John Nance - Lockout

Devon Knightly, the evening lead supervisor of Shanwick Control, had been waiting for the connection with Pangia’s command center in Chicago. At last someone identified as Pangia’s operations chief came on the line, the voice puzzled and brimming with questions.

“Devon, is our crew squawking a radio-out or hijack code?”

“Neither. They’re still on the normal assigned code. There was no warning or radio contact of any sort before their 180-degree course reversal. My lads had a bit of a struggle clearing everyone out of his way. We were hoping you folks might be able to reach him by Sat phone or ACARS,” he said. ACARS had become a near-universal airline link between airborne cockpits and dispatchers.

“Understood…” the man replied from Chicago. “I’m told we’re trying, but no response yet. But I’ve got a more urgent question for you. If you project his new course out, is it steady? And if so, where does it appear to lead?”

“We did that, sir, and yes, it appears steady, and if you project it out over hours, it would take them right back across the Med and to their point of origin, Tel Aviv. It’s almost as if his flight computer decided to return to the first fix.”

Devon let his mind fast forward to an image of the big Airbus approaching the Middle East, and the mere thought of an unauthorized airspace breech anywhere in the area throttled up his already racing sense of urgency.

“That’s what we’ve been thinking,” the airline operations chief was saying, “…along with the worry that they could have changed the transponder code to let us know if they’d lost radio contact. It’s more like they could be fighting a major problem and looking for an emergency landing point.”

“It’s possible, I suppose,” Devon replied, trying to push the Middle Eastern images out of his mind to concentrate on the conversation, but it was as if a panther had silently padded in the door to stand there with deadly potential, impossible to ignore.

Devon Knightly pushed himself back to the moment. “All we see here in Shanwick is your crew flying the reverse course at the same altitude. Of course, he’s got London, Paris, Frankfurt, Dublin, and Amsterdam all available for emergency landing fields… and yet the fact that he appears to be headed back to the Middle East raises the possibility of a hijack.”

“Can we keep an open line with you, Devon?”

“Most assuredly. I’ll have someone standing by for you. Oh, one other matter. Your aircraft’s course reversal triggered a resolution alert on a British Air seven-four, and the Speedbird started climbing. So the TCAS boxes were agreeing that British Air would be told to climb whilst your aircraft would be directed to descend.”

“Yes?”

“Well, you see, your chaps remained at the same altitude, as if they didn’t get the same alert.”

“Oh! Okay, got it,” the Pangia chief replied.

“I should go, seeing as how I’ve a growing list of air defense and air traffic control facilities to alert. The British, for one, are going to be quite annoyed. Please let me know the instant you contact your crew by whatever means.”

“Will do.”

Aboard Pangia 10 (2200 Zulu)

In the cockpit of Pangia 10, Jerry Tollefson replaced the crew interphone and shook his head in the negative. “The passenger satellite phone system is dead, too. No one’s getting through back there.”

“Are we going to ask if anyone has a portable satellite phone?” Dan asked.

“You’re kidding, right?” Jerry snapped. “No one carries those anymore.”

“What’s wrong with trying?” Dan asked.

“It’s a waste of time.”

“Jerry, it’s a simple PA announcement. There are two satellite networks for private sat phones, and if someone has one…”

“Okay, okay! Then tell Carol to ask, if it makes you feel better.”

Dan hesitated for a few moments as he suppressed the response that was sitting like bile on the tip of his tongue. He nodded instead, before switching to interphone to ask the flight attendants to make the announcement.

A few bumps roiled the cockpit as a patch of chop accelerated to light turbulence, the same way it had as they’d flown westbound over the Irish western shore a while back, the Irish Cliffs of Moher unseen seven miles below.

Jerry reached up automatically and switched on the seat belt light as Dan looked at the radar depiction, which was showing nothing of interest.

“Clear ahead.”

“Yeah, that was the forecast, except for the UK and Ireland.”

“Which we’re way beyond now.” The moving map display continued to show their westbound course as steady, with the horizontal situation indicator and its compass rose pointing to the same heading of 290 degrees.

“Okay,” Jerry began, “Let’s review this. We’re in a super sophisticated electric jet at 38,000 feet going at 80 percent of the speed of sound, on course, on time, in the soup with no radio communication of any sort.”

“That’s about right.”

He gestured to the array of computer-generated information on the front panel, the ECAM, or Electronic Centralized Aircraft Monitor. “No warnings on the ECAM, no clue as to why, but all backups are down and the damned ACARS won’t even work. What do we make of that? Does anything ring a bell? Am I missing something?” Jerry asked.

“If you’re missing something,” Dan answered, “…so am I. We’re still flying, and everyone on both sides of the Atlantic knows our flight plan, and we have enough fuel, but this is creeping me out.”

“Me, too.”‘

“What would you think about my going below to have a look at the electronics bay,” Dan asked.

“Yeah, we were going to do that. See if we have any breakers out or… or other obvious problems.”

“Got it. I’ll need you to motor your seat as far forward as you can stand.”

“Roger.”

Jerry was already pulling on his quick don oxygen mask as Dan lifted himself out of the copilot’s seat and stood momentarily behind the center console, rubbing his neck.

Stay conscious, Cappy, Dan thought, aware how much of a balm the sarcasm would be if he could just say it out loud, as if Tollefson didn’t remember the rule that when one pilot was out of the seat above 30,000, the other put on his oxygen mask.

But the words remained unspoken as Dan moved quickly to the cramped space behind the captain’s seat and raised the floor hatch, squeezing through to the ladder, disappearing below and reappearing less than four minutes later.

“Anything?” Jerry asked, replacing his oxygen mask in the side compartment and moving his seat back.

“Nothing unusual. It is a bit nonstandard down there in the way it’s laid out, but otherwise normal.”

“But everything with a light is blinking, huh?” Jerry asked.

“Well, nothing I saw needed resetting. No smoking black boxes, nothing.”

“So… how could we have lost everything? Tell me that.”

Dan took a deep breath, forcing himself to think clearly as he slipped back into the right seat. “I don’t have a clue, Jerry.”

“Well, you said you know this bird better than I do, so…”

“I didn’t say that to challenge you, Jerry. I’ve just studied this bird’s systems very thoroughly since she’s an electronics nightmare. But the bottom line is, there’s nothing obvious down there.”

“Which leaves us with what?”

“As I said, I don’t know, but I’d recommend we prepare to land in New York without benefit of the radios.”

“Rather obvious conclusion, since they aren’t working,” Jerry sniffed, aware he was pushing Horneman, and equally aware the copilot was purposefully taking the digs without pushing back. “Okay, Dan, here’s a procedural question for you. Since we’ve got a big problem, do you think we’re honor bound to wake up the asshole?”