven four, winds calm.”

“Roger. I’m descending through nine thousand feet!”

“Okay, sir, you’ve got twenty-six miles to go, ground speed shows to be one hundred twenty knots, and I show you descending at about two hundred feet per minute. You should be fine.”

“Denver, we’re still picking up ice!”

Jay felt a sudden shuddering of the aircraft.

David shoved the control column forward, partially lifting them from their seats as the nose came down. Again he let the speed build back and slowly raised the nose.

“What… was that?” Jay asked in a voice barely above a squeak.

“Stall. We stalled. I’ve got to keep the speed up faster than normal because we’re carrying a heavy load of ice and it’s redesigning the wing.”

“Oh, wonderful.”

David was breathing hard, his eyes all over the instrument panel as the voice of the Denver controller returned.

“Okay, Juliet November. I see you suddenly lost several hundred feet there. You okay?”

“I… almost stalled, Denver.”

“Call me Bill, okay?” The controller said. “And your name?”

“Uh… Dave… David,” he swallowed hard.

“Okay, David, we’re gonna get you in. I’m a pilot, too. Just keep that speed at least five knots above wherever she wanted to stall. What’s your descent rate?”

David leaned forward, peering at another round dial before answering.

“Ah… three hundred feet per minute… about.”

“Still should work. Now, David, don’t try to look up anything, I’m going to read you the frequencies and all you’ll need to do is the ILS. You are, of course, instrument rated?”

“Yeah. Yeah, don’t worry. I’m IFR rated.”

“Good. I was sure you were, but we have to check. Okay, I want you to carefully dial in the ILS frequency one one two point four and visually check to make sure it’s in your navigation radio and not your communication radio.”

“Got it,” David replied, after quickly rotating the knobs.

“Altitude, David?”

“Ah, eight thousand four hundred. Still three hundred feet per minute down, speed one twenty-five.”

“Very well. You’re twenty-two miles out, and we need to make a decision here. I can try to land you at Centennial Airport, which is south of you about five miles, or we can continue on to Denver International. You could make Centennial just fine, but the ILS is out, and while they’re reporting a three-hundred-foot ceiling, it’s an automated ASOS report. Fact is, sometimes the ASOS can’t detect rapidly changing conditions. It could be much worse there.”

“Okay.” David glanced at his passenger, calculating the reason for the flight to begin with and the danger of descending closer to the front range of the Rockies to find a fog-shrouded Centennial.

“Ah… International. Denver International,” he said.

“Okay. Are you out of the icing?”

David looked to the left at the wing and then through the windscreen at the cowling before answering.

“Yeah… I think we’re out of it. But it’s not melting.”

“Nineteen miles out, David, and your altitude is still good.”

“Okay.”

“Now, put your course selector on the ILS inbound heading of zero nine zero degrees.”

“Okay. Done. Am I going to change to Denver Approach?”

“No, David, I’ll stay with you the whole way. Denver Approach is keeping everyone else away.”

“I’m sorry!”

“Don’t worry about it. You’re approaching the localizer.”

“What’s a localizer?” Jay heard himself ask.

“It’s… this needle…” David answered, pointing to the Horizontal Situation Indicator on the forward panel. “When it slides over to the center, it means I’m on course to the runway.”

“Okay.”

David triggered the transmitter. “Intercepting localizer, Denver. I’m turning on course.”

“Roger. Sixteen miles to the runway.”

Shuddering coursed through the aircraft again and once more David shoved the nose over, waiting for the airspeed to come up before shallowing the rate of descent.

“What’s your altitude, David?”

“I had to lose some to avoid stalling. Seventy four hundred.”

“Okay, you’re fourteen miles out, doing two miles per minute, we’ve got to keep you airborne for seven minutes more, the field is at five thousand three hundred feet above sea level, which means you can’t descend at more than three hundred feet per minute maximum. As a fellow Cessna driver, let me advise you not to use flaps. Don’t do anything to increase your drag.”

“Understood,” David replied, his heart in his throat as he did the math in his head and watched the rate of climb indicator holding just under three hundred feet per minute rate of descent.

“He’s not going to make it, Bill,” the supervisor said.

The controller nodded reluctantly, his blood running cold at the thought that he might have steered the panicked pilot wrong. Only plowed fields surrounded Denver International, though. If he couldn’t make the runway, perhaps he could put it down safely in a field.