The Bygone

Episode 1

2.33 AM, 27th March 2010, 41,000 Ft. Above Sea Level.

                   “This is Capt. James Di Guero on flight number AM 3425, en route to Rio De Janeiro. Maintaining a constant altitude at 40,500 Ft. ASL. due to bad weather conditions, as per instructions. Awaiting rerouting to avoid the thunder storm.” said the Captain to the air command centre in Rio, the closest one in contact with the cockpit. This unexpected storm was a result of the cyclone “Anita”, which had already affected most parts of Southern Brazil, changed its’ course towards the Caribbean islands. The Captain ordered the safety lights in the cabin to be turned on, to avoid undesirable circumstances to any of the 253 passengers and crew aboard, including 34 children.

                   There was an unknown gloom spelt on the aircraft. The occasional thunder strikes and the glowing clouds scared the adults while they amused the children who were awake and peeping through their windows with the scintillating rays of light. There was an unusual turbulence, a really strong turbulence by any standards to maintain a smooth flight. 

                  “This is Air command centre, Rio International Airport. Request copied. Please re route the flight by 68˚ South East for a clear sky. You might see some issues with the communications as the new flight path might take you off the range of this command centre.” replied the flight officer who took the shift three hours ago.

                  With a failed link between the weather satellite and the command centre, no one knew that there was an even bigger danger awaiting on the new path. The reports used to reroute were outdated by 19 hours, but no one really noticed that.

                  As he received the rerouting instructions, Capt. James ordered his fellow pilot, Roger to set the flaps and redefine the course of the flight. His white wrinkled skin showed his age while his rock-steady hands showed his experience and confidence even at this hour of danger looking down upon them. That was the time to use all the training and experience he had gained over his thousands of hours of flying experience and he did. Capt. James with his equally efficient co-pilot steered away from a potential catastrophic threat. Their escape brought an imminent smile on their faces. The passengers felt relieved after a short announcement by the crew about their rerouting and the news of a subsided danger. They thought they escaped, but not completely so.

                Although the attempts to avoid thunder strikes were successful, there were a few occasional lightning strikes that struck the plane. But, they weren’t considered serious, as there was no visible damage reported by the state-of-art equipment on the dashboards of the cockpit. Every engine and system were working perfectly fine as per the dashboard indicators. But there was one strike that didn’t miss the plane. A rupture on the wing near the engine was only minutes away from tearing into a deep crack. The crack resulted in a fuel leak from the wing and then it started to show up on the fuel level indicator.

             “Captain, we are losing the fuel on the left monitor”shouted Roger, the co-pilot alarmed at the unexpected change in the readings. 

            The buzzing alarms and the red lights flashing in the cockpit reported the rapid fuel loss. Added to this was a spark due to the mishaps in the turbine engine that caught a fire because of the leaking fuel on to the engine. Boom. The engine was down with an explosion and debris flew away towards the rear of the aircraft.

           “Damn, we lost an engine on the left. Roger, check the thrust and set the flaps. We are dropping fast.” clamoured the captain in horror. He assumed that they could fly somehow to an airport with the reserve fuel in the fuselage to compensate the loss.