Chapter 5 - The Edge of the Envelope
The aircraft was violently violently hit from below by an invisible wall of air.
The airspeed indicator plummeted from 150 knots to 122 knots in a fraction of a second—dangerously close to stall speed. The nose pitched up sharply, and the stall warning shaker began to rattle the control yoke in Emma's hands with a violent, terrifying vibration.
DRRRRRR! DRRRRRR!
"Autopilot disengaged!" Emma screamed, pushing the thrust levers forward to the firewalls with all her strength. "Going to maximum thrust!"
The two CFM56 turbofan engines roared with a deafening, metallic howl as thousands of pounds of jet fuel were dumped into the combustion chambers.
"Push the nose down, Emma!" Michael shouted over the radio, his voice breaking through the chaotic cockpit noise. "Don't pull back! Pitch down to break the stall! Trust the speed!"
Every human instinct inside Emma screamed at her to pull back on the controls to avoid hitting the ground. But her father’s training took over. She lowered the nose into the gray abyss, forcing the aircraft to dive slightly to gain precious airspeed.
The airspeed tape began to creep upward: 130 knots... 140 knots... 150 knots.
The stall shaker stopped vibrating.
"Airspeed recovered!" Emma gasped, her lungs heaving. "We are at seven hundred feet! Still in solid IMC!"
"Can you see the lights?" Marcus from Denver Center shouted through the headset. "Four-Seventeen, you are two miles from the threshold! Ceiling is six hundred feet!"
Emma leaned forward, her eyes darting between the artificial horizon on her screens and the pitch-black fog out the windshield.
600 feet.
500 feet.
“MINIMUMS! APPROACH MINIMUMS!” the automated radio altimeter called out.
"I don't have the runway!" Emma called out, her heart dropping. "I don't see the lights! Requesting go-around procedure—"
"LOOK DOWN!" Sarah shouted from the cockpit door, pointing frantically through the rain-streaked glass.
Through a sudden, temporary tear in the thick cloud deck, a grid of bright, brilliant white and green runway threshold lights appeared through the mist directly off the nose.
Runway 35 Left.
It was right there.
"Visual contact!" Emma yelled into her mask. "I have the runway! Disengaging autothrottle! Flying manual landing!"
She clicked the autothrottle disconnect button on the thrust levers, taking full physical control of both the engines and the flight controls.
The aircraft was being shoved sideways by a intense 30-knot crosswind from the left. The nose of the plane was pointed twenty degrees off to the left just to keep the flight path aligned with the centerline of the runway.
"Kick the rudder right at ten feet, Em!" Michael’s voice echoed in her ears. "Keep the nose straight, roll left wing low into the wind! Hold her off... hold her off..."
50 feet.
40 feet.
30 feet.
20 feet.
Emma stomped on the right rudder pedal with her right foot. The heavy tail of the aircraft swung around, aligning the fuselage perfectly with the runway centerline. Simultaneously, she dipped the left wing slightly down into the gusting wind to keep from drifting off the pavement.
10 feet.
She pulled the thrust levers all the way back to IDLE.
THUD-CLACK!
The left main landing gear slammed onto the wet concrete of Runway 35 Left, sending a massive spray of water thirty feet into the air. A second later, the right main gear touched down with a heavy, shuddering thud, followed by the nose gear settling onto the centerline.
"TOUCHDOWN!" Emma yelled.
She immediately grabbed the reverse thrust levers, pulling them up and back into maximum reverse.
The engine cowlings opened, directing thousands of pounds of thrust forward to slow the speed.
ROAAAAAAAAR!
She stomped on the tops of the rudder pedals, engaging the wheel brakes with maximum pressure.
The sixty-ton aircraft rapidly decelerated down the wet, slippery runway: 100 knots... 70 knots... 40 knots... 20 knots.
The Boeing 737 turned gently off the runway onto Taxiway November, coming to a complete stop.
Emma set the parking brake.
She pulled off her oxygen mask, letting it fall against her chest.
The cockpit fell dead quiet, except for the quiet, rhythmic humming of the cooling fans.
Silence filled the radio frequency.
May you like
Then, Marcus’s voice broke through the headset, thick with emotion.
"Northstar Four-Seventeen... welcome to Denver. Outstanding landing, pilot. Absolutely outstanding."
