The fact that Eight Yankee Tango was coming nose to nose with a mountain ridge was not wasted on the news reporters in the choppers. The reporter riding in Channel 11's helicopter spoke rapidly in a strained, high-pitched voice, “This does not look good . . . it does not look good. The aircraft is flying too low to clear that ridge. We might have a crash any moment. It does not look good!”
Joyce and Lila kept watching, praying, their eyes glued to the TV screen.
Aboard Niner Zulu Mike, both Dr. Cooper and Brock Axley held their breath as they watched Eight Yankee Tango skimming over the ridge, approaching the crest.
“Come on, come on,” said Dr. Cooper, “you can make it.”
There were tall trees ahead and just to the right of The Yank's path. To the left, the ground dropped away and there was a treeless field of crumbled rock.
“That rock field,” said Brock. “Fly over the rock field!”
Eight Yankee Tango skimmed over the top of one grove of trees, its prop wash making the branches quiver. A rocky outcropping passed close under the right wing, a stubby tree under the left.
Straight ahead, a stand of tall hemlocks formed a deadly wall along the crest of the ridge. The Yank kept flying headlong toward them. Jay remained unconscious, with no idea that trees and sharp stones were passing by at ninety knots only a few feet below him.
The reporter in the chopper spoke into his microphone while speaking to the plane, “Come on, come on, don't crash now!”
Aboard Niner Zulu Mike, Dr. Cooper grasped the edge of the instrument panel with such a fierce grip that his fingernails made permanent marks.
Yankee Tango shuddered as a flow of air moved up over the sun-warmed rocks and boiled under its right wing. The wing raised for a moment. The nose moved to the left. The autopilot leveled the wings again. The top of a low pine gently slapped the left wheel. The plane fishtailed to the left.
The wall of hemlocks came up on the right as the airplane's shadow raced over the rocks. The hemlocks were only inches from touching the wheels. The propeller was kicking up dust. Chipmunks ran for cover. The right wing clipped the tip of a branch, slipped between two more, and passed over a low scrub.
“Don't crash, please don't crash!” Dr. Cooper hissed through clenched teeth.
The reporter in Channel 11's helicopter held his microphone in a white-knuckled grip, so tense he had no words.
The Yank's right tire touched the tip of a rock, raising a tiny puff of dust. The right wingtip passed by one last tree, so close that the tree shuddered.
And then the airplane cleared the ridge. The ground, the rocks, the trees all dropped away far below. Eight Yankee Tango was flying in open sky once more.
And Dr. Cooper fell back into his seat, limp with relief, shaking.
“Yes!” the reporter on chopper seven shouted.
“He made it!” said Channel 4's reporter.
“More time now for Skylane Eight Yankee Tango as the world watches,” mused the man on Channel 11.
Joyce and Lila suddenly found themselves embraced and touched by a tangled web of arms and hands. The people in the lounge were all breathing again.
“That was the quickest touch-and-go I ever saw,” Brock quipped.
Dr. Cooper laughed, and it felt good.
Then, suddenly, Brock exclaimed, “What in the world?”
“On no,” yelled Dr. Cooper. “Now what?”
Brock pointed to the south. Dr. Cooper's eyes grew wide.
Closing in from the south was something more than just a helicopter. This had to be the biggest, ugliest machine available, with two black rotors whirling and wop-wop-wopping overhead and a massive, bigbellied fuselage painted orange and white. It looked like some oversized mutant insect from a monster movie, big enough to pick up a house.
“The Coast Guard!” Dr. Cooper exclaimed.
Right on cue, the Boeing tower called. “Niner Zulu Mike, you have additional traffic at eight o'clock, same altitude, a Coast Guard helicopter. Help's on the way.”
Brock responded, “Roger, we have traffic,” then just kept staring. “What in the world are they going to do?”
Dr. Cooper pressed his talk button and asked, “Uh, Boeing Tower, just what are the chopper's intentions?”
Ben Parker was waiting as Johnny Adair set up still another television in the control room so the controllers could see what was going on. “Niner Zulu Mike, the Coast Guard is going to try to snag Yankee Tango with a cable and winch. Give them plenty of room and hope that all goes well.”
Aboard chopper Two Zero Bravo, pilot Abe Weinstein radioed back, “Roger, Two Zero Bravo in position and ready to proceed.” Then he switched to the chopper intercom. “Okay, Carson, whenever you're ready.”
In the deep belly of the chopper, Lieutenant David Carson, Coast Guard career man, zipped up his heavy flight suit, fastened his helmet strap, and double-checked the harness and cable by which he would be lowered to the Skylane. The big side door was open. A ninety-knot blast of air was roaring around through the chopper's insides. Two hundred feet below them and trailing behind was the 182, close, but frighteningly small, like a model airplane, rocking just a little from the downblast of the chopper's blades but otherwise holding a steady course. Below the Skylane, the distant treetops of the Olympic rainforest moved slowly backward.
“How's it looking, Billings?” he asked through a helmet radio.
Seaman Tommy Billings was the winch man. He was standing at his post by the open door, his heavy flight suit and helmet protecting him from the wind. He was preparing a second cable with a large loop in the end resembling a cowboy's lasso. “Just like the rodeo, only this steer's flying.”
Carson was putting on a parachute, just in case.
“So we'll see if I make a very good cowboy.”
“That Skylane's bucking a bit. You won't be able to get real close.” Carson stood at Billings's side and looked down at the small white-winged airplane. He could see it swaying a little, dipping, wagging. Billings clipped the cable lasso to Carson's belt.
“I'll lower you down as close as I can. When you're ready, loop this around the tail section and then we'll pull you out of the way. The instant the cable tightens around that bird it's going to fight us like a trout on a hook. You don't want to be anywhere near it,” Billings said.
Carson stepped to the threshold. “Okay, let's go.” He stepped out into the wind, swinging free on the end of the cable. With a little wave of good-bye and good luck, Billings started lowering him to the plane.
“There he is!” someone in the lounge shouted, and everyone leaned toward the television screens as Carson's small body appeared out of the belly of the huge chopper then began dangling at the end of a cable. His body was quickly swept back behind the chopper by the wind.
Brock and Dr. Cooper watched without a word. Dr. Cooper could feel the uneasiness, the pure terror of this moment. Yet, at the same time he felt a sense of awe to see such courage.
Carson felt like a kite in the wind, his flight suit fluttering in the blast, the wind a dull roar outside his helmet. He found he could direct his body slightly to the left or right by extending his arms and legs like a sky diver, and the longer the cable got, the bigger a swing he could accomplish. He could not see the Skylane. He was facing forward, and it was down there somewhere behind him.
“How far to go?” he radioed Billings.
“You'll see it right below you any second,” Billings replied. “We're trying to keep you above that prop.”
“I appreciate that.” Just then, the nose of the airplane appeared below his feet. “Okay! I've got the nose right under me, about twenty feet down. Keep bringing me back.”
As the cable played out and Carson watched, the airplane seemed to advance under him, the prop a blurring, spinning disk on edge. He could hear the hiss of the knife-edged propeller blades. Next he could see the windshield, and the legs of the two injured occupants inside. “Yeah, I can see some blood on the boy's legs, and there's some blood on the windshield in front of the pilot.” Now he was above the white wings, so close he could read the little placards next to the fuel caps: 100 LL Only. The wings were rocking and wagging a little, upset by the chopper's rotors.
“Okay,” he radioed, “almost to the tail section.”
He continued to move steadily backward and downward until the tail section was directly below him. “Okay, I'm there. It's about ten feet below me. And it's moving, all right. It'll be like trying to rope a wild horse.”
Carson was used to dropping down to rescue people off sinking boats, but usually the boats weren't moving, there was no ninety-knot wind, and the cable was straight up and down. In this case
everything
was moving, and in the rotor wash of the chopper and the blast of the oncoming wind, both the Skylane and Carson were being tossed around like two wild kites. First the tail section was directly below him, then it moved off to his left, and then to his right. All the while it was bucking up and down in a frightening, unpredictable manner. It was like stalking a two thousand pound butterfly, wondering if it would ever hold still so he could catch it. He grabbed the cable lasso and unclipped it from his belt, holding it in his right hand.
“Can you lower the chopper?”
“Working on it,” came pilot Weinstein's voice.
Carson had no sense of descending. Instead, the Skylane seemed to rise toward him, still shifting, rocking, wagging its tail. He spread the loop of cable open with his left hand, his eyes on that tail section, looking for that one precise moment of opportunity. If he could loop the cable gently around the right stabilizer first, then over the tail, then the left stabilizer . . . if he could somehow get his body farther to the right . . . if he and the plane would hold still. . . .
He was close now, so close the tail fin was waving just below his face, swinging like a gate in the wind, back and forth, up and down. If he wasn't careful it would knock his face shield off. “Good, good, that's low enough.” He held the lasso ready, watching for his chance. . . .
An updraft! The tail came up at him like an angry shark fin! Instinctively he curled his body to the right and the tip of the fin struck his left shoulder, flipping him over on his back. Now he was facing backwards, the airplane behind his head. The rudder scraped across the top of his helmet as he kicked and struggled, trying to turn rightside up, trying to see where he was. A sudden and forceful jerk on the cable flipped him over again. Now he was facing forward, and to his horror he discovered the cable to his harness was snarled in a radio antenna on the top of the tail fin. “STEADY, STEADY! I'm snarled in the antenna!”
His weight brought the cable down hard on the tail fin, the tail section lowered, the airplane nosed up and started climbing, he and the cable held the tail section down so it nosed up even steeper. He could see the arc of the prop cutting ever closer to the cable.
Got to get the weight off this cable!
His left hand went to his chest, found the quick release,
pulled.
The cable came loose and he fell backward in a free fall. The cable, free of his weight, snaked and whipped above the Skylane.
Billings saw it all and hollered to the pilot, “Take her up, take her up! Abort! Veer to the left, the left!”
Weinstein pulled hard on the control stick, and the huge chopper clawed for more sky as the Skylane, its nose raised awkwardly, gained altitude but lost speed, fading back.
With great relief, Billings saw both Carson's cable and the lasso cable whip free of the plane and trail in the wind harmlessly above it. Far back and far below, a brightly striped parachute popped open.
“Carson! You all right?”
Carson radioed back, “I'm okay. How's the airplane?”
Even as Carson asked the question, Billings saw the airplane, its airspeed exhausted by the abrupt climb, nose over into a dive.
“It's going down, Carson! It's out of control! I think we crippled it!”
“NO!” Lila screamed as she saw the Skylane wavering and rocking nose down toward the treetops.
“No!” said a reporter from one of the choppers. “Something's gone wrong! The airplane is out of control! A gallant rescue effort could very well end in tragedy!”
Aboard Eight Yankee Tango, Jay stirred slightly, but remained unaware that directly out the windshield were mountains, rocks, and trees, coming closer, faster and faster.
E
verybody keep your distance!” Ben Parker commanded through his headset. “Back off!”
The news choppers kept their distance but kept their cameras on the action. The Coast Guard chopper kept climbing to try and stabilize above the struggling Skylane.
“Give it time,” said Brock, trying to reassure Dr. Cooper. “If that autopilot is still working and the control surfaces aren't bent, it might recover.”
Even as they watched, Eight Yankee Tango dove downward until it gained enough speed to develop the lift necessary to pull it out of the dive, then nosed up into a climb. Then it climbed until it ran out of speed to maintain lift, nosed over into a dive again, then gained speed and lift and pulled up into a climb again, then slowed down and nosed down again, and so it went, like a roller coaster. Brock and Dr. Cooper got queasy just watching it.
Each successive dive was shallower and each climb less steep. Eventually, it seemed the airplane might stabilize.
“About fifty minutes of fuel left,” Dr. Cooper figured.
Brock called the tower, “Boeing Tower, this is Niner Zulu Mike. What's the word on that Coast Guard chopper? Are they going to try again?”
Ben Parker and Bob Konishi had just had a conference with Coast Guard Two Zero Bravo. Parker spoke into his headset. “Uh, negative, Niner Zulu Mike. The man who went out on the cable says it's just too risky. We would have lost the aircraft if he hadn't aborted.”