Майкл Ридпат - Fatal Error

Another one.

Mountains rose above us on either side. It was impossible to fly around this as Guy had promised.

‘What now?’

‘We go under it,’ said Guy. ‘There might be a bit of turbulence, but we’re nearly there.’

‘Shouldn’t we turn back?’

‘No, we’ll be fine. It’s just forming. It’s not even producing any rain yet.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure,’ Guy said, irritation flaring in his voice. ‘Hold on back there, this might be a little bumpy.’

Guy descended to about four hundred feet, at which point it was possible to see underneath the cloud to the shoreline behind.

We approached the grey wall at a hundred and thirty knots. I was nervous. In front of us was what was increasingly looking to my inexperienced eye like a huge beast of a cumulonimbus, below was water, on either side mountains. Only behind us was safety. But glancing at Guy’s determined face, I could see there was no chance of us going that way.

He was an experienced pilot. I would have to trust him.

The air became bumpy, with jolts and lurches that prompted a cry of ‘Whoa’ from Mel. A bit uncomfortable, but easy to put up with, if that was all we were going to suffer.

Perhaps we would be OK.

We weren’t.

Suddenly the aircraft was slammed downwards as if a giant hand had slapped the roof. The water shot up towards us. Guy cursed, put on full throttle and tried to climb. The water was dark and choppy and only a few feet below us. Despite Guy’s efforts we weren’t going up. Another downdraught like that and we’d get very wet. Worse than that, the force would shatter the aeroplane against the surface of the water. But it didn’t happen. One moment the engine was straining to gain a few feet in altitude, and the next that great hand reached down and dragged us upwards. The water disappeared far below and after a few seconds we were enveloped in the cloud. Everything became very dark.

‘Jesus Christ!’ swore Guy as he wrestled with the controls. I didn’t know what he was trying to do. There was nothing he could do, the forces all around us totally overwhelmed any instructions Guy was giving to the airframe. I looked at the altimeter. We were being pulled up past one thousand and two thousand feet. Debris was flying all over the cabin: the map, a kneeboard, a flight guide. I felt a whack in the back of my head, and Ingrid’s bag flew upwards and hit the ceiling. I was totally disoriented as my insides were pulled and pushed in every direction. Outside, a sheet of water fell on us, flooding over the windshield. It didn’t matter. There was nothing to see but black cloud out there.

Mel started to scream. I turned. She was terrified.

‘Tell her to shut up,’ muttered Guy beside me. He was pale and sweating, straining hard at the controls.

‘Mel!’ I shouted. ‘Mel!’

It was no use. I couldn’t get the poor girl to stop screaming, but I could turn off the intercom to the rear seats. That helped.

There was a sudden flash of brilliant white light and then an explosion. It was as if we were actually inside a thunderclap. I looked out to check the wings. Unbelievably they were still attached to the plane.

‘What about the mountains?’ I shouted. There were mountains on either side of us. We couldn’t see anything. We could easily charge into the side of one at any moment.

‘I know,’ said Guy. ‘But look at the altimeter. We’re nearly at three thousand feet. We should clear most of them.’

I looked, and as I did so the altimeter started spinning the other way. We were going down. Two thousand. One thousand. There were plenty of hills that height within a couple of miles of our track. I peered through the rain into the darkness. They could be right in front of us, there was no way of telling.

Then the blackness ripped apart and we were out. Below us was water. Straight ahead was the brown flank of a mountain. The water split, one arm going to the left, one to the right. Guy had only seconds to decide. He took the right.

‘Thank God,’ I said.

‘Where’s the map?’ screamed Guy.

It was wedged on the coaming above the instrument panel. I handed it to him. He glanced around him and down at the map. We were entering a glen a couple of miles wide. Ahead of us and a little above was what looked like a saddle, a narrow pass between two mountains. Behind us was the storm.

‘We’re over Skye now,’ said Guy. ‘The airfield’s just over this saddle.’

He put on full power and began to climb. The Cessna 182 has a powerful engine and can usually climb at a thousand feet a minute, but we were achieving much less than that. We’d be lucky if we made it up to the saddle at that rate. We were climbing against a wind blowing down the mountain.

Mel had stopped screaming.

I looked down. We were passing over a small crescent-shaped loch. I grabbed the map and searched for it. I saw where Guy thought we were, just to the south of Broadford on the Isle of Skye. There was no crescent-shaped loch there. My eyes scanned the map, until I found one. There it was! On the mainland. Half way up a long valley that had a three-thousand-foot mountain at its head.

‘Guy, I don’t think we’re over Skye.’

‘Of course we are,’ said Guy.

‘But that loch down there. It’s on the mainland. We should turn back or we’ll hit this mountain.’ I tried to show him the map, but he brushed it away.

‘No way am I going back into that storm,’ said Guy. ‘And the airfield’s just a few miles ahead.’

‘It isn’t. Look at the compass. We’re flying north-east, not north.’

‘The compass is screwed up by the storm. Look. I’m the pilot-in-command. I’m the one with the licence. Will you just shut the fuck up!’

I shut up. Beyond the saddle was cloud. It might be hiding a mountain or it might not. The valley was narrowing. Soon it would be impossible to turn back without hitting the hills on either side. We were making some progress upwards and it looked like our rate of climb would just get us over the saddle. But after that? If I was right and there was a mountain there and not an airfield, we would have nowhere to fly but into it.

I looked down again. Another tiny loch with a clump of trees around it. I checked the map. Sure enough, a couple of miles up the glen from the crescent loch was a blue dot next to a green splodge.

‘Guy, turn around! I’m one hundred per cent sure there’s a mountain ahead.’

‘No! Now will you keep quiet!’

Guy wanted to believe that there was sanctuary over that saddle. He wanted to believe it so badly that he would ignore any evidence to the contrary. The saddle was close now. So were the sides of the valley. We might just be able to turn now, but if we waited ten more seconds...

I did what I had to do. I snatched the control column in front of me and yanked it to the right. Guy tried to regain control by pulling on his column but I was stronger than he was. The aircraft was sharply banked and we were turning. Turning right into a cliff.

‘Leave it, Guy, or we’ll hit it!’ I shouted. If Guy had succeeded in pulling us out of the turn we would fly straight into the mountain. He let go.

I saw rock, trees, bracken, a waterfall. Close, closer. We were only a few yards from the rock. Despite the steepness of the turn, we seemed to be moving round so slowly. Come on. Then the nose pulled away from the cliff and we were facing back the way we came. The throttle was still all the way in and I pointed the aeroplane upwards.

‘What are you doing!’ screamed Guy. ‘Are you crazy? You nearly got us killed!’

I looked back over his shoulder. There was a break in the cloud above the saddle. And through the break was a mountain.