Chapter 7: Out of Thin Air

It was a routine private flight from Dallas to Sun Valley, Idaho, just before Christmas. A small Citation jet was carrying the wife and two children of a food company executive to their ski lodge in the mountains. The plane had leveled off at 40,000 feet, and the ride was smooth. The woman and her two kids were sitting in the tiny passenger cabin, preoccupied with their Christmas plans. There was only one pilot, a veteran of many years of flying, sitting on the left side of the very tight cockpit. There wasn't much for him to do, since the plane was on autopilot. This was just as well, seeing as the man was dead.

No one noticed it until the older of the two children, a 9-year-old boy, went up to the cockpit to ask if he could sit in the empty co-pilot's seat. He came back to the cabin to report that the pilot was asleep.

"That's not good!" said the mom. She set down the toddler from her lap and went up front to investigate.

Indeed, the pilot wasn't moving. He was sitting there with his headphones on, his head bent back and his mouth wide open.

"Hello!" said the woman loudly. She tried to remember his name but couldn't. "Is everything alright?"

She looked out the cockpit window. It was daytime, but she couldn't see any land. There was only a perfect blue sky and an endless sea of clouds far below.

She poked the pilot on the shoulder, but he didn't respond, then she grabbed his shoulder and shook harder. Nothing.

"Oh my God!" she said. She slapped him gently on his cheek, then she slapped harder. His skin was cold to the touch. She felt his neck for a pulse but couldn't find any.

The pilot's head fell forward onto his chest.

"Oh My God! Oh My God! I think he's dead!"

Her son was right behind her, and her 3-year-old daughter was standing there, too. The toddler picked up on her mom's vibes and started to cry.

"Really?" said the son. "Can I see?"

The mom stepped aside to let her son conduct his own investigation. As she comforted the baby, he flicked the pilot on the side of the face with his finger, really hard. There was no response. He held his hand in front of the man's mouth and nose but felt no breath. He poked, pinched and prodded but got no reaction.

"He must have had a heart attack or something," said the boy.

"What are we going to do?" said the mom. "We can't land a jet plane!"

They both looked at the dizzying array of dials, read-outs, lights and switches in front of them. It was mind boggling! Her only experience with planes was riding in them. She couldn't even drive a stick shift!

"Maybe I can," said the boy. "I've played Flight Simulator on the computer."

"Oh, great!" said the mom. "Have you actually landed in Flight Simulator?"

"Once. Mostly I crash, though."

"My God!" said the mom. "We're going to die!"

"Mom! Don't you have any faith in me?"

He climbed into the co-pilot's seat on the right. "Look, here's the steering wheel," he said, pointing to the yoke, which looked like two video game controllers on a stick. "We can turn right or left, and if we push the steering wheel forward, I think we'll go up and down."

Just then, the steering wheel turned a little, all by itself, startling both of them. "It must be on autopilot," said the boy. "We're okay if we don't touch anything."

"We have to call somebody," said the mom.

She went back to the cabin to find her cell phone. She turned it on and waited, but there was no signal. They were either too high or the metal of the plane was blocking the radio waves.

"We'll have to use the radio," she said.

She went back to the dead man, who was still wearing his headphones. There was an attached microphone extending in front of his mouth. Very carefully, the woman removed the headphones from the pilot's head.

"Let me sit there," she said to the boy. He got out of the co-pilot's seat, and she carefully squeezed herself in. Then she put on the pilot's headphones.

Inside the headphones, there was only silence. It was a deep, profound silence that the aircraft noise hardly intruded into.

"Help us!" she said tentatively into the microphone. She expected to hear her own voice in the headphones but didn't. "We're on a jet and the pilot is dead!"

There was no response. Deep silence.

Then a voice broke through: "Delta 239, descend and maintain flight level 320. Fly heading 270."

"Help! Help!" said the woman, frantically.

"You say 'Mayday!'" said the boy.

"Mayday! Mayday!" she said.

Another voice responded calmly: "Descend to flight level 320, heading 270, Delta 239."

She pulled the left headphone away from her ear. "They can't hear me," she said to the boy.

"There must be a transmit button," he replied. "You probably have to press it before the microphone works."

But where was it? There were no buttons on the headphones or the microphone, but there were five or six of them on the yoke and hundreds of them on the console. Which was the right one? They didn't want to press the wrong button and turn something critical off.

The woman thought to herself: Where would the pilot want the transmit button to be? Probably on the steering wheel! Cautiously, the woman pressed each of the buttons on the yoke in front of her. She said "Mayday!" after each one. One of the buttons caused a buzzer to sound, but none of them triggered any change in the headphones. There was only silence.

"It's no use," she said.

Inside the quiet cocoon of the headphones, the woman began to think more clearly. She could faintly hear her daughter crying, but she chose to ignore it. She went into problem solving mode and started taking an inventory of the situation in front of her.

They seemed to be safe for the moment. If the autopilot was engaged, they would probably keep flying straight and level until the fuel ran out. She couldn't find any obvious fuel gauge, but they were about halfway through a three-hour flight, so she assumed they had an hour and a half of fuel left. At least that gave her some time to think things though.

"Ben," she said to her son, "would you go back and comfort Sofie."

Her tone of voice told Ben to comply, leaving her alone in the cockpit.

She knew there was no way Ben could fly the plane, no matter how good he was at video games. There were too many complicated controls, and he couldn't even reach them all. She could try flying the plane herself, but only if someone on the ground told her exactly what to do. That hope was lost if she couldn't work the radio.

No matter how she added it up, they were doomed. It was a very peculiar feeling, totally quiet and unreal. It wasn't like a truck bearing down on you, but a slow, casual doom, taking its sweet time getting here. In an hour and a half the plane would run out of fuel and start falling to earth. She could take the controls and try to bring the plane down herself, but that would only make the end happen faster.

This is how it must have felt on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg! She had read the books and seen the movies, and now she was living the story. The ship was going down, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Her thoughts turned from the plane to the things she had control over. She thought about making her children comfortable. She had to be strong for them. Maybe she could make up a story about the Air Force coming to rescue them. The important thing was to keep them calm, keep them occupied, make their last moments as stress-free as possible. She wasn't sure whether she could do this, because they were bound to read her distress and figure out they were going to die.

It was actually quite peaceful up there in the cockpit, embraced by the headphones. Sofie wasn't crying, so Ben must be doing something right. There were worse ways to die. At least it would be fast when it came. No one would suffer.

She was not a religious person, but impending death has a way of bringing out the faith in people. Sitting in the cockpit, in that silent womb, she set aside planning and logic and deliberately fell back on the irrational.

She began to pray.

"Oh Heavenly Father," she said to herself, trying to remember the prayers of her childhood, "Could you just help us through this? I don't want my children to die this way. Take me if you must, but please save them. Please, oh God, tell me what to do!"

Then someone tapped her on the shoulder. She looked up and screamed!

She ripped the headphones off her head.

"Where did you come from?"

It was a man, a middle-aged guy casually dressed in Bermuda shorts and a faded Hawaiian shirt.

"Need some help?" he asked.

"Yes, yes, yes! The pilot is dead. But who are you? How did you get here?"

I was hiding in the back," he said. "I'm sorry to scare you."

"What do you mean, 'in the back'? There is no back! There's just a restroom.

"Luggage compartment," he said, shrugging it off. "Don't worry about it. Would you like me to help you with the plane?"

"Well, yeah, do you know how to fly this thing?"

"I can give it a shot," he said.

"Here, please try!" she said. She jumped out of the co-pilot's seat so the man could sit there.

He was calm as could be. He fitted himself into the narrow seat. He studied the gauges for a moment then started expertly flipping switches and turning knobs."

"Oh, thank you, thank you!" said the woman. "I don't know what you're doing on this plane, but thank God you're here!"

"Don't thank me yet," he said.

"I tried the radio but I couldn't get it to work. I think the transmit button is one of these," she said, pointing to the buttons on the yoke, "but I tried them all and nothing happened."

"That's because you were using the pilot's headphones. These are the co-pilot's controls."

"Oh, wow! I would have died not knowing that. At least now we can call the air traffic controllers to tell them we're in trouble."

"No," said the man. "No radio."

She was startled. "Why not?"

"Because I'm not supposed to be here."

"Well, I can talk on the radio then. I don't have to mention you at all."

"No radio," said the man, firmly.

"Okay, that's fine," she said, backing away. "If you know how to fly this plane, I'll do anything you want. I can keep quiet, too. I don't care what kind of fugitive you are. If you get us out of this alive, I'll do anything for you. We can pay you. My husband and I have a lot of money. No one needs to know."

"Don't worry about it," said the man. "Why don't you go back and sit down."

"I can do that, sure, I'll sit down. Whatever you want. Thank you again. You saved our lives!"

"Don't thank me yet," the man repeated.

The woman went back to the cabin, where the kids looked just as confused as she was. The man reached behind him and closed the curtain between the cabin and the cockpit, so they couldn't see him any more.

"Where did he come from?" she asked Ben.

"He came out of the bathroom," said the boy.

"That's weird, because I used it at the beginning of the flight. There was no one there. There was no place for anyone to hide, either."

Indeed, it was a very small plane. The main cabin was a tube barely 5 feet in diameter with only 5 seats. There was a tiny lavatory in the back, and their luggage was stacked in an adjoining rack. The woman wasn't sure if there was another luggage compartment behind the lavatory, one that was accessed from the outside. Maybe there was a hidden door between the two. Anyway, it didn't matter. A few minutes ago, they had no chance of surviving, and now their prospects were considerably better. Whoever this man was, he seemed to know how to fly a plane.

She felt the plane pitch forward slightly as it started its descent. It was a reassuring feeling, just like she had experienced many times before. The woman laughed and cried at the same time. She hugged her children. "We're going to be okay!"

"Where are we going to land?" asked the boy.

"I don't know," said the woman. "I don't care. As long as we get back on solid ground I'll take anywhere at all! We'll call Daddy and figure it out from there."

But the woman began to wonder. Would they land at Sun Valley or someplace else? Would the man take them to Mexico or land at some obscure airstrip so he could run away?

Outside the windows, the sea of clouds got closer and closer until the plane dived into them. The view went blank and the ride got rough. Did the man know how to fly a plane in clouds? Could he navigate? The woman's joy at being rescued was gradually being replaced by a dread of what would happen next.

At last, she could take it no longer. She crept up to the front, cautiously opened the curtains and poked her head inside the cockpit.

"Excuse me, sir," she said. "Could you possibly tell us where we are going to land?"

"Colorado," he said, without looking at her.

Outside the cockpit window, she could see they were breaking out of the clouds. Below them now was solid land, startlingly close. She could see the man was probably right: It was a flat urban landscape backed by snow-covered mountains. It looked like the Denver area.

"Can you tell me what airport? Denver? Boulder?

"Just trust me," said the man.

"Okay, I trust you," said the woman, even though she didn't. "Can you at least tell me if this will be a rough landing or a smooth one, so I can prepare my children?"

"Smooth landing," said the man. "You won't feel a thing."

"Oh, okay," said the woman, suddenly feeling not okay at all.

The man turned and looked at her. "I think you should go back and be with your children," he said.

"If it's okay with you, I'd like to stay here," she said. "We're approaching the ground awefully fast. Are you sure you know how to land this thing?"

"Would you like to take the controls?"

"No, anything you do is better than what I can do. I just want to know more about you. Who are you? How did you get on this plane?"

"I was hiding here all along. I'm a stowaway."

"And how did the pilot die? Did you poison him?"

"He died of a heart attack. I didn't do it. Nobody did. Things like this just happen."

"Are you planning to land this plane at all, or are you going to crash it into something? Are you some kind of terrorist?"

"I'm not a terrorist. I'm trying to look out for everyone."

The ground got closer and closer. She was very afraid, now. This wasn't a normal airport approach.

"Are we going to be okay?"

"Everyone's going to be okay. I think you should go back and be with your children."

His voice was calm and reassuring, but the view out the windshield was anything but. They were diving toward the ground!

"No, no, something's wrong here! You aren't a pilot. You don't belong here. I don't think you want to save us."

"Listen," said the man. "You were going to die anyway. If it is going to happen, you might as well put your death to good use."

"What are you talking about? If we die, you're going to die, too! Please, please, just set us down on a normal runway. I'll pay you anything you want."

"Don't worry about it," said the man. "Just relax. You won't feel anything."

Commercial buildings filled the cockpit window: an office park, a shopping mall, approaching fast! She reached for the control yoke, but he pushed her away.

"Please don't!" she pleaded.

"I'm sorry about this," said the man. "I really am."

There was nothing she could do. The woman screamed, and that was the end.

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