Guest Fiction: Sharky75

WJN Member Sharky75 was kind enough to share the following story, which features several of our chat friends. Written for a Fiction Writing Workshop, the assignment was to avoid a happy or sad ending. 

Sink Rate, Pull Up

The Dulles Airport was decorated for Halloween. The employees were dressed in all kinds of strange outfits. Poe ignored the strange people and walked to his gate. He sat down next to the window and continued reading a magazine about Namibia, which was his destination. He had heard about that Namibia had one of the world’s tallest sand dunes. In the magazine, it talked about Namibia’s infamous beach, the Skeleton Coast. Up and down the northern coast of Namibia are hundreds of bones of seals that have been culled by the locals; a major animal rights violation, to some. The Skeleton Coast also held rusting ships that have sunk and made its way into the desert landscape due to changes in geography. Poe wanted to see all of that, especially his ten day safari. He was tired of the mundane busy life of a UPS man. Also wanting to escape a mundane routine was a tall African-American man, Nazir. He too wanted to see the wonderful sights Namibia had to offer.

Poe crunched on salt and vinegar chips as he waited in line to get on the plane. Poe looked out of the floor-to-ceiling window and watched as the giant Boeing 747 pulled into the gate. Workers attached a fuel line into the plane for quick refueling. The gate was opened and passengers started to fill the plane. He entered the plane. He realized that Flight 156 was fitted for maximum capacity. The seats filled up fast, so he went towards the back of the plane. He sat down at one of the last rows in the plane.

He took out a magazine and started flipping through the pages. He glanced up and saw a tall muscular man in a suit escorting a stout man in casual clothing. Poe noticed that the man had handcuffs on. This man was Harris. On the man in a suit was a police shield.

Uh oh. What did this person do? Why’s he on a flight to Namibia?

A woman sat beside Poe. “Hi. I’m Julie.”

“Um…hi.”

Julie looked at the magazine Poe was reading. “You should check out the sand dunes. They are one of the tallest in the world. Dune number seven is about 1,256 feet all.”

“That’s cool,” Poe smiled. “I’m heading to Namibia for a ten-day safari. This is my Halloween vacation. You?”

“I’m going home. I had a wonderful time in Manhattan.”

Horizon Airlines Flight 156 backed out of the gate and taxied onto the runway. Fortunately, the flight was first on the long waiting list to take off. Captain Kris, whom sat in the right seat and the First Officer, Mike, was in the left seat for training as captain. Mike was going to be the one who flies. Everything was in order. They went through the pre-flight checklist without fail and without problems. The Captain and First Officer pushed the engine throttles to the maximum power setting. The plane picked up speed and zoomed down the long runway. Kris looked at the airspeed indicator. They were approaching 180 miles per hour, optimum take-off speed.

“V1,” Kris said. “Rotate.”

Mike gently pulled back on the controls and the plane gently lifted off the ground for it’s second to last flight of the day. Captain Kris retracts the landing gear and they gracefully climb to a high altitude. They soared to cruising altitude of 35,000 feet. Poe immediately falls asleep.

Twelve hours into the flight, Poe returned to his seat and buckled up because the fasten seat belt sign was on. The ride was getting increasingly bumpy. Poe looked out the window and saw that they were flying through thick grey clouds. BAM! Something exploded behind Poe. He turned around and saw that the rear of the plane had collapsed. They couldn’t see, but the vertical fin had separated from the tail. The plane jerked and violently shook. Overhead bins popped open and luggage spilled everywhere. Pressurized air escaped the plane. Wind whooshed through the passenger cabin of tornadic proportions. Luggage became airborne. Poe ducked and covered his head. A woman’s golden earring passed directly over his head, smacking into the window beside him. Oxygen masks immediately popped out. Poe, and everyone else, grabbed the masks and put it over their faces. Flight attendants made sure everyone, “Put on your oxygen masks and fasten your seat belt.”

Lights in the cockpit blinked. A loud alarm, the Master Warning, blared. Kris and Mike looked at each other, stunned. Fukuda looked perturbed.

Kris pointed out the obvious, “I think something exploded.”

“The gear door,” Mike immediately said. “It has to be the gear door.”

Fukuda missed the comment, “What?”

“Check the gears!”

Fukuda tried to determine if the main landing gear door failed. Nothing on his instruments indicated a failed door.

Kris immediately signaled an emergency on the transponder, squawk 77, and requested an emergency landing at Hosea Kutako Airport. “Kutako. Horizon Air 156, request immediate…trouble, request immediate landing.”

A Kutako Air Traffic Controller, Ash, responded, “Roger, approved as you requested.” He asked, “You want a right or left turn?”

“Right,” Kris said. “Right turn.”

“Alright. Right turn heading zero-nine-zero, radar vector to Kutako.”

An amber Master Warning light came on. All four hydraulic systems were depleting. The tail and part of the rear section of the plane ripped off, taking the hydraulic fluid with it. Fukuda stared at the rate in which the levels were dropping. He advised the pilots, “The hydro is d…” The plane took a steep nose dive. Screams filled the cabin. Poe closed his eyes and had a death grip on the seat before him. Kris and Mike pulled back on the controls to try and level the plane, but the plane was reacting sluggishly.

“Recover it,” Kris demanded.

Mike said, “It doesn’t work!”

The pulled with all their might and descended to 22,000 feet and managed to level the plane. The plane fell into an unusual phugoid and dutch-roll oscillatory cycle. In other words, the plane wiggled up and down while it wobbled side-to-side.

Ash asked the plane, “Horizon Air 156, confirm you declare an emergency, that’s right?”

“Affirmative,” Kris said.

“Roger,” Ash asked, “Request your nature of emergency.”

Kris and Mike did not respond. They were at tug-of-war with the plane to keep it steady. The plane was not responding.

“Hydraulics are all gone,” Fukuda said.

“Gone?”

“All gone, all gone.”

The loss of all hydraulic systems rendered the pilots unable to control direction and altitude through normal flight manipulations. They tried to steer and adjust by manipulating engine thrust. The pre-recorded emergency announcement continued to play throughout the cabin, as the pilots struggle to keep the plane leveled. They managed to prevent stalling.

People were vomiting everywhere. Some were knocked out due to lack of oxygen, or by severe trauma due to flying debris. The emergency oxygen for passengers, that usually lasted for fifteen minutes, started to run out. Flight attendants rushed throughout the cabin holding portable oxygen tanks and went on an impossible duty to distribute oxygen.

Julie, a flight attendant, rushed to the back to survey the damage. She called Fukuda and relayed the damaged. “The rear-most is damaged. The ceiling in the laboratories collapsed.”

Fukuda suggested, “How about putting the gears down?” They were going way too fast. They had to control the speed. “Gear down?”

Kris approved. The main landing gear opened and descended. This plunged them into a more severe oscillation cycle.

“Horizon Air 156, Kutako, if you read me INDENT please.” Kutako needed the flight to identify themselves for further help. But the control column started to shake violently and noisily, otherwise known as the stick-shaker. It was the unmistakable feeling and sound that the plane was about to stall. The plane was uncontrollably gaining altitude and losing speed. Mike and Kris reduced engine thrust to bring the nose down.

“Nose down! Watch it. It’s going to stall again!”

“I know. I know!”

The regular strategy of manipulating engine thrust was barely working. Mike asked Kris, “Should we extend flaps?” The flaps were controlled by electricity not hydraulics.

“It’s too early-early.”

Kris finally responded to the Controller, but said, “Horizon Air 156, uncontrollable.”

The vibrations in the cabin became more violent and terrifying as every moment passed. People grabbed anything they could write on and wrote their goodbyes. Others grabbed their children closely. Poe still had his eyes closed with a vice grip on the armrests. His life flashed before his eyes. He had a distant memory of snuggling in bed with his wife.

A flight attendant spoke over the intercom. “Those who accompany babies please…” the roaring plane and the screaming passengers drowned out most of what she said.

“Understood,” Ash acknowledged. “Would you like to contact…”

The oscillation cycle never ceased. They could no longer break it.

“It seems we couldn’t help it,” Kris glanced at Mike, with a doomed look on their faces.

The plane was flying at a meager 11,300 feet and began circling around the tall dunes of the Namibian desert. They tried to get the plane to turn right, but the plane refused. The plane made a slow left turn. The plane took a nose-down position and started to descend altitude at a rate of 18,000 feet per minute. Because of the extended flaps, the plane started to roll on its left at a sixty-degree angle.

“Flap up. Flap up. Flap up!”

“I’m retracting it,” Mike yelled back.

The pilots pushed the throttles to the maximum setting, the flaps retracted, but they were unable to level the plane. As the struggle continued, the plane flew around a sand dune once more and flew out over the ocean. The plane started to lose altitude faster and faster, descending towards the ocean floor.

The ground proximity warning system blared, “Sink rate.” Whoop-whoop. “PULL UP.” Whoop-whoop. “PULL UP.” Whoop-whoop. “PULL UP.” Whoop-Whoop. “PULL UP.”

The plane banked sharply to the left, at sixty degrees. A Halloween ornament, a plastic pumpkin, strikes Poe in the face as he tries to brace for impact. He glanced the window and noticed that the sky was actually the ocean. The plane rolled inverted as it descended at 300 miles per hour. Everything and everyone that was on the floor became the ceiling. BAM! The plane obliterates, nose first, on impact with the water. The fully loaded plane explodes, sending shrapnel debris in all directions. Passengers fly face first into the seats in front of them. Flight attendants who were not strapped to a seat flew through the air crashing into other people.

Sharp debris cut Poe out of his seat. He could barely see anything except through momentary sparks of exposed wires. He looked around and saw that there was a rift in the ceiling. He looked under his seat and grabbed a life-vest and pushed himself through the rift and got out of the drowning plane. He looked back and saw people struggling to get out. Some were waving their hands frantically, wanting his help. Poe gagged, water was getting into his lungs. He had no time to help. He swam as fast as he could and breached the surface. Poe pulled the cord on this life-vest and it automatically inflated. He looked around and a beach about a mile away.

He looked around and saw Harris struggling in the water, thrashing about panicking and yelling. The yelling forced water down his mouth and nose. Then he dipped underneath the surface.

His heart rate immediately dropped. The veins and arteries started closing to keep the oxygenated blood around the brain and organs instead of his extremities. Already, Harris started to feel the immense burning strain in his lungs. Carbon dioxide was increasing in his blood. Sensors in the brain signed the lungs to exhale.

Oxygen deprivation set in, turning the healthy red blood, blue. Harris started to panic, he flailed trying to get to the surface. The muscles in his arms and legs started to burn. Lactic acid was building. He managed to reach the surface, only to be pulled down by the suction of the sinking aircraft and inhaled an enormous amount of water. He gagged because his larynx goes into a spasm, as it reflexively closed to keep the water out of the lungs.

The surfactant, a protein coating that keeps the lung’s air sacs from deflating, eroded away by the water in his lungs. He struggled to stay conscious, but the effects of the drowning dimmed the electrical impulses in the brain.

Harris’s heart barely pumped blood and oxygen to his brain. His lungs and other organs ceased to function. The heart quivered into cardiac arrest. Brain death followed ash the electrical impulses stopped. His body descended deeper into the water, disappearing into the dark abyss of the Atlantic Ocean.

Two Oceanic Whitetip sharks circled around Harris’s floating corpse. They snatched at the arms and legs, which attracted even more sharks. After the carnage, Poe started panicking. A shark’s dorsal fin breached the surface ad was cruising up behind him. Nazir swam towards Poe’s direction.

“Shark, behind you!”

Poe swiveled around and saw the shark swimming towards him. He jabbed it in the eyes and kicked and punched the shark’s gills. Nazir threw an extra punch to the shark’s right eye. The shark jerked and retreated away.

Exhausted by the struggle, Poe was losing energy. His head dipped underwater. Nazir dove and grabbed Poe’s hand and pulled him up. The two swam for a mile towards the beach.

“Come on,” Nazir said, “keep up, don’t stop.”

Nazir swam behind Poe, occasionally pushing him to move along. Fifteen minutes later, they entered the surf. The high powerful waves picked them up and slammed them against the coral ridden floor. Another wave plopped them on the sandy shore. Poe looked up and saw a massive sand dune before him. He looked left and right and there was no one in sight. The two look out at the ocean and saw the tail of the plane slowly disappearing into the water.