Chapter 9 - The Impossible Touchdown
For six hundred yards, the jet slid across the wet asphalt, a screaming mountain of aluminum, rubber, and fire.
Red and blue emergency lights flashed across the cockpit windows as five airfield crash trucks chased the decelerating airliner down the runway, spraying thick blankets of fire-retardant foam over the smoking wheel wells.
The airspeed tape on the primary display unraveled like a dying tape measure:
Ninety knots.
Sixty knots.
Forty knots.
Twenty knots.
With one final, shuddering groan of tortured metal, Northstar Flight 417 came to a complete, dead stop on the centerline of Runway 16, exactly eight hundred feet before the paved surface ended in the dark pines of Washington state.
Inside the cockpit, absolute silence fell.
The single operating engine wound down, its high-pitched whine fading into the steady drumbeat of rain on the roof.
Evan sat motionless, staring wide-eyed through the cracked windshield at the flashing red lights of the emergency vehicles surrounding them. He slowly turned his head to look at Mara.
Mara was still holding the control wheel with both hands, her knuckles pale, her chest heaving as she drew in long, deep breaths of air. Slowly, she released her grip. Her fingers were trembling.
She reached up, flicked off the master battery switch, and looked at Evan.
“Your airplane, First Officer Cole.”
Evan let out a ragged, half-sob, half-laugh, leaning his head back against the headrest. “No, ma'am. That was entirely your airplane. In my twenty years of flying, I have never seen anything like that in my life.”
Behind them, the cockpit door was unlocked from the outside. Marcus and Tessa rushed in, followed immediately by two Air Force paramedics carrying medical trauma kits.
“Captain Henderson is alive!” Tessa cried, tears streaming openly down her face. “The paramedics are taking him out through the galley door now. They say he’s going to make it!”
Mara unbuckled her five-point safety harness and stood up on shaky legs. Her legs felt like lead, but her mind was completely clear. “Get the passengers off through the mobile stairs. No need to blow the emergency slides unless there’s active fire on the landing gear.”
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One of the Air Force paramedics stopped, staring at Mara’s flight jacket, which lay across the jumpseat with her naval insignia visible. “Ma'am… did you just land this wide-body with no flaps and a dead engine?”
Mara wiped the sweat from her eyes and smiled faintly. “It’s what we do. Take care of that copilot. He’s got guts.”
