John Nance - 16 Souls

“It’s Mountaineer 2612. He can’t get his gear to retract. Tracon wanted to bring him back to Two-Six, but…”

“Runway Two-Five is all we got.”

“They already know.”

“But,” Jimmy added, “Tell Tracon to give me at least ten minutes to clear out these other departures.”

“Will do.”

The controller picked up the tie line again as Jimmy struggled to make out the fuzzy lights through the snow obscuring almost all the visibility from the tower cab. The ground radar was the basic tool they had in situations this bad, and he was appreciative of how easy it now was to see the data block of each moving aircraft.

The voice of the snow removal boss came through his headset at the same moment.

“Tower, be advised, if it keeps up at this rate, we’ve got, tops, an hour before we’re going to have to give up on Two Five between Bravo Four and Golf.”

Great! Jimmy thought. We’ll be down to nine thousand feet of slick concrete on one remaining runway.

Complete closure of the airport before 10 pm was a real possibility.

Several floors below in the Terminal Approach Control Radar room the computer-generated blip representing the Beech 1900 regional airliner known as Mountaineer 2612 had completed the course reversal ordered two minutes before. The controller issued a turn for an inbound British Air Boeing 777 before refocusing her thoughts on Mountaineer. He was doing around a hundred fifty knots with the gear hanging out, but he’d undoubtedly have enough fuel, and the tower wanted an extra ten minutes, so…

I’ll bring him northwest past the airport, then I’ll turn him east, she decided. “Mountaineer Twenty-six-twelve, Denver Approach, turn left now Three-two-zero, maintain twelve thousand.”

“Roger, Mountaineer Twenty-six-twelve, left to Three-two-zero, maintain twelve.”

The controller mentally acknowledged Mountaineer’s compliance and focused on the approaching 777. “Speedbird Sixty-two, cleared ILS Runway Two-Five now, contact Denver Tower One-three-two-point-three-five.”

“Speedbird Six-two, cleared approach, Tower on One-three-two-point-three-five. Cheerio, ma’am.”

She started to respond in kind, then stopped herself. Too much competing traffic and a rapidly deteriorating airport for casual exchanges. Keeping the picture was more important than radioed niceties, even though she always loved acknowledging the professionalism of the British crews.

In the tower cab, Jimmy Toulon verified the position of the outbound Regal 757 and issued the directive to contact the tower controller standing next to him. He heard the pilot acknowledge in that same too-happy voice and wondered why it irritated him so.

The controller in the tower position issued the takeoff clearance along with the standard warnings about slick concrete and poor braking action, and Jimmy noticed the electronic blip begin moving down the east-west runway as the big Boeing accelerated to flying speed and lifted off to the west.

In many ways, he envied the pilots climbing out of a storm. In thirty minutes they’d be miles above the weather and looking at stars, and he’d still be in the middle of an arctic blizzard, all his instincts on red alert against anyone making a mistake. A complete airport shutdown would be a relief. Nights like this really worried him.

Seven Months before — January 21 st

Regal 12

Marty Mitchell glanced over at the copilot, wondering why he hadn’t reacted.

“Ryan? I said flaps up, set Two-Ten.”

“Oh! Sorry!” Ryan Borkowsky replied, hurriedly raising the flap handle before reaching for the dial on the forward panel to set the airspeed for the autothrottle system. “Flaps up and setting Two-Hundred-Ten.”

There was nothing but snow streaking past the cockpit windows now, the lights of Denver lost in the surreal streams as the tower controller handed them off to the departure controller. Marty was still flying it manually, holding his altitude at fourteen degrees nose up as they climbed.

“Regal One Two, contact departure now, One-Twenty-Three-Five.”

“Regal one-two to one-two-three-five,” Ryan responded. “Have a great night, ” he added, changing the radio frequency. “Denver departure, your friendly Regal Twelve with you, climbing through seven for eight thousand.”

“Regal twelve, radar contact. Turn right, Three-Two-Zero degrees, climb to and maintain nine thousand.”

“Roger, cleared to nine,” he said turning to Marty. “One to go, Cap-i-tán .”

Marty nodded, ignoring the copilot’s attempt at humor. It was grating on his concentration.

“Passing eight thousand for nine thousand,” Marty confirmed, reaching out to rotate a small knob on the forward panel to bring the target to 9,000 feet. He clicked on the autopilot and verified that it was set up to capture the new altitude as a melodic chime confirmed they were one thousand feet below level off. He glanced up at the same moment, confirming all the 757’s anti-ice systems were working, porting 300 degree centigrade hot air from the engines to the leading edges of the wings and tail, and the forward lips of both engines.

The big jet began automatically shallowing its climb to level at 9,000 feet as the controller returned, his voice a rapid-fire series of instructions intertwined with each reply from the various flights he was handling.

“Frontier Sixty-Two, right turn now to Zero-Eight-Zero degrees, descend to and maintain one-two thousand.”

There was a sudden loud squeal and heavy static in their headsets as two radios tried to transmit at the same time. The squeal diminished but didn’t disappear.

“Frontier Sixty-two, Zero-Eight-Zero and one-two thousand.”

“All flights, we have a stuck mic on the frequency… please check your radios,” the controller said. “Alaska Eighteen, right turn now to One-Eight-Zero, descend to nine thousand.”

“Ah, Alaska Eighteen, say again approach? Lot of noise in the background.”

“Roger, Alaska Eighteen. Turn right now to One-Eight-Zero, and descend to nine thousand.”

“ Roger , Alaska Eighteen down to nine thousand and right turn to One-Eight-Zero, correct?”

“Affirmative, Alaska.”

The squeal and static on the frequency was intensifying, and the controller was seriously considering shifting everyone to a different frequency if it continued. A scratching and voices could be heard in the background, characteristic of a microphone stuck in the transmit position.

The controller tried again: “Everyone on frequency, we have a stuck mic… please check your transmit buttons. Break, Mountaineer Twenty-Six-Twelve, maintain one-one thousand.”

“Denver, Twenty-Six twelve is level one-two thousand. You want us at one-one?”

“Say again, Twenty-Six Twelve?”

“Affirmative. You want us to descend?”

Ah, Twenty-Six Twelve, negative. Break, Regal Twelve, continue your climb to one-two thousand, correction, one-one thousand.”

Ryan punched the transmit button.

“Regal One-Two climbing to one two… one… one two thousand.”

Marty pressed a finger to his earpiece and glanced toward the copilot. “Was that one-two thousand?”

Ryan returned the glance with a confused expression as he reached for the altitude knob.

“Excuse me?”

“Was that one-two, or one-one?”

“That was for one-two,” he replied, hesitating before dialing 12000 into the window as Marty watched to verify it. “There’s another flight they’re descending to one-one, but there’s so much damned noise with that stuck mic…”