Chapter 13
It had been two hours since the initial readings on the two engines started changing. Each engine had stopped power loss at fifty percent, but because both pilots didn't know what had caused the loss, they had no idea why it had stopped.
This flight had the most experienced pilots the Air Mobility Command could assign to this aircraft. Colonel Thomas had twenty-five years of flying experience, ten years of assignments in the various aircrafts of the Presidential Fleet. He was next in line to be assigned to Air Force One. Major Franks' experience in the Presidential Fleet had included multiple assignments over the past ten years, of which five had been on this particular aircraft. He and the Colonel had been flying together for those five years. They could sense each other thoughts and finish each other sentences.
"Okay, what are the next steps?" Major Franks was asking his superior.
"Well, let's discuss this. We are going slower so it will take us longer to arrive. We had enough fuel to get to Perth with a little to spare but with this delay we'll be cutting it close. We have thirty souls on board, one of whom is the First Lady of the United States. We are flying over the southern Indian Ocean, an isolated stretch of water which doesn't have much ship traffic. As far as we know, we have no communication with the outside. And we are at least 3000 miles from any land. Have I left out anything?"
"No, I think that pretty much sums things up."
"Okay. I think the first thing to do is wake up the Senior Agent and bring him up to speed. Discuss with him potential scenarios and have him make some decisions with his staff so they won't be caught flat footed should the worst occur. I don't think we should disturb the passengers, including the crew, until either a-we know more or b-the situation changes for the worse. Agree?"
"Agree. If okay, I'll go back, wake Agent Jackson and have him come up here and we'll bring him up to date."
"Sounds good. And bring me a cup of coffee. It's going to be a long night."
A few minutes later, the two men reentered the cockpit. Franks handed the cup to the Colonel while Jackson settled in the jump seat.
"What's wrong?" Jackson only been told that the pilots wanted to talk with him. And he knew that something had to wrong for that to happen in the middle of the night or day. Whatever it was.
Colonel Thomas summarized the issues and then asked Franks to discuss the possibilities. "Okay. Because we'll be over water until we land, there's always the possibility of losing one or both engines and having to ditch. That's the worst-case scenario of course. If that happens, we have rafts and everyone would have to evacuate with life jackets. We would have crew assigned to each raft. It would be an immediate evacuation once the plane stabilized, and obviously, we would want the First Lady out as early as possible. Given our passengers, your personnel would also go with each raft that had White House and State Department employees. Each raft is equipped with its own radio beacon and would emit its unique signal upon inflation. The beacon will last twelve hours. I think that our failure to arrive in Perth at the scheduled time will start an immediate search of our flight path, so I doubt we would be in the water more than a few hours. The rafts do have a few bottles of water, but that is all."
Jackson nodded. "And the best-case scenario?"
"We make it to Perth on half power."
Jackson nodded. Either scenario was not that positive. He had a couple of questions. "First, how long will the plane float?"
Colonel Thomas answered. "Depending on the angle we hit, anywhere from 2 to 15 minutes."
"Okay. Do you have flares in the rafts?"
"Yes. They would alert any aircraft flying directly over us, but nothing any distance away because of the sunlight."
"Okay. Last one. Since there is no communication from the plane, any chance the Air Force or White House has thought to request the Australians to start military search procedures following our expected flight path?"
The Colonel sighed. "I would hope so."