Part 2! My captain had just told 187 people we were going to die when I unbuckled my seat belt and stood up. “The aircraft is uncontrollable. Brace for impact.”…. “Standby quantity is low but not empty.” “Then we may have one surviving circuit isolated from the leak.” Reed looked toward the emergency checklist.
“We already activated standby.” “It couldn’t pressurize while that valve kept dumping the command.” “Can we get it back?” “Maybe enough for rudder.” Jennifer reset the standby pump. The pressure gauge climbed. Slowly. Painfully. Five hundred psi. Eight hundred.
Twelve hundred. Reed touched the rudder pedals. The airplane answered. Not much. But it answered. He laughed once. It sounded half insane. “I have rudder.” “Then you have options.” Air traffic control called. “Southwest 2891, Portland Center. Say status.” Reed pressed the microphone.
“Portland Center, 2891. We have regained limited manual flight control and partial standby hydraulic pressure.” There was a pause. The controller’s voice sounded stunned. “2891, confirm aircraft is controllable?” Reed looked at me. I shook my head. “Limited.”
He repeated it. “Limited control only.” “2891, Portland International is sixty-one miles northwest. Runway two-eight left available. Emergency equipment standing by.” I looked at the navigation display. Portland was possible. Seattle was not. Reed glanced at me. “Can we turn sixty miles?” “Very gently.” “And land?”
I looked at the instruments. That was a different question. Manual reversion at altitude was one thing. Landing a crippled 737 meant getting low, slow, configured, aligned, and stopped without knowing which systems might disappear next. “We can try.” Reed actually smiled. “That’s the first optimistic thing you’ve said.”
“I said try.” Jennifer laughed nervously. “Phoenix apparently doesn’t do reassurance.” “Never did.” She looked at me. “You really were Phoenix?” “Long time ago.” “I heard stories about you at Pensacola.” “Half of them were lies.” “What about the test jet that lost primary flight controls over California?”
I said nothing.
Jennifer’s expression changed.
“That was you.”
Reed looked between us.
“You two want to save the reunion for the ground?”
“Absolutely,” I said.
Portland Center gave us a broad turn.
Normally, a twenty-degree bank would have been effortless.
Now Reed used both hands and his shoulders.
Jennifer adjusted thrust asymmetrically.
More power on the right engine helped push the nose left.
Less on the left reduced the resistance.
I coached them through it.
“Small changes. Let the aircraft answer before you make another.”
The airplane slowly turned.
Inside the cabin, Claire and the other attendants moved through rows that had transformed into scenes of raw human emotion.
One man was recording a video for his children.
A woman clutched a wedding ring in both hands and prayed.
The little boy across from my seat had stopped crying.
He was asking his mother whether airplanes could get tired.
She told him yes.
Sometimes airplanes got tired.
But good pilots helped them home.
I would learn about that later.
At twenty thousand feet, the standby pressure began dropping again.
Jennifer spotted it.
“Phoenix.”
I hated hearing the name now.
Not because I disliked it.
Because whenever people called me Phoenix, something was usually on fire.
“Quantity?”
“Still stable.”
“Pressure fluctuation?”
“Two hundred psi.”
“Temperature?”
“Rising.”
“Pump is overheating.”
Reed looked at me.
“Shut it down?”
“If it fails permanently, we lose what little rudder assistance we have.”
“If we leave it running, it may burn itself out.”
“Cycle it.”
Jennifer switched the pump off.
Immediately, rudder assistance disappeared.
Reed grunted.
“Aircraft wants right.”
“Use thrust.”
He increased power slightly on the right engine.
The nose returned.
We waited thirty seconds.
Jennifer switched the pump on again.
Pressure returned.
“Good,” I said. “We ration it.”
Reed stared ahead.
“You sound like you’ve done this before.”
“I told you I have.”
“No. Not something similar.”
I looked at him.
“The same.”
Neither pilot spoke.
Thirty-two years earlier, my aircraft had been called Raven Six.
Officially, it was a heavily modified transport platform used to test control systems for future military aircraft.
Unofficially, it was a flying laboratory.
We took it up over the Mojave Desert one Tuesday morning with six people aboard.
Twenty-three minutes into the flight, every powered flight-control system quit within nine seconds.
The aircraft rolled right.
Forty degrees.
Then fifty.
The ground filled the windshield.
The flight engineer told me to eject.
I refused because the four engineers behind me did not have ejection seats.
I stayed.
We discovered manual control became possible only after slowing dramatically and using asymmetric thrust.
We landed with twelve feet of one wing missing after striking runway lights.
The Air Force awarded me a medal.
The doctors gave me six surgeries.
The fire left scars across my hands and forearms.
Reporters never heard about it.
The project remained classified for years.
When it was finally declassified, almost nobody cared.
By then I had retired.
Married.
Buried my husband.
Raised two daughters.
Taught aviation safety seminars for a while.
Then disappeared into an ordinary life.
I thought Phoenix had died quietly.
Apparently not.
At fifteen thousand feet, Portland appeared through scattered clouds.
I could see the Columbia River.
The airport.
The long strips of runway.
Emergency vehicles were already lining the field.
Reed looked at the landing checklist.
“We need gear.”
Jennifer stared at him.
“Hydraulic extension may not work.”
“Alternate extension.”
I nodded.
“Gravity drop.”
Jennifer reached for the alternate gear system.
Nothing happened at first.
Then we heard a heavy thud under the floor.
One green indication.
Then another.
The nose gear light remained dark.
“Come on,” Jennifer whispered.
She cycled the release.
Nothing.
Reed’s voice became flat.
“Nose gear not confirmed.”
Portland Center asked for souls on board and fuel remaining.
Jennifer answered.
“One hundred eighty-seven souls. Approximately two hours fuel.”
Reed looked at me.
“Can we land without the nose gear?”
“Yes.”
Jennifer stared at me.
“You answered that fast.”
“I’ve done that too.”
She shook her head.
“Of course you have.”
I leaned toward the panel.
“But first we make sure it’s actually up.”
Jennifer requested a low approach for visual confirmation.
Air traffic control coordinated with the tower.
Reed turned slowly toward Portland.
Every movement required planning.
No quick corrections.
No aggressive turns.
No normal approach.
The aircraft was no longer something they commanded.
It was something they negotiated with.
At five thousand feet, we lined up several miles from the runway and descended toward the tower.
Airport firefighters watched through binoculars.
Tower controllers stood at the windows.
People along nearby roads pulled over after emergency alerts began spreading online.
News helicopters were ordered away from the airspace.
The 737 passed the tower at four hundred feet.
“Southwest 2891,” the tower called, “we have visual confirmation. Main gear appears down. Nose gear doors open. Nose gear appears partially extended but not locked.”
Jennifer closed her eyes briefly.
Reed whispered a curse.
I looked at the airspeed.
“We climb.”
Reed turned toward me.
“With what?”
“Thrust.”
“We barely made that approach.”
“And now we know what we have.”
He pushed the throttles forward carefully.
The engines roared.
The aircraft climbed.
Three hundred feet.
Five hundred.
Eight hundred.
Every foot was work.
At fifteen hundred feet, we leveled.
Jennifer examined the nose-gear procedure.
“If we can create enough negative load—”
“No.”
Reed looked at me.
“You didn’t even let her finish.”
“Because we are not pushing this airplane over to shake the nose gear down.”
“What would you do?”
I thought about it.
“Yaw.”
Jennifer immediately understood.
“Swing the nose.”
“Gently.”
“Use inertia.”
“Exactly.”
Reed frowned.
“With one partially functioning rudder system?”
“With thrust.”
Jennifer looked at him.
“If we alternate power, we might be able to shake the gear into lock.”
Reed considered it.
“That could also worsen the control problem.”
“Yes.”
Silence.
Then Reed nodded.
“Let’s do it.”
We moved away from the airport.
Jennifer shut the standby pump off to cool it.
Reed stabilized the aircraft manually.
Then we began.
Right engine power increased.
The nose moved left.
Power reduced.
Left engine increased.
The nose swung right.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Nothing.
Again.
On the fifth cycle, a metallic bang echoed beneath the cockpit.
Jennifer looked at the panel.
The nose-gear light turned green.
For half a second, nobody moved.
Then Jennifer slapped the panel.
“Three green!”
Reed shouted.
“Yes!”
I felt something loosen in my chest.
Not relief.
Not yet.
But something close.
The hardest problem remained.
Landing.
Reed asked the tower for the longest runway and the lowest crosswind.
Runway 28L.
Wind 270 at six knots.
Nearly perfect.
The weather, at least, had decided not to kill us.
We had another problem.
Flaps.
Without normal hydraulic power, full flap extension was uncertain.
Electric alternate extension would be slow.
Too much flap could create control forces we could not overcome.
Too little meant higher landing speed.
We needed the compromise.
“Flaps fifteen,” I said.
Reed looked at me.
“Normally forty.”
“Normally you have hydraulic controls.”
Jennifer ran performance numbers.
“At fifteen, landing speed will be significantly higher.”
“I know.”
“Brake pressure may be limited.”
“I know.”
“We could run out of runway.”
“If we go slower and lose manual authority in the flare, runway length won’t matter.”
Reed stared at the runway in the distance.
“Flaps fifteen.”
Jennifer selected alternate flap extension.
We waited.
One degree.
Five.
Ten.
Fifteen.
The aircraft began to balloon.
Reed fought it with trim.
“Manual wheel!”
Jennifer and I grabbed it again.
The wheel spun violently under my palms.
Pain shot through my scar tissue.
For one awful second I was back in Raven Six.
Flames licking through the cockpit.
The engineer behind me screaming.
My gloves melting.
“Sarah!”
Jennifer’s voice pulled me back.
I realized I had frozen.
“Sorry.”
She looked at me.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
I wasn’t.
But being okay had nothing to do with it.
We stabilized at one hundred seventy knots.
Fast.
Very fast.
But controllable.
Tower cleared us to land.
Reed keyed the microphone.
“Portland Tower, Southwest 2891. We are committed. No go-around capability once below one thousand feet.”
“Southwest 2891, understood. Runway 28L cleared to land. Emergency services positioned.”
Reed glanced at Jennifer.
“You ready?”
“No.”
He laughed.
“Good answer.”
Then he looked at me.
“Phoenix?”
I watched the runway.
“Let’s go home.”
The descent began.
Three miles out, the cabin crew commanded the brace position.
Heads down.
Stay down.
Passengers leaned forward.
Some cried.
Some prayed.
Some simply held hands with strangers.
Two miles.
Reed made tiny corrections using wheel pressure and engine thrust.
Jennifer guarded the throttles.
I watched airspeed and bank.
“Two knots fast.”
Jennifer reduced power slightly.
“Bank right three.”
Reed corrected.
“One dot above glide path.”
“Hold it.”
One thousand feet.
The runway filled the windshield.
The tower disappeared beneath our nose.
“Stable enough,” Reed said.
It wasn’t stable by normal standards.
Nothing about us was normal anymore.
Five hundred feet.
“Standby pressure falling.”
“Leave it.”
“Three hundred.”
The aircraft drifted right.
Reed corrected left.
Nothing.
“More left thrust differential,” I said.
Jennifer increased the right engine.
The nose moved.
“Too much.”
She reduced it.
Two hundred feet.
The ground rushed toward us.
The main landing gear seemed absurdly small.
One hundred.
“Power coming back.”
Jennifer reduced thrust.
“Don’t idle yet.”
“Seventy.”
Reed began pulling.
The control column felt like it was embedded in concrete.
“Trim!” he shouted.
Jennifer and I spun the manual wheel.
“Fifty.”
The nose rose.
“Forty.”
The right wing dropped.
