Klaus Schwamborn: Dreamland

The LCD screen in the centre of the instrument panel warned that the left engine had stalled and that the passenger compartment had depressurized. She confirmed by looking out the flight deck’s side window. Stalled was an understatement; the engine was completely demolished, but she could not see what caused depressurization. Rothman feared the worst.

Sensors, avionics and computers automatically took care of many of the things pilots had to contend with themselves in days gone by. With today’s technology, all electrical and fuel supplies were automatically shut off when a sensor detected abnormal vibrations from a jet engine. Pilots had the opportunity to override the on-board computer’s commands if those vibrations were very slight or caused by sudden air-pressure differentials. Those differentials, causing momentary anxiety among some passengers, were more commonly known as air-pockets.

Rodriguez confirmed that the starboard engine was undamaged. Rothman would need to be cautious applying power when she was ready to level out from the shallow dive. The aeroplane would veer to the left unless the rudder trim was adjusted to compensate.

All passenger aircraft, even a behemoth the size of a Boeing 747, were able to fly and land safely on a single engine; pilots being trained diligently for such an event.

Billy-Ray Hutchens could think of better things to do other than repairing the fence on his dad’s estate, which was situated about sixty miles from Vegas in the Moapa Valley. He pulled the tattered, old cap touting the Las Vegas Outlaws football team off his close-cropped, sun-bleached blonde hair and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Out of the blue, he heard a piercing scream and a loud thud about thirty feet behind him. Turning around, he walked with uncertainty in the direction of where the ominous sounds came from. Bewildered at first, he couldn’t quite make out what he was looking at. Buried face down, about six inches into the hard, dry gravel, was a woman in uniform. Her arms and legs were shredded, and she was holding onto what appeared to be a garbage bag. He approached cautiously, knelt, and prodded her a few times. There was no sign of life.

Billy-Ray did the first thing that came to mind. He crouched down next to her, yanked the phone from his back pocket and secured a selfie with the corpse clearly visible behind and on his left.

Within a three-quarter mile radius, out of earshot of Billy-Ray, three other nauseating impact sounds, one a little less forceful than the other two, would have been heard by anyone in the vicinity.

After two minutes of rapid descent, Trans-Commercial 761 levelled out at seven thousand feet. During that time, Rodriguez had reported to the control tower what they knew so far. He removed his oxygen mask, unstrapped himself and walked through the flight deck door. A cloud of light mist blanketed the entire passenger compartment. The noise was deafening, and it was ice cold. Senior attendant, Jordan Williams, was taking control of the situation as best as he could. Frightened passengers stared at Rodriguez with blank expressions as he walked through the compartment evaluating the situation. The chaos was distressing, but not as unnerving as the huge hole in the side of the aircraft.

After exchanging a few words above the noise with Williams, Rodriguez returned to the flight deck and reported the state of affairs to Captain Rothman. He then communicated an update of their situation to the control tower.

McCarran International had already set their emergency procedures into motion. All departures were grounded; incoming flights were put on a holding pattern, twenty miles north of the airport and emergency vehicles were en route to the runway. Ambulances from Monrevista Hospital’s emergency services were on their way.

Trans-Commercial 761 had been cleared for landing.

It was now in the hands of Captain Angela Rothman and First Officer Mateo Rodriguez.

Under normal circumstances, conditions for approach were ideal. Visibility as far as the eye could see, no cross-winds, and the sun was still high enough over the western horizon that visors were unnecessary. For Trans-Commercial 761, however, conditions were far from ideal.

Moments ago, Rodriguez locked in the landing gear and was now extending the flaps to their full thirty-two degrees. The nose of the aircraft tilted up slightly and airspeed was reduced to one hundred and forty knots.

Rothman would need to bring one hundred and fifty thousand pounds of passengers and unstable machinery onto the ground as smoothly and slowly as possible. A hard landing would almost certainly cause the 737 to break apart resulting in uninvited fatalities. She needed the entire runway, and then some. Setting a single jet engine into maximum reverse thrust for breaking after touchdown would spin the aircraft out of control.

Rothman mentally prepared for the sequence of carefully controlled procedures over which she had to triumph just a few feet before hitting the runway, and that was in less than three minutes.

Jettison all excess fuel;

Slow the airspeed by reducing power;

Tilt the nose up further;

Stall the aircraft◦– in effect, stop it from flying;

Touchdown;

Gently apply reverse thrust to the starboard engine;

Force landing gear brake pedals down as hard as possible;

Hope there was enough runway.

With a severely damaged aircraft running on a single engine and veering sideways, she had just seconds to accomplish the impossible.

Less than one minute to touching down, Rothman, aided by Rodriguez, started their emergency landing procedure which both had practiced many times in a simulator. This time it was all or nothing. There was no reset; no controller suggesting they try again; no success or failure quotient displayed on the front monitor.

They had one chance to get it right.

Rothman prayed there would be no surprises.

Seventy feet above the grassy field flanking the start of McCarran International runway 25R, what remained of flight 761’s port-side engine, burst into flames and exploded. Most of the wing tore off.

Emily Hurst gazed out the kitchen window onto the high pre-cast grey concrete wall surrounding the property of their recently purchased bungalow on Adams Street in Elmont. The wall ensured a reasonable amount of privacy when she suntanned naked or made use of their small backyard pool. Much to her irritation, the wall also offered an ideal spot for the local blue-jays, finches and robins to socialise and deposit their poop.

She loved having the birds and listening to the tweets and chatter of their mating rituals, but sometimes they could be an annoyance. The birds had their eating and excrement routines down to a science; devouring all the new grass seed and dropping it in places she really didn’t want. Emily had better grass growing between the concrete paving stones than where she was trying desperately to establish a decent lawn.

Nathan crept up from behind and hugged her.

“None of that, Mr. McIntosh,” Emily whispered teasingly, twisting around and wriggling her five foot nothing frame out of his grasp.

Being almost a foot taller than Emily, it was effortless for Nathan to bury his nose into the top of her head. He breathed in the fragrance of her wavy, medium-length hair.

“New shampoo?” he asked.

“No. New Henna,” she replied. “I had a bit of cover-up to do again this morning.”

In her late forties, Emily had started seeing signs of grey just over ten years ago and simply wanted to keep her natural light-brown colour in check.

“Smells nice,” he said with approval.