Excerpt:
Chapter 9 from Novel Thy Angels Come:
Within days, another sighting occurred at night at around 27,000
feet up. The Boeing 757 had taken off from Tokyo with no problem, and so far, the
over-the-ocean trip was uneventful. With most of the passengers asleep,
Flight Attendant Judy Walsh thought to herself, ‘another boring flight ends,’ as they began the approach to the
International
Airport
at Los Angeles, commonly known as LAX. They were directed to land on Runway
14.
Suddenly, the jet dipped slightly, while
the starboard engine belched a burst of flame. The jumbo jet dipped more,
and pitched in the resultant turbulence from the explosion. Passengers
were jolted awake, and began screaming and yelling. The Captain came on
the PA system and addressed everyone, “We have a blown engine. Landing
is going to be rough. So, at this time fasten your seat belts and listen
carefully to the flight attendants’ instructions.”
Passengers were talking all at once.
Some were crying and praying. Towards the rear of the plane, a little
red-haired girl asked her mother, “Mommy, are we going to crash and die?”
“No, honey, now put this behind your head,” she replied, as she gave her daughter a pillow.
In the cockpit, Captain Colin Meeks looked every bit of his forty-three
years, and more. Flying was stressful.
It had eaten him up. He called the flight controller and told them
the truth. “This is Flight XT-345 out of Tokyo. We have just lost the starboard engine, and it seems the hydraulics are blown too. Get emergency crews ready. I am already having
trouble controlling the descent. This is going to be a mess. We are coming down, now!”
In the tower, the ground crew went into action, hitting the emergency buttons and alerting all ground personnel. “This is going to be bad!” barked Carl, the man in charge, as he
watched the control panels. Carl ran across the tower and bumped into a
chair, “Shit! Re-route all traffic immediately. Clear them a path!” “They’re
coming in too fast and too low!” shouted someone from the other side of the room.
Sirens could be heard in the distance. Carl snapped a look at the
radar screen.
Back on the plane, the crew realized the gravity of the situation. They did their jobs and quieted everyone down. Darla,
the flight attendant in first class, was serving drinks. “Don't worry this will be over in a few minutes,”
she assured the passengers. She didn't know how right she was - a full
crash was imminent. Shrapnel from the ripped engine had slashed through
the bottom interior of the plane and caused damage to hydraulics and linkage cables.
Without the hydraulics, the plane couldn't steer, nor could the landing gear be deployed without linkage.
They were all dead, and didn't know it. The resulting crash
would kill everyone on board as well as several people on the ground. The
plane was coming down sooner than expected. It wasn’t going to make
it to the airport, but it was too late to ditch it in the ocean.
In the cabin, Captain Meeks was doing all he could to make a very bad situation
less awful. He was pulling and pushing buttons and levers, and talking
franticly to the flight controller in the tower. “We are going down,” he shouted, “and may God help us!” Carl picked up the mike, “Colin, do what you can. We’re ready down here. God have mercy on
you all.” Carl signed off and dropped the mike. He had a tear in his eye.
All
the other staff in the control tower knew what he knew: the jumbo jet was doomed.
It was going to crash and there was nothing anyone could do down here.
The radar tech watched as the jet started to nose dive slightly on the console. “She's diving, Carl she’s
diving. My God, and there are children on the plane.” Everyone looked at the main console. There was
not a dry eye in the room. Some were crying outright, while even the most
hardened professionals had tears in their eyes.
On the jumbo jet, a six-year-old leukemia patient accompanied by her parents,
Su Min was coming here for treatment. They were flying in first class seats
donated by the airline. Su Min’s mother turned to her husband, Su
Min’s father, and said in Japanese, “What a tragedy this is, to come all this way to die.” He replied without emotion, “If this is what our karma is, then it is a good day to die.” They sat in silence and watched the Westerners decry their fate.
The jumbo jet started to nose dive.
Up in the cockpit, Captain Meeks swore and cried and prayed as he pulled back on the throttle, trying to keep the huge
plane level. The Co-Pilot was also pulling back hard. They had to at least keep the jumbo jet level. If
they got into the full dive, they were all dead for sure. If they could
keep it level, they might make it to the runway. Even when the plane broke
up, some of the souls on board might survive. They were straining hard,
both of them, pulling against the throttle, yet the plane slowly edged into the nosedive.
They were 8,000 feet from the ground now. Suddenly the plane shuddered and then it began to level off.
At once, there was no more tension on the throttle, and the terrible turbulence was gone. The pressure from the rudder and aileron were just gone.
Captain Meeks looked out the port window and realized that he had already died, because there, outside flew an Angel
in all its magnificence. He had Latin features and beautiful, shimmering
white-wings, fringed with a rich ruby red color on the top and along the tips.
“I've died and gone to heaven,” he said out loud.
The Co-Pilot looked up from the controls and swore as he too saw the Angel, “My God in Heaven! Is that …?” “Yes, I think it
is. Wait! You can see
it?” “Y-y-yes, I can,” stammered the Co-Pilot. The Angel, a beautiful thing to behold, was lifting the plane and smiling at them, its large face
just a few feet away from the glass. The Co-pilot turned around and there
on his side was another Angel! This one was female. She had black hair, a rich pink tint on her wings, and attractive oriental features. “Holy shit! Look at this one! At least we both went to heaven,” he said to the Pilot.
Captain Meeks looked past his Co-Pilot, and shook his head in disbelief.
Then they looked at one another. They slowly released the useless
throttles, which they’d had in a literal death grip just moments before, fighting with every ounce of their beings for
the lives of everyone on their plane. They watched in awe as the Angels
hoisted the plane to a level approach and guided it toward the airport runway.
Back in the control tower, an air traffic controller shouted, “Hey, Carl, look at this! I think the Captain has got her under control.”
Carl looked at the screen. He couldn't believe his eyes. It was true! There was the
plane, leveling-off. This was impossible!
He had never seen a plane come out of a dive like that once it started.
That Captain Meeks was some flying son-of-a-bitch. He was a real
hero, no matter how few survived the crash!
“Look! Here they come," a woman at the tower window said.
Positions temporarily forgotten, everyone ran to the window and looked out.
The Halogen floodlights, criss-crossing the runway from the red emergency light trucks that were strategically positioned
alongside the runway, turned the area into day. Flight XT-345 came into
view. Of the people in the tower, two screamed and one fainted. Two more, maybe three, swore and ran away from the windows to find places to hide. Someone screamed out loud for God’s mercy. The
woman in the blue uniform next to Carl dropped to her knees and started praying and praising God.
For there in front of them, coming in
for a safe and controlled landing, was a 757 jumbo jet being carried by an Angel on each side, one pink-tipped and one red-tipped
on their glimmering wings of white. As the unlikely, no, impossible spectacle
got closer, a third Angel, with rich, bright, sunshine yellow on its wing tops and tips came into the lights, holding up the
tail.
This was a jumbo jet, but the Angels handled it like it was an over-sized balloon.
This was un-fucking-believable! It was a miracle! It was too much for some, very too much for others. But
today all humans present in the tower and on the ground witnessed the coming of Angels to the Earth, carrying a doomed jumbo
jet to a soft perfect landing.
Now it was out. There’d be no more sarcastic quips now.