Preface
The moment he noticed a Lear jet pacing them just off their wingtip, the lights went out--all the lights--even the battery-driven emergency lights. All the passengers seemed to lurch forward a bit in their seats. A collective gasp became a loud, continuous, horrified, scream. The engines began to wind down from their normal high pitch to a dull moan. Jack suddenly realized that he still had the air phone in his hand. He had been talking to his partner. “Luther, you still there,” Jack shouted into the phone? Even with the screaming, Jack could tell the phone was dead. He turned to look at Ruth, and then beyond her through the window. He could still see the Lear pacing them in their descent. Still looking past her out the window, he told her to stay calm, make sure her seat belt was fastened, and assume the crash position. The whole time the Lear was still there, twenty-five yards off the wing tip, like an Air Force chase pilot following a test plane down on its final dive.
They seemed to fall forever, although it probably took no more than one or two minutes. The screaming had somehow stopped. It was as if every soul on the plane was holding his or her breath. It was so dark that you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. A woman, probably one of the stewardesses, started giving instructions on how to prepare for a crash. Somebody was mumbling a prayer.
“…hallowed be Thy name…”
The whining noise the diving plane made was getting louder and louder. The stress creaking of the plane’s structure was also getting louder. “Tick, Tick, Tick…” Jack looked out the window one more time. The Lear was gone. He leaned over Ruth’s back to get a better look around. The Lear was nowhere to be seen. What he did see was mountains and trees and snow, and it was coming up fast.
The pilot seemed to be getting some control. The nose was starting to come up, inch by inch. It wasn’t going to be soon enough. Suddenly the lights came on, which startled everybody almost as much as when they went out. There was a low rumbling sound coming from the wing. The low-speed slats were deploying. The nose came up abruptly. They had some control now but were still falling. They needed to get the engines restarted.
Jack looked down at Ruth. She had her ear on her knees and her eyes closed. She was saying, “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” over and over. Jack leaned over her and said, “Hang in there honey, we’ve got a fighting chance now.”
He could hear the engines trying to start, and then the starboard one, the one on their side, turned over and began to spool up. The pilot began a slow bank to the left, probably to miss one of the higher peaks. Sure enough, a very large black mass passed in front of the stars out Jack’s window. He sensed that the ground was very close now. They weren’t going to make it. The engines weren’t going to catch up with their descent before the ground did.
Jack yelled, “Everybody hang on! We’re going to hit!” There was another loud scream, abruptly stopped by a bone-crunching jar which seemed to force all of their internal organs down to their feet and their faces to smack rudely into their knees with varying degrees of damage. Then they were airborne again, engines screaming to claw back into the air. But it was not to be. The plane’s attitude was too great for the amount of thrust she was able to muster. The tail started to drag and they all braced for another horrific jar, but nobody could brace for one of this magnitude. Their world was coming apart. The whole cabin seemed to squish as though a giant hand was pushing down on the top of the plane. The ceiling was getting closer to the floor; the walls were getting farther apart, caused by the fuselage being slapped against the snow. Everything came loose. Overhead compartments jumped open. Luggage began to spill out of them. Seats came loose and were crashing into other seats with people still sitting in them. There was a sickening, screeching, ripping sound as if the plane skidding over the snow, still at two hundred knots, was having its fuselage gutted like a huge fish. Jack leaned over Ruth, trying to protect her as much as he could with his own body...
