Please see your browser settings for this feature. EMBED for wordpress. Want more? Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! Repackaged for a new generation of readers, this bestseller features a new Foreword by the author. Even inside the radar room, which had no windows, he felt the beauty of the summer's day. The Leesburg Centre was not near an airport, but it was one of the busiest air traffic control centres in the country. There was also another young controller, George Wallace, who was being trained by Keith.
He went into the control room and looked at the screen. It was quite busy. Perry Yount had some additional work to do today, and left Keith to work alone with George Wallace.
George would finish his training and become a full controller in only one week from now. Keith allowed him to give directions to two planes which were coming too close to one another, and saw that he was making the correct decisions.
Keith was a successful teacher, and he was proud of Wallace's progress. From time to time Perry Yount came to see if Keith and Wallace needed any help. Everything was going well. Then, just before 11 o'clock, Keith had to go to the washroom. Perry Yount agreed to stay near Wallace until he returned.
Keith stayed a long time in the washroom. It had a window, and he could look out and see green fields and flowers. It was a hot day, and he felt that he would rather go out into the fresh air than back into the control room.
He often felt like this. After Keith had left, Perry Yount had an emergency to deal with. A passenger on a plane had had a heart attack.
He had to clear a way for the plane to land at Washington. He was very tired. He was thirty-eight, and had been a controller for 15 years. He felt that he was getting old. Doctors knew that controllers became ill more often than people in less responsible jobs.
Few other jobs put so much pressure on a man, and for many it was too much. They often found it difficult to sleep, and suffered from nervous diseases. Some controllers were like old men at the age of forty-five. He looked out of the window again. If only he could go out! But he had to go back to the control room. He would go back — in a minute. Perry Yount was bringing the plane down safely over Washington, changing the courses of 15 other planes in order to clear a path for it.
He handled the emergency well, as he always did. Whenever he had a free moment, he checked that George Wallace was all right. He seemed to be. Keith would soon be back to help them. Keith was still at the window. He was thinking now of Natalie. They had started to quarrel recently, for the first time. She wanted him to save his health by changing his job. But how could he? This was the only job that he knew how to do. With him were his wife, Merry, and their two children, Jeremy and Valerie.
Wallace saw the Redfern's plane as a small green dot among the larger dots of airline planes. Redfern was following a safe course. But there was something that neither Yount, Wallace nor Redfern knew. An Air National Guard T trainer was flying in the area. The pilot, Captain Neel, was experienced but careless. His plane appeared as a dot on the edge of George Wallace's screen Wallace did not notice it.
A man can't just leave his job, Keith was thinking. Not if he has a wife and children to look after. Unlike pilots, controllers did not earn a lot of money. But he couldn't leave the safety of a job he knew he was good at. He would have to talk to Natalie again.
Looking at his watch, he realized that he had been in the washroom for 15 minutes. He must have been dreaming! He hurried back to the control room. As he came in he noticed that everyone was busier than before. He looked at the screen. With a single rapid movement Keith pushed him to one side and seized control. He shouted to Irving Redfern: 'Make an immediate right turn now!
If Irving Redfern had acted immediately, he might have saved himself and his family. He was a good pilot, but not a professional, and he was a polite man who always thought before he acted.
Now he wasted the few seconds he had by replying to Keith's message. In the control room they watched in silence, praying hard, as the bright green dots flew towards one another. The dots on the screen met, and up in the clear blue sky the Beech Bonanza was falling, spinning wildly, to the earth. The radio of the Beech Bonanza was still working. The cries of the Redfern family were heard clearly in the control room, and the voice of nine-year-old Valerie was especially clear. All over the control room faces turned white, and George Wallace broke down and cried as he heard her cries of terror.
Do something! I don't want to die! Captain Neel landed safely by parachute, 5 miles away. Perry Yount was blamed for the crash, and he lost his job. George Wallace could not be held responsible, but he could never now work as a controller. They were both ruined men. Yount had to go into hospital, and then, began to drink heavily. Keith was not blamed in any way for the crash, but he knew in his heart that he was responsible. If he had not stayed in the washroom for so long on that lovely summer's day, the Redfern family would still be alive.
He got little sleep, and when he did sleep he had terrible dreams. They always ended with the hopeless cries of little Valerie Redfern. Sometimes he tried to stay awake, so that he would not dream of her again. During the day, too, he thought about her.
He could not look at his own two healthy children without feeling guilty. His work suffered. He lost the ability to make quick decisions. Natalie begged him to change his job. Once, almost crying, she told him that unless he did something she would take the children away from him, because she could not bear to see them growing up in such an unhappy home. It was then that Keith first thought of killing himself. He put his hand in his pocket and touched the key again.
He would need it soon. She remembered his words:'It will give me an excuse to come and see you again. The 'excuse' that he had spoken of was his interest in the message received by Tanya while in the coffee shop. The stowaway was with Tanya now. A little old lady from San Diego. She was wearing a black dress, and looked like somebody's grandmother on her way to church. Quite a few times. Probably not. Airlines tried to keep quiet about it.
The old lady's name was Mrs Ada Quonsett, and she would certainly have reached New York if she had not made one mistake. She had told her secret to another passenger, who had told an air hostess. Sometimes I get lonely, and I want to visit her. It's difficult enough for me to find the money to get to Los Angeles on the bus.
They always check the tickets on the bus. She could hardly believe her ears. After I've stayed with my daughter for a week or two and I want to go home, I go to the airline offices and tell them. That you came to New York as a stowaway? They send me home. Sometimes they get a bit angry and tell me not to do it again, but that isn't much, is it? Airlines knew that it often happened.
They also knew that it cost more to delay a flight in order to check the passengers than to allow an occasional stowaway to travel free. You must be about twenty- eight. Perhaps it's because you're married. I'm not now. You could have beautiful children with red hair like your own. She had a child, anyway. Her daughter was at home now, sleeping. They never do. The old lady knew a surprising number of tricks. When she had finished, Tanya said:'You seem to have thought of everything!
It was the Transport Manager. She's with me now. And I need a ticket to Los Angeles for her. We'll send her back tonight. It's better to take an indirect flight.
Usually they don't trouble me. You can't trust anyone these days. We're sending you back to Los Angeles tonight. Just let me go and get a cup of tea first, and I'll be ready to go. She's full of little tricks. What nice people work for Trans America! Tanya felt sure that she had not seen the last of Mrs Ada Quonsett. Then she started to think about Mel Bakersfeld again, and wondered if he would come and see her.
Chapter 16 Mel's Argument with Vernon Mel had decided that it would be impossible for him to leave the airport that night. He was in his office, and had been getting the latest reports on what was happening on the airfield. Runway three zero was still blocked, and there were many delays. It was possible that the airport would have to be closed in a few hours. Mel knew that there had also been a meeting, and now it seemed that some of the people from the meeting were coming to the airport.
They would add greatly to the problems which he already had. One good thing was that the emergency was over. The Air Force KC had landed safely. But Mel still had the feeling that there was going to be another emergency, and that it would be worse than this one. Cindy was waiting for him at the party. He must phone her immediately, although she wouldn't be very pleased to hear what he had to say. He had to wait for several minutes before she came to the phone. He was surprised at how quiet her voice was.
There was no anger in it now, only an icy calm. He had not expected this, and found it difficult to talk to her. He told her that he would not be able to come to the party, and then paused, uncertain what to say next.
I never expected you to come. I knew that you were lying to me, as usual. Why argue with her? Possibly all night. This is neither the time nor the place. And for what I have to say, any place is good enough. He sat in silence for a moment, and then, without knowing why, he called home.
Mrs Sebastiani, who was looking after the children, answered. As usual, she had a question for him: 'Daddy, does our blood keep going around and around for ever?
Your blood has been going around for seven years so far. Mel was sure that she could. Libby had a good heart — whichever meaning you gave to the word. He didn't know why he had telephoned home, but he was glad that he had. He supposed that Cindy would come to see him tonight. If she wanted to do something she usually did it.
Perhaps she was right, and it was time to decide whether their hollow marriage should continue or not. If they talked about it here, at least the children would not have to hear them. At the moment he had nothing to do. He left his office, and looked down over the crowded hall.
He thought again that so much in the way airports worked was wrong and would have to change in the near future. Tanya was standing near it, talking to a group of passengers. Mel walked towards her, and when she saw him she left the passengers for a moment. I thought you were going to a party! We're trying to make it possible for the Golden Argosy to take off on time.
I think it's because Captain Demerest doesn't like waiting. The two girls were busily writing insurance policies. Vernon thinks that we should stop selling flight insurance at airports. I don't. We had a battle about it in front of a lot of important people. I won, and Vernon hates being the loser. He remembered his fight with Vernon well. It had happened at a meeting of the Airport Committee. Mel and all five committee members were present: a woman called Mrs Mildred Ackerman, two local businessmen, a union official and a teacher.
The only outsider at the meeting was Captain Vernon Demerest. They decided to hear what he had to say first. He spoke confidently and well. He argued that flight insurance was an insult to modern planes and pilots.
Insurance policies were not sold at bus stations and garages! Why should they be sold at airports? Flying, he said, was a safe way to travel. Insurance companies and airports continued to sell flight insurance in order to make money out of the public. To sell huge insurance policies for a few dollars at airports was to invite criminals and madmen to murder for money,Vernon said.
In reply, Vernon spoke of many cases of people who had blown up planes in an attempt to claim large amounts of money. They had failed, but others would continue to try. Mrs Ackerman was not satisfied with this answer, and interrupted Vernon several times with questions. He was not used to being attacked, especially by a woman!
People usually took orders from him. He lost his temper immediately, and made it clear that he thought her questions thoroughly stupid. He had argued his case well, but nobody would agree with him because of his rude behaviour. Even before he began to speak, Mel knew that he had the advantage.
He told the meeting that many people, rightly or wrongly, were afraid of flying and liked to have insurance. If they couldn't buy it at the airport, they would simply buy it somewhere else. But his most important point was that the airport needed the money that it made by selling insurance policies. This was certain to be a popular argument with the committee. After the meeting Vernon was waiting for him.
If you could only see things as clearly as I do—' 'I've been a pilot, too,Vernon,' Mel said. And you may find this hard to believe, but you could be wrong. You're human too, I believe. I don't want to see you any more than I have to! She was looking at him with a smile in her gentle, understanding eyes. Suddenly he knew that he wanted to get to know her better. He wished he could accept the offer she had made him earlier, of a good dinner at her apartment. But he had to accept the facts and behave responsibly.
He couldn't leave the airport yet. Tanya put her hand on his. Chapter 17 The Golden Argosy Forty-five minutes before it was supposed to take off, the Golden Argosy was being prepared for its 5, mile flight to Rome.
Some of the preparations for a long-distance flight take weeks, or even months. Others are made at the last moment. The plane for Flight Two was a Boeing B. It had four engines and a speed of miles an hour. It could carry passengers. During the flight, one of the engines had become too hot. The plane flew safely on three engines, and the passengers knew nothing about it.
If necessary, it could have flown safely on one engine. The repairs took a long time and demanded great skill and care.
The plane was not ready to fly again until two hours before it was to leave for Rome. As soon as the repairs were finished, the job of loading the plane began. Large amounts of food and drink were taken on board, and so were newspapers and magazines. Finally, the passengers' luggage and bags of mail were loaded onto the plane.
For some reason this was the most badly-managed part of the operation, and luggage was quite often lost or sent on the wrong flight. Captain Harris had decided to ask for additional fuel tonight. The plane might be delayed for a long time on the runway before take-off, and the engines drank up fuel thirstily.
Anson Harris was not feeling very comfortable. After Vernon Demerest had told him to put on an airline shirt, he had borrowed one from a friend. It turned out to be too small for him. He decided to suffer in silence, as he did not intend to quarrel with Vernon. Harris was a professional pilot of the best kind, and he knew that it was dangerous to have quarrels with colleagues on a plane.
With Vernon Demerest checking all his decisions tonight, he didn't want to make any mistakes. Another man would be flying with Vernon Demerest and Anson Harris. He was the flight engineer, a thin young man called Cy Jordan, who was also a pilot.
A bus took them all to the Trans America wing of the airport. As well as the three men there were five air hostesses, one of them being Gwen Meighen. Captain Demerest greeted them with a bright 'Hi, girls! They could all feel the wind beating against it. When it stopped, they rushed towards the nearest door. They had their final preparations to make.
Vernon checked the weather report. He learned that the weather would improve over the Atlantic, and that in Rome - and also in Naples — it would be fine. The three men were ready for take-off when Gwen told them the news. He could have another talk with Gwen, and this time they would discuss abortion. Guerrero lit another cigarette from the end of his last one. His hands were shaking.
Free download or read online Airport pdf ePUB book. The first edition of the novel was published in , and was written by Arthur Hailey. The book was published in multiple languages including English, consists of pages and is available in Paperback format. The main characters of this fiction, thriller story are ,. Please note that the tricks or techniques listed in this pdf are either fictional or claimed to work by its creator.
Normally, the arrangement provided a near-hundred percent survival. Significant alsoif the poults were fed en route, they would stink, and so would the airplane conveying them, for days afterward. Already the poults' schedule was out of joint by several hours. But an airplane had been diverted from passenger to freight service, and tonight the fledgling turkeys would have priority over everything else traveling, human VIPs included.
In the main passenger terminal, chaos predominated. Terminal waiting areas were jammed with thousands of passengers from delayed or canceled flights. Baggage, in piles, was everywhere. The vast main concourse had the combined appearance of a football scrimmage and Christmas Eve at Macy's.
The wonder was, Mel Bakersfeld reflected, that anything was continuing to operate at all. Mel, airport general managerlean, rangy, and a powerhouse of disciplined energywas standing by the Snow Control Desk, high in the control tower. He peered out into the darkness. Normally, from this glass-walled room, the entire airport complexrunways, taxi strips, terminals, traffic of the ground and airwas visible like neatly aligned building blocks and models, even at night their shapes and movements well defined by lights.
Only one loftier view existedthat of Air Traffic Control which occupied the two floors above. But tonight only a faint blur of a few nearer lights penetrated the almost-opaque curtain of wind-driven snow.
Mel suspected this would be a winter to be discussed at meteorologists' conventions for years to come. The present storm had been born five days ago in the lee of the Colorado mountains.
At birth it was a tiny low pressure area, no bigger than a foothills homestead, and most forecasters on their air route weather charts had either failed to notice, or ignored it.
As if in resentment, the low pressure system thereupon inflated like a giant malignancy and, still growing, swung first southeast, then north. It crossed Kansas and Oklahoma, then paused at Arkansas, gathering assorted nastiness. Next day, fat and monstrous, it rumbled up the Mississippi Valley. Finally, over Illinois the storm unloaded, almost paralyzing the state with blizzard winds, freezing temperatures, and a ten-inch snowfall in twenty-four hours.
At the airport, the ten-inch snow had been preceded by a continuous, if somewhat lighter, fall. Now it was being followed by more snow, whipped by vicious winds which piled new driftsat the same time that plows were clearing the old. Maintenance snow crews were nearing exhaustion. Within the past few hours several men had been ordered home, overfatigued despite their intermittent use of sleeping quarters provided at the airport for just this kind of emergency.
At the Snow Control Desk near Mel, Danny Farrowat other times an assistant airport manager, now snow shift supervisorwas calling Maintenance Snow Center by radiophone. I need six more Payloaders and a banjo team at Y-seventy-four. Confronting Danny and his two assistantsone on either sidewas a battery of telephones, Tel Autographs, and radios. Surrounding them were maps, charts, and bulletin boards recording the state and location of every piece of motorized snow-fighting equipment, as well as men and supervisors.
There was a separate board for banjo teamsroving crews with individual snow shovels. The Snow Desk was activated only for its one seasonal purpose. At other times of year, this room remained empty and silent.
Danny's bald pate showed sweat globules as he scratched notations on a large-scale airport grid map. He repeated his message to Maintenance, making it sound like a desperate personal plea, which perhaps it was. Up here was the snow clearance command post. Whoever ran it was supposed to view the airport as a whole, juggling demands, and deploying equipment wherever need seemed greatest.
A problem thoughand undoubtedly a cause of Danny's sweatingwas that those down below, fighting to keep their own operations going, seldom shared the same view of priorities. Six more Payloaders. He ought to be around in this lot. He recognized the speakerphone voice as belonging to a senior foreman who had probably worked continuously since the present snowfall started. Tempers wore thin at times like this, with good reason. Usually, after an arduous, snow-fighting winter, airport maintenance and management had an evening stag session together which they called "kiss-and-make-up night.
Danny said reasonably, "We sent four Payloaders after that United food truck. They should be through, or almost. What are you guys doinghaving a supper and ladies' night? Maybe you should look out the windows once in a while. Anybody could be at the goddam North pole tonight and never know the difference. An hour ago, Mel had driven across the airfield. He used service roads, but although he knew the airport layout intimately, tonight he had trouble finding his way and several times came close to being lost.
Mel had gone to inspect the Maintenance Snow Center and then, as now, activity had been intensive. From here, weary crews and supervisors came and went, alternately sweating and freezing, the tanks of regular workers swelled by auxiliariescarpenters, electricians, plumbers, clerks, police.
The auxiliaries were pulled from their regular airport duties and paid time-and-a-half until the snow emergency was over. But they knew what was expected, having rehearsed snow maneuvers, like weekend soldiers, on runways and taxi strips during summer and fall.
0コメント