The Pilot
Sean Corey
Chapter One
Possession
Stealing the plane wasn't easy. It had not gone like clockwork. Flying it from
Seattle to the Cartel’s private airstrip in Virginia was becoming a bit problematic.
The kidnapped bird was straining my wits and testing my endurance from the
moment of takeoff from Boeing Field.
When the right engine blew a seal and smoke started billowed out of the engine
cover as I was climbing out heading South over Kent and Auburn I knew I was in
for a hard ride. I banked left, said goodbye to the Boeing tower and headed North
over Lake Washington to my first stop and a chance to gather my wits and plan
the rest of the trip. Flying North to Arlington Airport, near Bellingham, gaining
altitude at 200 knots as the sun was just slicing a few scant rays over the Cascades
I could see Arlington ahead covered in fog. Just the very end of the runway
threshhold was visible with the magnetic heading number just readable from
1000 ft AGL. I pushed the switch to lower the gear and I got one green light
out of the three. The nose gear had extended and locked but both main wheels
had not fully deployed. Obviously something was wrong with hydraulic pressure.
So, that's what happened at take off, I though to myself. A hydraulic pump seal
on the right engine had blown.
Now I was low on fuel and trying to land a stolen Cessna 402 with no landing
gear into a fog bank covering Arlington Airport. Nice. I was laughing to myself
at what the Seattle Times headlines would read. There would be no time for
self depredation. I might kick myself later but now I had to land this plane!
OK. First things first. I climbed up to a couple thousand feet and snap stalled
the plane a dozen times and attempted to force the gear to extend and lock.
No dice. Time was running out so I had to do something I really did not want
to do. I had no choice. I pulled the cable handle on the emergency gear extend
system which was a CO2 bottle full of compressed gas that blew into the
hydraulic system and ensured a landing on wheels instead of the lower fuselage
of the plane. Normally I do not sweat when under stress but I could feel a
liquid film start to accumulate on my forehead and wrists.
There was a loud bang and a thud that shook the plane as the gas forced the
gear into place.
Now that the gear was down and I had three greens and a plane that would
fly about half as fast with twice the fuel consumtion I had to land on an
airstrip almost completely covered in fog. Sweet! The Gods were apparently
pissed off.
I lined up on the tiny scrap of visible runway by my magnet heading and blasted
in at 95 knots into pea soup. I kept my eyes on the barely visible centerline and
as soon as the wheels touched asphalt I stood on the brakes. Somehow I landed
the plane. I can't fully explain how as there were no visible references to gauge
how it happened.
I taxied off the runway at the first curved reference indicating an exit and still
unable to see any buildings or parking areas I just followed the white line away
from the runway. Dimly the taxiway lights indicated a sign that simply read "fuel"
and I headed the Cessna in that general direction creeping along as I really didn't
want to clip anything and abruptly end this theft.
I pulled up next to the locked fuel pump looked at my watch 4 A M and just
leaned back and fell soundly asleep. It seemed like no time at all but I awoke
at 6 AM just as the manager drove his pickup to the door of Arlington Airport's
office. I exited the plane and with as little conversation as possible paid cash
for 100 gallons and topped off both wings tanks. When finished I got back in the
Cessna and nodded of again. It was now 9 AM and the fog had lifted from the
runways. I fired up the Motors and started on my journey East and South.
The second planned fuel stop in Pendleton, Oregon had taken longer than
expected. Flying East I was losing time with the sun. The farther away I got
from Seattle the better my chances were in keeping this prize and staying out of
prison. I was doubling down with quickly shrinking daylight and time. Within
the closing darkness I risked an unseen vengeance far more dangerous than
anything threatened by the authorities. Chaos hidden in the blackness could be
my immediate undoing. I was betting that I was prepared for anything. It was
beginning to look like a fool’s wager.
It was already dark over the northern Utah desert and I was on my second
day out of Boeing field. I was only a third of the way to safety and fulfilling a
non-negotiable rendezvous with Cory and Junior, my newest partners in crime. I
knew I was running out of time.
The drone of the turbocharged motor driven propellers was becoming
slightly irregular. The annoying sound was an uncomfortable reminder that this
pirated thoroughbred of an airplane was still fighting me en route to its new
vocation, international smuggling. The arrhythmic beat, although not dangerous,
was like the forced pounding of a boxer’s heart throbbing in the middle rounds as
he resolves to final push toward a clean flawless run of finishing punches. I
reached to the Cessna 402’s dash and adjusted the propeller synchronization
knobs until the motors sang together on the same powerful beating note.
For the last half an hour I had been at eight thousand feet as indicated on the
altimeter, around 1,000 feet above ground level (AGL). The details of the
Northern Utah high country showed in striking miniature clarity under the light of
a new moon. I could easily see the sage brush and pick out individual cattle
grazing out in the open range in the stark moon light. The soft white glow of Salt
Lake City was visible off to the South.
The temperature inside the cabin had been an acceptably uncomfortable 50
degrees as the plane’s heater was fighting a desperate battle with near zero outside
the aircraft. Although I had been flying on and off for over eighteen hours
straight since last sleeping. The frigid environment challenged my senses. They
were still crisp and sharp. I wish I could have said the same for my plane.
This theft had not gone exactly as planned. Flying an airplane, under the
best of conditions, has its intense moments, like taking off, avoiding other air
traffic and of course, landing. These points of extreme focus are separated by
more mundane activities like scanning the gauges, calculating course corrections
and thinking. There is usually plenty of opportunity to think ahead, and what has
transpired in the past. This trip had been a shitstorm of adversity with little time
for the usual flight maintenance and reflection.
I was already missing my girl Rhonda, whose help I depended upon to
steal the Cessna 402. This adventure was born of fits and starts. My mind
was working likewise scanning forward to my future work as a pilot for
the Cartel and back through the last several weeks’ activities that had led
to this opportunity. I slipped the ‘Stones’ into the cassette player and let
“Girl with the far away eyes” sing into my headphones.
Now 10:30 PM, I was airborne nearly a thousand air miles and safely
20 hours from this planes theft, on my own, and headed for future base of
operations in Virginia. Recent events had been continually creeping into
my thoughts. I must have lost some of my focus because; here now over
the Utah Mountains, I hadn’t noticed how quickly the range of visibility
was closing in on me. Still, I was not alarmed sufficiently to make a
navigational adjustment and drifted off again with my thoughts. The gods
must have still been angry over the rude acquisition of this fine bird.
I quickly snapped out of my reverie. Looking out of the windscreen, black
and gray had replaced what was left of visibility. “What the fuck?” I muttered out
loud. From what a few moments earlier had been relatively clear air was now
rapidly becoming a dangerous situation. I had seen the gathering of tall white
cumulus cloud formations to the south but figured I would just weave my way
through them towards my next scheduled stop in Loveland, Colorado. In the
darkness I hadn’t seen what was closing in fast behind me.
Then it happened
Without so much as the slightest of warnings I felt a massive motion
towards my left and in the violence of the moment I could briefly see the altimeter
spinning like a crazy clock displaying my acceleration in altitude. The powerful
updraft of the unseen thunderhead behind me was sucking my plane like a bubble
in a drinking straw. The blood was rushing from my brain. I must have blacked
out for a few seconds. It did not matter. In a micro burst of wind shear so violent
the airplanes control surfaces were useless. Like a drunk in a car crash I was
probably lucky to be summarily disconnected from control. If I had been able to
fight this assault I and my plane would have been lost.
Coming back to consciousness, all I could do was just hold on tight to the
yoke and try to make some sense of this wild ride towards the moon. Apparently
the deities were just joking because I was released from my vertical trajectory
almost as quickly as it they had devoured me and the plane. I was summarily
spat out of this thunderhead, like you would a watermelon seed, at approximately
28,000 feet and upside down. My plane and I had been lifted over 20,000 feet, to
an altitude well above breathable air. The whole wild ride happened in less than
20 seconds!
Now came the real test, a test far more critical than my ability to find and
steal an aircraft. Could I get out of this predicament and live to tell the tale?
Think fast. Be sure. Act now. My ears were painfully popping and strained
breathing was quickly becoming impossible. I was falling from the sky inverted.
The motors rpms were rapidly spiraling out of control. With a steady pull on the
yoke I got the nose down and then started to loop back towards level flight. I
dropped flaps and quickly set the mixture to full rich and adjusted the props to
maximum thrust. With the racing engine speed brought down I dug my foot into
the right rudder pedal started a controlled bank away from the clouds I had just
been ejected from. Almost as quickly as I was to disaster I had regained control
of the righted twin Cessna.
The plane had oxygen which I had not tested. I quickly felt for and turned
the lever on the valve, slid the plastic mask over my nose and was relieved to
breathe in the clean life supporting taste of cool pure oxygen.
I don’t want to complain but things weren’t exactly going as well as planned
at this point. I nosed the bird over and dove for the mountain tops beneath me.
As I sought out a patch of clear air at 12,000 feet to regroup in, I wondered out
loud “What fucking else can go wrong”. Checking my instruments for a
navigational correction, I discovered that my wild little unscheduled ride up the
elevator had also sucked me more than ten miles north of my previous position.
Snow was blowing all around me and lightning was leapfrogging horizontally
across the nearby cloud tops.
I had seen enough violent weather for a lifetime in the last few minutes. It
was time to set this bird down, check for damage and evaluate my chances of
completing this stolen journey.
I dug into my flight bag and grasped the familiar little plastic bound book.
Flipping on the red cabin night light I quickly thumbed to the Wyoming section.
It appeared, in my Western Flight and Airport Frequency Guide, that the closest
usable runway would be Rock Springs, Wyoming at around 7,600 feet above
mean sea level. I made a desperate dash for this high plateau refuge. It wasn’t
long before I was in the airport’s radio range.
Again I had to do some quick thinking. I took a chance that it was snowing
hard in Rock Springs and gave a false aircraft number identity contacting the
airport. At least for a short time the foul weather was going to be an advantage.
The tower informed me of a couple of inches of snow on the landing surface
with small blowing drifts. They advised I try to find a different place to land. I
replied I was low on fuel and would take my chances. They resisted but I insisted.
Seeing my landing lights approach they were good enough to turn on the runway
RAIL strobing lights. With a crosswind of twenty knots the runway was obscured
in a shallow sea of white tumbling flakes flowing from left to right. I stuck the
wheels hard, a strain on the gear, and landed relatively safely in white out
conditions. Fortunately the taxiways were well identified with bright blue
markers.
I taxied carefully and slowly off of the frozen blizzard obscured runway
towards a couple of planes tied down near the end of the tarmac. Passing them I
spun around 180 degrees and pulled my bird into the line. I couldn’t see the tower
through the heavy blowing snow which meant that they couldn’t see me either
and read my numbers. I shut down the plane’s motors and exhaled. It seemed my
first completely safe breath in what had felt more like combat than cross country
flying.
Reaching back, for the big blue nylon bag that secured my traveling
wardrobe, I fished for and felt the familiar down parka. I used it rock climbing,
for many years, weathering many Northern Cascade mountain storms and brought
it along just in case. Pulling it over my tired and cold torso I felt it’s warmth like
a good old trusted friend.
The faithful goose down did its magic against the icy air. I got out and
slipped the prop covers on the propellers to prevent ice from sticking to them in
the snowstorm. Too dark to do a proper inspection for storm damage, I returned
to the plane to crawl into the down sleeping bag I had brought with me for just the
possibility of cold weather and this occasion. I couldn’t measure the temperature
but I was sure it was below zero.
It was bitter cold now that the motors and therefore the heaters had
been shut off. The Rock Springs tower would close soon at midnight
and open up again at 7 AM. I would safe for a few hours. A sliver of
doubt was stealing into my thoughts as the cold was closing in around me
and throughout the cargo bay of the plane. I had to keep focused and
remember why I was doing this and the commitments I now could not
back out of.
* * *
It was too late for questions. The answers to those questions, that
were useless to ask, haunted my thoughts. Two months earlier I was
more confident. Two months earlier I met Cory, my new partner and
portal to the Cartel.
* * *
It was too cold to sleep. I was too tired not to. I started thinking
about the events that had led up to this icy interlude. As I surveyed the
snow blowing like swarms of crazy white bumblebees drifting across the
runway before me my thoughts and consciousness started drifting off with
them.
Sean Corey
Chapter One
Possession
Stealing the plane wasn't easy. It had not gone like clockwork. Flying it from
Seattle to the Cartel’s private airstrip in Virginia was becoming a bit problematic.
The kidnapped bird was straining my wits and testing my endurance from the
moment of takeoff from Boeing Field.
When the right engine blew a seal and smoke started billowed out of the engine
cover as I was climbing out heading South over Kent and Auburn I knew I was in
for a hard ride. I banked left, said goodbye to the Boeing tower and headed North
over Lake Washington to my first stop and a chance to gather my wits and plan
the rest of the trip. Flying North to Arlington Airport, near Bellingham, gaining
altitude at 200 knots as the sun was just slicing a few scant rays over the Cascades
I could see Arlington ahead covered in fog. Just the very end of the runway
threshhold was visible with the magnetic heading number just readable from
1000 ft AGL. I pushed the switch to lower the gear and I got one green light
out of the three. The nose gear had extended and locked but both main wheels
had not fully deployed. Obviously something was wrong with hydraulic pressure.
So, that's what happened at take off, I though to myself. A hydraulic pump seal
on the right engine had blown.
Now I was low on fuel and trying to land a stolen Cessna 402 with no landing
gear into a fog bank covering Arlington Airport. Nice. I was laughing to myself
at what the Seattle Times headlines would read. There would be no time for
self depredation. I might kick myself later but now I had to land this plane!
OK. First things first. I climbed up to a couple thousand feet and snap stalled
the plane a dozen times and attempted to force the gear to extend and lock.
No dice. Time was running out so I had to do something I really did not want
to do. I had no choice. I pulled the cable handle on the emergency gear extend
system which was a CO2 bottle full of compressed gas that blew into the
hydraulic system and ensured a landing on wheels instead of the lower fuselage
of the plane. Normally I do not sweat when under stress but I could feel a
liquid film start to accumulate on my forehead and wrists.
There was a loud bang and a thud that shook the plane as the gas forced the
gear into place.
Now that the gear was down and I had three greens and a plane that would
fly about half as fast with twice the fuel consumtion I had to land on an
airstrip almost completely covered in fog. Sweet! The Gods were apparently
pissed off.
I lined up on the tiny scrap of visible runway by my magnet heading and blasted
in at 95 knots into pea soup. I kept my eyes on the barely visible centerline and
as soon as the wheels touched asphalt I stood on the brakes. Somehow I landed
the plane. I can't fully explain how as there were no visible references to gauge
how it happened.
I taxied off the runway at the first curved reference indicating an exit and still
unable to see any buildings or parking areas I just followed the white line away
from the runway. Dimly the taxiway lights indicated a sign that simply read "fuel"
and I headed the Cessna in that general direction creeping along as I really didn't
want to clip anything and abruptly end this theft.
I pulled up next to the locked fuel pump looked at my watch 4 A M and just
leaned back and fell soundly asleep. It seemed like no time at all but I awoke
at 6 AM just as the manager drove his pickup to the door of Arlington Airport's
office. I exited the plane and with as little conversation as possible paid cash
for 100 gallons and topped off both wings tanks. When finished I got back in the
Cessna and nodded of again. It was now 9 AM and the fog had lifted from the
runways. I fired up the Motors and started on my journey East and South.
The second planned fuel stop in Pendleton, Oregon had taken longer than
expected. Flying East I was losing time with the sun. The farther away I got
from Seattle the better my chances were in keeping this prize and staying out of
prison. I was doubling down with quickly shrinking daylight and time. Within
the closing darkness I risked an unseen vengeance far more dangerous than
anything threatened by the authorities. Chaos hidden in the blackness could be
my immediate undoing. I was betting that I was prepared for anything. It was
beginning to look like a fool’s wager.
It was already dark over the northern Utah desert and I was on my second
day out of Boeing field. I was only a third of the way to safety and fulfilling a
non-negotiable rendezvous with Cory and Junior, my newest partners in crime. I
knew I was running out of time.
The drone of the turbocharged motor driven propellers was becoming
slightly irregular. The annoying sound was an uncomfortable reminder that this
pirated thoroughbred of an airplane was still fighting me en route to its new
vocation, international smuggling. The arrhythmic beat, although not dangerous,
was like the forced pounding of a boxer’s heart throbbing in the middle rounds as
he resolves to final push toward a clean flawless run of finishing punches. I
reached to the Cessna 402’s dash and adjusted the propeller synchronization
knobs until the motors sang together on the same powerful beating note.
For the last half an hour I had been at eight thousand feet as indicated on the
altimeter, around 1,000 feet above ground level (AGL). The details of the
Northern Utah high country showed in striking miniature clarity under the light of
a new moon. I could easily see the sage brush and pick out individual cattle
grazing out in the open range in the stark moon light. The soft white glow of Salt
Lake City was visible off to the South.
The temperature inside the cabin had been an acceptably uncomfortable 50
degrees as the plane’s heater was fighting a desperate battle with near zero outside
the aircraft. Although I had been flying on and off for over eighteen hours
straight since last sleeping. The frigid environment challenged my senses. They
were still crisp and sharp. I wish I could have said the same for my plane.
This theft had not gone exactly as planned. Flying an airplane, under the
best of conditions, has its intense moments, like taking off, avoiding other air
traffic and of course, landing. These points of extreme focus are separated by
more mundane activities like scanning the gauges, calculating course corrections
and thinking. There is usually plenty of opportunity to think ahead, and what has
transpired in the past. This trip had been a shitstorm of adversity with little time
for the usual flight maintenance and reflection.
I was already missing my girl Rhonda, whose help I depended upon to
steal the Cessna 402. This adventure was born of fits and starts. My mind
was working likewise scanning forward to my future work as a pilot for
the Cartel and back through the last several weeks’ activities that had led
to this opportunity. I slipped the ‘Stones’ into the cassette player and let
“Girl with the far away eyes” sing into my headphones.
Now 10:30 PM, I was airborne nearly a thousand air miles and safely
20 hours from this planes theft, on my own, and headed for future base of
operations in Virginia. Recent events had been continually creeping into
my thoughts. I must have lost some of my focus because; here now over
the Utah Mountains, I hadn’t noticed how quickly the range of visibility
was closing in on me. Still, I was not alarmed sufficiently to make a
navigational adjustment and drifted off again with my thoughts. The gods
must have still been angry over the rude acquisition of this fine bird.
I quickly snapped out of my reverie. Looking out of the windscreen, black
and gray had replaced what was left of visibility. “What the fuck?” I muttered out
loud. From what a few moments earlier had been relatively clear air was now
rapidly becoming a dangerous situation. I had seen the gathering of tall white
cumulus cloud formations to the south but figured I would just weave my way
through them towards my next scheduled stop in Loveland, Colorado. In the
darkness I hadn’t seen what was closing in fast behind me.
Then it happened
Without so much as the slightest of warnings I felt a massive motion
towards my left and in the violence of the moment I could briefly see the altimeter
spinning like a crazy clock displaying my acceleration in altitude. The powerful
updraft of the unseen thunderhead behind me was sucking my plane like a bubble
in a drinking straw. The blood was rushing from my brain. I must have blacked
out for a few seconds. It did not matter. In a micro burst of wind shear so violent
the airplanes control surfaces were useless. Like a drunk in a car crash I was
probably lucky to be summarily disconnected from control. If I had been able to
fight this assault I and my plane would have been lost.
Coming back to consciousness, all I could do was just hold on tight to the
yoke and try to make some sense of this wild ride towards the moon. Apparently
the deities were just joking because I was released from my vertical trajectory
almost as quickly as it they had devoured me and the plane. I was summarily
spat out of this thunderhead, like you would a watermelon seed, at approximately
28,000 feet and upside down. My plane and I had been lifted over 20,000 feet, to
an altitude well above breathable air. The whole wild ride happened in less than
20 seconds!
Now came the real test, a test far more critical than my ability to find and
steal an aircraft. Could I get out of this predicament and live to tell the tale?
Think fast. Be sure. Act now. My ears were painfully popping and strained
breathing was quickly becoming impossible. I was falling from the sky inverted.
The motors rpms were rapidly spiraling out of control. With a steady pull on the
yoke I got the nose down and then started to loop back towards level flight. I
dropped flaps and quickly set the mixture to full rich and adjusted the props to
maximum thrust. With the racing engine speed brought down I dug my foot into
the right rudder pedal started a controlled bank away from the clouds I had just
been ejected from. Almost as quickly as I was to disaster I had regained control
of the righted twin Cessna.
The plane had oxygen which I had not tested. I quickly felt for and turned
the lever on the valve, slid the plastic mask over my nose and was relieved to
breathe in the clean life supporting taste of cool pure oxygen.
I don’t want to complain but things weren’t exactly going as well as planned
at this point. I nosed the bird over and dove for the mountain tops beneath me.
As I sought out a patch of clear air at 12,000 feet to regroup in, I wondered out
loud “What fucking else can go wrong”. Checking my instruments for a
navigational correction, I discovered that my wild little unscheduled ride up the
elevator had also sucked me more than ten miles north of my previous position.
Snow was blowing all around me and lightning was leapfrogging horizontally
across the nearby cloud tops.
I had seen enough violent weather for a lifetime in the last few minutes. It
was time to set this bird down, check for damage and evaluate my chances of
completing this stolen journey.
I dug into my flight bag and grasped the familiar little plastic bound book.
Flipping on the red cabin night light I quickly thumbed to the Wyoming section.
It appeared, in my Western Flight and Airport Frequency Guide, that the closest
usable runway would be Rock Springs, Wyoming at around 7,600 feet above
mean sea level. I made a desperate dash for this high plateau refuge. It wasn’t
long before I was in the airport’s radio range.
Again I had to do some quick thinking. I took a chance that it was snowing
hard in Rock Springs and gave a false aircraft number identity contacting the
airport. At least for a short time the foul weather was going to be an advantage.
The tower informed me of a couple of inches of snow on the landing surface
with small blowing drifts. They advised I try to find a different place to land. I
replied I was low on fuel and would take my chances. They resisted but I insisted.
Seeing my landing lights approach they were good enough to turn on the runway
RAIL strobing lights. With a crosswind of twenty knots the runway was obscured
in a shallow sea of white tumbling flakes flowing from left to right. I stuck the
wheels hard, a strain on the gear, and landed relatively safely in white out
conditions. Fortunately the taxiways were well identified with bright blue
markers.
I taxied carefully and slowly off of the frozen blizzard obscured runway
towards a couple of planes tied down near the end of the tarmac. Passing them I
spun around 180 degrees and pulled my bird into the line. I couldn’t see the tower
through the heavy blowing snow which meant that they couldn’t see me either
and read my numbers. I shut down the plane’s motors and exhaled. It seemed my
first completely safe breath in what had felt more like combat than cross country
flying.
Reaching back, for the big blue nylon bag that secured my traveling
wardrobe, I fished for and felt the familiar down parka. I used it rock climbing,
for many years, weathering many Northern Cascade mountain storms and brought
it along just in case. Pulling it over my tired and cold torso I felt it’s warmth like
a good old trusted friend.
The faithful goose down did its magic against the icy air. I got out and
slipped the prop covers on the propellers to prevent ice from sticking to them in
the snowstorm. Too dark to do a proper inspection for storm damage, I returned
to the plane to crawl into the down sleeping bag I had brought with me for just the
possibility of cold weather and this occasion. I couldn’t measure the temperature
but I was sure it was below zero.
It was bitter cold now that the motors and therefore the heaters had
been shut off. The Rock Springs tower would close soon at midnight
and open up again at 7 AM. I would safe for a few hours. A sliver of
doubt was stealing into my thoughts as the cold was closing in around me
and throughout the cargo bay of the plane. I had to keep focused and
remember why I was doing this and the commitments I now could not
back out of.
* * *
It was too late for questions. The answers to those questions, that
were useless to ask, haunted my thoughts. Two months earlier I was
more confident. Two months earlier I met Cory, my new partner and
portal to the Cartel.
* * *
It was too cold to sleep. I was too tired not to. I started thinking
about the events that had led up to this icy interlude. As I surveyed the
snow blowing like swarms of crazy white bumblebees drifting across the
runway before me my thoughts and consciousness started drifting off with
them.
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