Author's Note 1: I'm sorry if the first chapters will sound nerdy or geeky… I couldn't help it… ;P But I hope it still makes for good reading. Enjoy! :3
Author's Note 2: By the way, to make things more fun, I kinda made a photo reference blog post on my Tumblr, which you can access in the link below (just replace the dash between btrandkittens, tumblr and com with periods, coz FF keeps removing those parts :3)
btrandkittens-tumblr-com/post/99339042127/photo-references-for-terror-and-truth-in-the-sky-kogan
Terror and Truth in the Sky
Part 1
Kendall wakes up at the sound of his alarm clock. 4am. He groans as he drags himself out of bed in his tank top and sweatpants and heads to the bathroom to take a shower. He then goes downstairs to fix himself a quick breakfast of coffee, buttered toast and pop tarts. As he finishes his breakfast, he heads back up to his bedroom to brush his teeth and change into his work uniform. Afterwards, he texts his best friend.
"Hey, Logie! You ready? Pick u up at 5:30am."
After one minute, his iPhone, on silent mode, buzzes.
"Yup, Ken, almost. Just finished breakfast. Will be brushing and changing in a bit. Take care buddy!"
At 5:25am, Kendall steps into his BMW. He puts his bag in the trunk and sits inside the car. He starts it up and backs out of his garage to proceed to Logan's house to fetch him for work.
At exactly 5:30am, Kendall sees Logan standing at the sidewalk in front of his house. He stops beside him, and opens the trunk so Logan can put his bag in there. Logan then opens the front passenger door and greets his best friend.
"Hey buddy! 'Sup? Ready for Honolulu?" Logan asks cheerily as he high-fives his best friend, followed by their usual hard grip handshake.
"Of course, Logie! Can't wait to relax during the layover. Let's drink 'til we're drunk as a skunk," Kendall says with a laugh.
"Oh heck yeah!" Logan says with a smile as Kendall gently steps on the accelerator pedal so that they could be on their way to work.
Kendall and Logan, long-time bestfriends since childhood, are both pilots for Hawk Air, one of the US airlines that serve Los Angeles and Honolulu. Kendall is a Captain, as evident on the epaulet on his pilot uniform's shoulders. He has four bars on them, together with his dark blue coat which has four gold lines on the cuff, clearly showing he is a captain. Logan, on the other hand, is a First Officer with three bars on his shoulder epaulet, and with the same three bars on the cuff of his pilot coat. The reason is that Logan started his aviation course a year later than Kendall, so Kendall had more seniority and hence was promoted earlier as captain. However, Logan will also be promoted as captain after 1 more year. It could mean that he and his bestfriend may no longer be flying together in the same cockpit, since they will be captains for separate flights. However, there will be flights when two captains are on the same cockpit, and Logan is still looking forward to flying with his best friend on the same cockpit during those two-captain flights.
They finally arrive at their airline's Operations Centre at around 6:00am, after their discussions of where to drink, what to drink and which beach to hang out at when they arrive at Honolulu. They are then given their usual documents, forms and briefings regarding their flight. They will be piloting one of Hawk Air's Airbus A330 aircraft, a jet plane made by the European company Airbus, which will accommodate approximately 350 passengers in their company's configuration of business class and economy class seats. Kendall and Logan have logged in tens of thousands of flight hours on the A330, so this flight will be the usual cinch for them. They then proceed to one of the building's meeting rooms to discuss their flight plans with the cabin crew, and by 6:25am, they are bussed into the LAX airport compound to be dropped off near the aircraft, which is scheduled to depart at 8:00am.
As Kendall and Logan board the aircraft and activate the other systems that have not yet been activated by the maintenance crew, they settle in their cockpit seats and check their respective maintenance manuals to see if there were repairs made or any malfunctions that they will need to adjust to. So far, both their manuals have no revisions or issue logs at all. "Looks like everything's clean," Kendall tells his co-pilot and his best friend. "Yup, c'mon dude let's do the external check. I mean, let's do the external check, captain, sir!" Logan says with a grin. "Oh stop it, Logie", his bestfriend captain says as he chuckles. And so they leave the aircraft via the jetbridge, but open a side door and go downstairs so that they can begin their external check of the A330 they would be flying for today. As they complete their walkaround, they see no problems with the engines, the wings, the flaps, the stabilizers, the tail, the landing gears and the underside of the fuselage. They also double check if the sensors that stick out of the aircraft are free from dirt and other materials that can clog them. If they fly with those sensors clogged, they run the risk of incorrect flight information which may lead to a crash. The sensors check out okay. They also see that the fuel truck, also owned by Hawk Air, is almost done with filling the aircraft with fuel for the long flight.
Unbeknownst to the two pilots and to the rest of the pilots and flight attendants of the company, Hawk Air upper management has ordered the maintenance department to skimp on maintenance costs, due to pressure from their majority owner, George Hawk, and the rest of the shareholders who want more profits at all costs. Furthermore, they ordered the maintenance department to keep their mouths shut about the illegal procedures, and anybody who squeals on them will be dealt with severely. As a result, all maintenance logbooks have been falsified as 'all clear', and all aircraft, including Kendall and Logan's A330, are actually already in bad need of maintenance. The exterior of the aircraft, including the engines and wings, look okay, but the internal components tell a different story.
They return to the aircraft and prepare the rest of the cockpit preparation procedures. As all the necessary systems have been activated, Kendall calls the cabin crew's intercom to tell them that the aircraft is ready and they can commence boarding once the boarding call is made.
Once boarding is completed, and the LAX terminal jetbridge is detached from the Airbus, Captain Kendall Knight and First Officer Logan Mitchell complete their pre-pushback checklists. F/O Mitchell is the one reading out the checklist "challenges" or questions, and Capt. Knight is the one who looks at the mentioned switch or panel and checks if the setting complies with what their checklist requires. After completing that checklist, they radio the ground crew to begin pushback of their plane to their engine startup area. They then go through the "before-start checklist" to make sure everything is in correct setting before they start the engines. And as they complete the before-start checklist, Capt. Knight turns the crank switch to "Start" and flips the fuel pump switches (the switch that basically allows the engines to completely start up and shut down), with Engine 2's (right side) fuel pump switch being flipped on first before Engine 1's (left side). Capt. Kendall notices that he felt some sort of mild electrical ground when he flipped each switch from Off to On, but as he looked at the various indicators in front of him, everything looks normal. He then just dismisses it as static electricity from his hand. As Capt. Kendall and F/O Logan confirm that both engines are running and stabilized, they radio the ground crew to disconnect their tug from the aircraft. As the ground crew vacates the area, both Capt. Kendall and F/O Logan wave goodbye at them. The captain elects to be the one to control the aircraft during taxi, and the first officer will be the one to fly the aircraft until cruise level.
After a lengthy ground delay because of the morning rush of jets taking off and landing, Capt. Kendall and F/O Logan finally are able to position their aircraft at one of LAX's runways, runway 7L, for takeoff. They have performed the necessary fuel calculations and takeoff parameters to make sure their takeoff is safe, and if an emergency arises, they can abort the takeoff safely. When the control tower gives them the approval for takeoff, Capt. Kendall announces, "Logie, you have controls, I have communications," to which F/O Logan replies "Roger, Kindle. I have controls, you have communications." Kendall then softens his grip on his side's control joystick, while Logan grasps his own control joystick tightly, since he's the one in charge of the takeoff.
As per their company's policy, both pilots should have both their hands on the engine thrust lever during the first 100 knots speed of their takeoff run, ironically, for additional safety purposes. Kendall and Logan have no problem with that, since they're best friends and they've been doing this for years now. Capt. Kendall then puts his right hand on the black thrust levers, followed by F/O Logan's hand on top of his hand. The captain announces "takeoff", and the first officer acknowledges with "takeoff" as well, and they both move the engine thrust levers from idle to the set takeoff position.
As the jet's engines roar into life to push the aircraft along the runway, the aircraft finally begins to accelerate. When their speed indicator shows 100 knots, Capt. Kendall announces "100 knots", and F/O Logan releases his hand from Kendall's at the thrust lever. Their company policy then requires that only the captain should be controlling the engine thrust from 100 knots to takeoff speed. The captain is the one solely responsible whether to proceed with a takeoff or abort it if problems are noticed. In their case, all their display screens show no problem. The aircraft then announces through loudspeakers "V1", which meant that it is the point of no return, that the aircraft is too fast for the takeoff to be aborted; if they abort the takeoff past V1 speed, they will overshoot the runway. And after the captain hears the computer announce V1, he releases his hold on the thrust levers and puts his right hand back on his knee. Capt. Kendall then announces to F/O Logan, "Rotate!", to signal Logan that he can make the aircraft fly now. Logan pulls back on his control joystick, and the large aircraft slowly points upward and leaves the runway. Kendall continues the necessary announcements: "Positive climb rate" (the aircraft is climbing properly), to which Logan announces "Landing gear up", and Kendall responds with reaching over the landing gear control lever and lifts it up to make their jet's landing gears go up. When the landing gear indications change from red to green, Kendall announces "Landing gear up!" Their aircraft now gently continues its climb, with Logan still controlling the plane manually, and Kendall communicating with the various control centres that guarantee their safe flight. Logan then reaches out and presses a button at the middle of the glareshield (something like a car's dashboard) called AP2, which was Autopilot #2. The autopilot engages, and Logan relaxes a bit.
When they reach 10,000 feet, they unbuckle their seat belts, release their grip on their control joysticks and lift their feet off their rudder pedals. The A330 is now fully automatic as it continues with the designated target altitude, speed and route. Capt. Kendall then flips the cabin seatbelt sign to Off, which means the cabin crew can now proceed with their meal service.
A cabin crew member calls them via intercom to ask what meal would they like to have: beef or fish. Kendall then asks Logan, but Logan tells him to choose first, but Kendall wants his best friend to choose first, so they decide to play rock, paper and scissors, and whoever loses gets the fish. And so they start their silly game while the cabin crew member is listening and laughing. Logan loses, so he gets the fish. Kendall's first officer pouts a little, then Kendall offers to take the fish instead. Logan then laughs and saying he's just kidding. He's in the mood for fish anyway, the brunette says. Almost all airlines in the world require pilots to eat different meals, so that when one gets sick from the dish (such as stale fish or rotten vegetable in the food made by their caterer), the other one will not be affected, so there's only one incapacitated pilot. In Kendall and Logan's case, both their food did not smell funny. Kendall got steak, and Logan got salmon fillet as their inflight meal. They pull out the built-in desk from under the display screens and place their food tray on it. They also put their Cokes there. After one more scan of the instruments, and seeing that everything is 100% okay as their jet finally reaches their target altitude of 35,000 feet, Kendall and Logan begin eating and chatting while still occasionally glancing at the screens just to be sure.
After they finish their meals, one of the cabin crew retrieves them, and they continue monitoring their systems to see if everything is okay, and everything still seems fine. And they relax a bit as they continue to chat about more stuff, such as Kendall getting another BMW hybrid, and Logan replacing his Mercedes-Benz C-class with an S-class.
Then, suddenly, the six display screens, the backlight from the control buttons and the lights around them flicker continuously. The aircraft then shudders. When the center displays stopped flickering, Kendall and Logan both look at them. Logan announces "Engine 2 flameout!" as he sees the indicators of that engine go down to zero, which meant that Engine 2 had completely shut down. Kendall announces, "I have control!" and grips his control joystick but lets the Autopilot continue flying the plane as they figure out what's wrong with Engine 2. They can still fly with one engine anyway, but they must turn back and land at LAX. It's too risky to continue with just one engine functional. Capt. Kendall then turns the autopilot's heading control by 180 degrees to make the U-turn. F/O Logan then takes over the communications with ground control to announce that they had an engine flameout and will be heading back to LAX.
As Capt. Kendall completes the 180 turn back to LAX, the aircraft then shudders again, all their displays flicker, and when the flickering stops, both captain and first officer pale at what they see: their remaining engine, Engine 1, has also lost power.
The aircraft then becomes totally silent as both engines shut down. In the cabin, the passengers started panicking as the lights turn off and they hear the engines shutting off, leaving an eerie quiet. Back in the cockpit, the brief total blackout of all displays and controls ended when the cockpit emergency power kicked in. However, the plane has no running engines, and they are 3 hours away from Los Angeles.
"Initiate engine restart!" Capt. Kendall announces to First Officer Logan. The first officer quickly goes through the startup procedures. He flips both fuel pump switches back to Off. He places the crank switch to start, and flips Engine 2's switch. Nothing. He repeats the crank switch step and flips Engine 1's switch. Also nothing.
"Kindle, the engines aren't starting up!" F/O Logan worriedly says.
This is the first time this has happened in their entire career of aviation, a dual-engine flameout on a two-engine plane, probably a thousand miles and hours away from a nearby airport, and all around them is nothing but the Pacific Ocean.
As Capt. Kendall Knight sees the gravity of their situation, he looks wide-eyed, with his green eyes overshadowed by large black pupils showing terror, at his bestfriend and co-pilot… In his shock, he could only say one thing...
"No…"