THE VILE FLIGHT

Captain Hayden propelled back and forth in the airplane, checking each seat with attentiveness. He heard sounds and looked through the window. The airport shuttle bus had just arrived! He went to crew rest compartments and primed the air hostesses to enter the passengers. And in just a few minutes, everyone was on board.

  The plane was supposed to start its flight from Sri Lanka to India at 8 pm, but some maintenance concerns delayed the flight by almost an hour. And this visibly resulted in turmoil with the flight attendants, pilots as well as passengers.

  The plane finally took off, and both Officer Darren and Nolan heaved a sigh of relief. The first half an hour of the flight was normal, but the plane was starting to experience turbulence, which made it difficult to serve dinner.

  Captain Hayden entered the flight deck and checked with Darren and Nolan if there was any serious problem with the plane. And as it turned out, there wasn’t a big issue and in a few minutes, the lights of the cabin were dimmed with everyone ready to have a peaceful sleep.

“We’ve received the permission to climb 36,000 feet,” Hayden said, entering the deck for the second time. “Increase the speed.”

  “Yes sir,” Officer Darren answered slowly pulling the throttle.  They’d been one hour into the journey with everyone in the mood of relaxing at midnight, but not the pilots, of course.

  Once the aircraft was at the height, a dreadful thing happened. One of the engines started to over speed in an exceedingly fast motion. Nolan, the second officer flying the plane, tried to handle it by slowing the plane down. 

  It didn’t work.

  With quick thinking, Captain Hayden cut off the oil supply for the engine completely. After a few seconds, the propeller of the first engine slowed down but kept turning slowly by the power of the wind.

  For a few minutes, this hurried incident didn’t affect the flight. But when the pilots started to feel comforted, the plane slowly started to loose valuable fuel and its speed started decreasing at an alarming pace.

  The plane was going way too slowly within a few seconds. And not only the pace, it was also decreasing in altitude at the rate of five hundred feet per minute!

  The three extant engines were straining to keep up the pace, despite them being on full throttle.  At least their functioning made the pilots seem positive. But just then, the inevitable occurred.

  The second engine was beginning to fail too! And within no time, Captain Hayden had to shut it down.

  Now the plane was only running on two engines, moving very, VERY slowly. The crew calculated the amount of fuel present, and they could do nothing but believe the fact.

  They didn’t have enough fuel to touch down in India! And neither could they turn back to Sri Lanka!

  Captain Hayden immediately sent an audio message to the Indian Coast Guard that there is an emergency with their flight. He knew that the coast guard was used to protect India’s maritime interests and enforce maritime law, but this was the only thing the Captain could do at that moment.

  A few minutes later, the ship arrived at the place. Officer Darren and Nolan leveled the plane at an altitude of 3000 feet, then flying the plane around in circles, they waited for daylight. They assumed it would be easier to rescue the passengers during the daytime.

  But the Captain’s decision to ditch the plane wasn’t an easy one at all. Controlling all the two-fifty passengers with two infants wasn’t a stress-free task.

  Captain Hayden also had a decision to make. Should I get rid of the fuel to make the plane lighter? he thought. But one thing was evident. He had to ditch into the ocean with two engines already lost.

  Hayden commanded both the officers to increase the height yet again, this time to make the plane lighter and decrease the chances of fire while crashing into the ocean.

  Out of the blue, he got another idea to prevent a bigger disaster. He requested all the passengers to come to the front, as sitting in the back increased the chances of injuries. Since the issue was understood by the passengers, the air attendants tried their best to calm them down. And finally, when all was set, all they could do was to land—but into the ocean!

  Captain Hayden notified the Coast Guard that they were ready to ditch. The plane descended its height and in a few seconds, it hit down into the ocean.     

  A minute had passed just floating on the top of the ocean. It was at this point when the absolute vilest instance occurred.  

  The back of the plane began to decrease its weight and the back totally broke off! And in a matter of seconds, the plane’s prow was in the water . . .

(To be continued…)

PART #2

There was water, water everywhere. Everyone started to fright, including the crew. After a minute, the plane slowly started to retreat back to above the water.

  The Indian Coast Guard had already lost hope of seeing the plane passengers alive, and they keep glaring at the alarming episode unfurling before their eyes. When they’d almost completely lost faith, the plane arched up.

  They rushed several rescue boats to the plane. But nobody thought anyone was alive inside, no one could possibly survive such a crash. However, they were exceptionally off-base. Everybody on the aircraft was alive, and even strangely, only a couple of them had minor wounds.

  Everyone on board was taken off in a few minutes. Exactly at 3 a.m., the plane vanished into the waves of the water.

  By that time, every passenger was in the safety of the coast guard cutter and made it to India some days later.

This story is inspired by a real incident that occurred on October 16, 1956. The flight’s name was Pan Am Flight 6, and it was the first aircraft that succeeded to ditch into the ocean with keeping everyone on board secure. Later after the incident, all the crew members got awards for tackling the emergency.

External links- Wikipedia

Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of my imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental. || Contents of this story should not be reproduced in any manner without permission.