Miles to Millions

By Bill Grenier

When he became a commercial pilot at age nineteen, Bill Grenier never imagined that one day he’d be captain of the largest commercial plane the world had seen, flying the highest profile routes of a proud national carrier. Even less could he have imagined, at age nineteen and with barely a penny to his name, that he’d one day be a wealthy man. But he would ultimately control an empire worth nearly a billion dollars. With liberal doses of wit and humour, Miles to Millions shows what a little luck, lots of perseverance, and an appetite for adventure can do. From boarding house to boardroom, from cradle to cockpit, Grenier offers a fascinating story of success both as a commercial pilot and as a businessman. Filled with anecdotes you’d never expect from a single career – from acting as repo man taking planes for payment to saving hundreds of passengers in a stricken 747 with a collapsed co-pilot – Miles to Millions is a high-flier of a story bound to entertain both aviation experts and enthusiasts alike.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Promontory Press
• Release date: Jan 1, 1900
• ISBN: 9781987857856

Book preview

Aviator

1. HEATHROW

SPRING 1972

Air Canada 857, Heathrow tower, cleared for takeoff, Daventry 2 SID.¹

Heathrow, 857, Daventry 2, rolling, Ken responded.

I pushed open the taps and the 747 started to roll on runway 10R. Performance was standard and we started our climb-out on the numbers at 144 knots.

Positive rate of climb, called Ken.

Gear up, I said.

Sitting in the captain’s chair on my left, Ken reached across the throttle quadrant and pulled up the lever near my left knee. I heard the nose gear door open, and the gear started its usual discontented growl upward.

Oh, Christ, said Jack, the second officer, seated aft and between us.

I glanced sideways at Ken. His upper torso was lying across the throttle quadrant on the power levers, his arm dangling down below the gear handle. Apparently he had fainted, and he was now unconscious.

Without another word, Jack slipped his shoulder straps and lifted Ken back into his seat and cinched his seat belt and shoulder harness tight. Ken’s head lolled back against the headrest. We were now at about four hundred feet, and my heart rate took an uptick. We were four miles off the end of the runway.

Flaps up.

Jack hit the flap lever, and the nose dipped forward as the flaps and slats started up their tracks. I glanced at Ken again and my heart took another upward leap; his face was ashen and he looked as if he were struggling for breath.

Visibility was good as I did a quick scan of the horizon. I knew instinctively we were not going to Montreal today. My first thought was to dump fuel down to landing weight and get Ken to a hospital. With a near-full passenger load and heavy on fuel for the ocean crossing, we would need some time to get down to landing weight. Takeoff weight is much heavier than landing; landing at this weight could put excessive strain on the gear. Jack’s voice again. I heard it, but I didn’t want to hear what he was saying.

Bill, we have another problem.

What? The word was more a squeak than a voice.

Bill, I hate to tell you this, but one of the body gear did not retract fully—look at my lights.

Glancing over my shoulder at his panel, I saw the normal spread of green lights with a number of orange and red ones among them. Of course, I couldn’t read any of the lettering, but my heart took another upward tick. Orange and red in this configuration was not good.

Jack, sounding sick, said, Oh, Christ.

I grabbed the mike and, in the calmest voice I could muster, keyed it. London radar, this is Air Canada 857.

Air Canada 857, radar contact, maintain four thousand.

By now, in order to follow the airways, I had started a slight left turn to comply with standard runway departure. We were still climbing as normal, but with a very minor vibration.

Power and speed check, both okay. Full instrument scan, okay. Flaps and slats were up and attitude was good. I scanned out the window; many other aircraft were in sight, but all were following their normal arrival and departure patterns, so there was no conflict.

Ken was now not moving at all, and his breathing sounded laboured and wheezy.

London, 857, we have a problem. I did not want to say what it was or that we had more than one because any number of aircraft buffs with scanning radios around London could be listening. At the first hint of trouble, they would be on the telephones to various media to be first with the info that an aircraft was in distress. Air Canada didn’t need the aggravation, and I didn’t either.

Air Canada 857, the sky is yours.

Thank you, sir.

With that, I knew air traffic control (ATC) had us on radar and our transponder would be keyed in. It would have a halo around it on the screen as an aircraft with a problem. Air Canada, advise your intentions.

I nodded to Jack as I picked up the mike. London, Air Canada 857, we’re not sure yet, but it seems our gear is not retracted fully and we have some vibration. Will advise when we get some answers. We’ll be heading for Scotland on course and will call with intentions when able.

Air Canada 857, understand. Change discrete 135.8 monitor only.

I put down the microphone and my heartbeat began to return to normal. I knew that control had us isolated. I had plugged in our INS (inertial navigation system, similar to GPS but less accurate) and the autopilot. The aircraft was climbing with normal thrust on course. Ken was my biggest concern then, but only for a moment. With three hundred people behind me, their well-being took priority very quickly.

Suddenly Ken let out a long sigh and lifted his head. He looked around the cockpit with a weary eye and whispered, What’s going on?

Ken, just relax. You had a fainting spell and we’re on track to Scotland.

Jack tapped my shoulder and drew a finger across his neck in a cutting motion. I nodded in silent agreement not to say anything to Ken about the gear for the moment.

However, Ken was too good a pilot to just sit back passively, even in his groggy condition. As he scanned the dials, his eye caught the red light on the gear handle.

What the hell is that light doing on? He spit out the words.

I tried to underplay the problem. "We have a minor issue with the main body gear. Wing gear are up and latched, but we can’t determine the status of the two main body trucks.² We’re talking to company maintenance and should have some answers soon. Meanwhile, I think you’d best get some sleep—you don’t look so good."

Oh Bill, just get me home! His voice was weak and his eyes watery.

I felt need of every resource I could muster to answer that plea. His head went back against the headrest and his eyes closed. His skin was still grey with yellow patches and he looked like hell. I felt bad for him; he was usually very much in command and full of life. His nickname within the pilot ranks was Mechanical Main because he seemed to attract more bad luck with mechanical problems than average. Still, he was a gentleman and pleasant to fly with, so my angst at his situation was heartfelt.

Jack, get on the horn to company. See if they have any words of wisdom about our gear situation. I reached over and turned off Ken’s radio jack to his headset so he would not hear the report and our ugly situation.

As the situation had developed, Jack, with his superb Air Canada training, had been going over the emergency checklist.

Jack read from the manual. It says here with the condition we have on the light panel, ‘DO NOT CYCLE THE GEAR.’

Does it say why not? My thinking was that was exactly what we should do; a gear problem could be solved in many instances by simply putting the gear handle in the down position so the hydraulic system extends all wheels. Jack continued to read. It just says in bold letters and underlined, not to recycle. Not sure why but maybe the wrenches can tell us.³

Okay, get them on the horn.

Now I had a conundrum. If we had no gear problem, I would have headed for the open ocean and dumped fuel down to landing weight, which would take about two hours. While this process is environmentally disturbing, it is nonetheless the only recourse in an emergency. Once down to landing weight, we would return to Heathrow, with an ambulance ready to whisk Ken off to the hospital. That would have been the drill. With any other immediate danger (say, an on-board fire), an overweight landing must be done.

With the gear problem, however, the situation was much more complicated. Now, the objective would be not only getting down to landing weight but almost emptying the fuel. The gear could possibly collapse on touchdown. In that situation, directional control could be lost and the aircraft could veer off the runway onto the infield, into buildings, into ditches, or whatever else lay in wait for the crippled machine.

With any fuel in the tanks beyond mere minimum, an explosion, fire, and loss of life were risks I was not prepared to take. Not with three hundred souls on board.

Jack interrupted my thoughts. Bill, company on the horn.

Good. Who are we talking to?

Dispatch. I gave them a quick rundown on the lights and the vibration a few minutes ago. They’re getting someone from maintenance to get into the manuals.

Hello, dispatch. What can you tell us?

Hello, Captain. We’re getting maintenance in here shortly. Can you give us any indication of what your intentions are?

Nothing yet until we get something sorted out on a gear problem. Right now, we’re headed for Scotland until we have some more info on the gear situation. Is the crew chief available?

I simply could not bring myself to mention Ken’s condition. If I did, on top of the gear issue, dispatch would be in a real state of concern. It is not often that a pilot loses consciousness in flight. I now found myself in command of a 747 under circumstances I would not wish on anybody. By this trip, I had logged as many hours on the 747 as Ken had, and I was already a promoted line captain. Although I did not have as many total hours as Ken, we both were new to the 747; we both had attended ground school and flight training at about the same time. It was the early 1970s, the 747 was new to the airline, and all captains and first officers on this new queen of the skies were four-stripers.⁴

If Ken were to die in the next hour or at any time during this flight, what would I tell his widow? How would I answer her question, Why didn’t you go back to London and get my husband to a hospital? What would I tell his son, who was also an aspiring pilot with our airline? What would I say to our chief pilot? What would I say to my own three sons?

All those thoughts whirled through my head in a miasma of concern. The tension was gut-wrenching. In fact, I was only one slot away from the most junior first officer on the line on the 747.

857, maintenance here.

"Hello, maintenance. We have Condition 18, page 10 in the manual.⁵ Any thoughts on why?" I think my voice was a bit too hopeful they would have a simple answer, one that would solve the problem.

No ideas, Skipper. There was a weighty pause. Have you tried cycling the gear?

I looked at Jack with a face I was sure showed incredulity and disgust. His eyebrows were arched and his eyes wide. I knew he was thinking the same thing as me: this was the best they could come up with? The guys we trusted to send us into the sky with three hundred fare-paying passengers, a dedicated crew, and a brand new three-hundred-ton airplane with less than two hundred hours on it?

Have you tried cycling the gear? Why the hell was he asking this?

No! I had to make an effort to keep my voice calm. Have you not read the caution? The words that say ‘Do not cycle the gear’? Have you talked to Boeing? Anything in the maintenance manual that gives us a hint at troubleshooting? I was annoyed but made sure it didn’t register over the ether.

Okay, Bill, we’ll see what Boeing has to say. We have a rep here in London who will be on the blower to Seattle within the next few minutes. Confirm the light condition just once more so we know for sure what the panel is telling us.

I cradled the mike and waved my hand to Jack. He got busy giving them the crib notes he had written so they could relay the information to Boeing.

By now, we were only eight minutes since takeoff and about forty miles northwest of London climbing on track. The cockpit door opened and the senior cabin purser, Eric, walked in. He leaned over to talk to Ken, whose head was still cushioned on the headrest, eyes closed, and looking for all the world like a man enjoying an afternoon nap in a La-Z-Boy chair. Jack had tilted Ken’s seat full aft to about a 30-degree lean and had cinched up his shoulder harness.

Eric jerked his head up and gave me a startled look. What’s going on? he whispered, almost conspiratorially, his voice begging for an answer to something he had never seen before. What’s happened to Ken? I came up here to tell you guys there’s a weird vibration in the back galley. All the trolleys seem to be making noise and the coffee pots are wiggling in their brackets. The girls are asking … He stopped, as if he felt he had already said more than he had wanted to.

As to Ken, I said, lowering my voice, he had a fainting spell right at liftoff. Check your manifest and see if there’s a doctor on board. But keep this to yourself for now too. Ken will get agitated if someone comes onto the flight deck and starts poking at him. You know him—we can’t make a big deal of this. I don’t want a yelling match between him and some doctor he doesn’t know. You know what a private guy he is. Eric left immediately to check the manifest and make an announcement requesting a doctor to identify himself to a crewmember.

Ken seldom allowed visitors into the cockpit unless they were company people or someone within the industry. Waking up to a stranger with a stethoscope would send him into orbit.

Within minutes Eric was back. Unfortunately, there isn’t a doctor on board the whole damn cabin. But one of our girls is a graduate in nursing. Should I ask her to come up?

I thought about that for a moment. Okay. But tell her to look at Ken only and not to do anything else. I don’t want the cabin in turmoil over more than one issue. She’s to look, leave, and then I’ll go back for a quick chat with her.

Got it, Eric said.

Don’t worry about the vibration, Eric, I said, I hoped reassuringly. Just tell the ladies it’s minor but will be with us for a while. Don’t tell them about the gear—we’ll get to that later. For now I want things to appear normal.

ATC broke in. Air Canada 857, traffic twelve o’clock, nine miles descending through twelve. Confirm your altitude, fourteen-six climbing.

London control, Air Canada 857. Affirmative. We’re also maintaining 270 knots for now while we talk to maintenance about our gear door problem. Will advise when able.

Roger Air Canada, London standing by. Change 133.7 monitor only.

London, Air Canada 857, 133.7.

Roger Air Canada 857. Maintain two-one-thousand.

Air Canada 857, maintain two-one-thousand. I hung up the mike and turned to Jack. Anything from company?

Not yet, but they’re still confirming lights status. They also mentioned they changed a wheel last night on the layover, but they didn’t say which wheel. Do you want me to talk to ATC?

Yeah, that would be good.

Jack would now monitor both frequencies—air traffic control and company. That would relieve me to monitor flight systems and navigation. With one pilot now out of the loop, absolute concentration on flying the machine was critical. I had to be my own monitor, and there was no room for error.

As a pilot, the one thing that goes through your mind in any unusual situation is Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. The first one is the most important: fly the machine. Too many accidents have been attributed to pilot distraction over some trivial detail in the cockpit while the airplane flies into the ground or just gets out of control because no one is minding the store. Keeping on track is next so you don’t lose situational awareness of where you are and where you are supposed to be. Finally, tell someone on the ground what the situation is so they can provide all the help or information available.

My attention was now fully focused and my thought process was in high-speed mode.

As to Eric’s question—why didn’t we just go back to London? Jack perked up as I explained.

"Suppose I put the gear handle down, all the gear comes down, and we are now ‘dirty.’ Now I try to retract the gear and Boeing is right, don’t cycle the gear. The gear doesn’t retract, or hangs halfway up. The gear jammed in the well refuses to move at all, or worse—because the cycle isn’t completed in the original UP selection—it’s now pressurized for more UP, out of sequence with the other wheels. It goes up farther, and because it hasn’t articulated in its uptrend, it tears off one or more of the gear doors. They in turn hurtle backward and, with 250-mile-per-hour wind, upward towards the horizontal stabilizer. They weigh about two hundred pounds each. Just one hitting our stabilizer at that weight and speed could take it right out.⁶ Not good."

As he contemplated that possibility, I continued.

Here’s another thought, Eric. While dirty, we lose an engine. Can’t retract the gear. Both Eric and Jack knew the consequences of that scenario.

Dirty means not aerodynamic. With the gear down, the airflow is disturbed and the drag of the wheels and trucks adds considerably to the power required to maintain flight. If we lost an engine at this weight with the gear down and we couldn’t retract it, we would be in more trouble than we could handle.

Jesus, Bill, I never thought of that until now, Jack said.

All three of us turned to look at Ken. Although we had to place the safety of passengers first, Ken’s condition was still a major concern.

Poor bastard better not die on us now, Eric said wryly. All three of us knew our best bet was to get the airplane weight down as low as possible by burning off fuel, and then to take that one shot at putting the gear down and hopefully locked.

Meanwhile, Jack had company on the radio. I turned up the volume on my headset. Dispatch, go ahead.

Against all odds, I was hoping they were going to say that Boeing had given the go-ahead to cycle the gear, or that we could do some sleight of hand with the hydraulic system to avert the problem I had just described to Eric.

Bill, we changed a wheel last night. The voice from maintenance was not the same one I had talked to a few minutes earlier. We had no trouble with the change, but the Boeing rep says Seattle wants to confirm you have not cycled the gear.

That is affirmative—we have not, I said somewhat impatiently.

Okay, he continued, Boeing thinks the gear has not articulated—he meant the gear hadn’t tilted as it was supposed to do before tucking up into the well—and part of the door might have jammed in the well. At best there is only one shot at it at landing speed. Once down, it will likely not retract again. And they really want the aircraft as light as possible. The maintenance guy paused. They want to know your intentions.

I felt relieved yet even more tense. Boeing and our maintenance people seemed to have reached the same conclusion I had, and for all the same reasons, and now my concerns became cast in stone. I also knew by now that company flight operations in Montreal would be alerted and would be questioning dispatch as to our intentions. Of course, they did not know about Ken. They would be relying on Ken to do the right thing.

Twelve minutes after takeoff, climbing to 21,000.

London was on the radio. Air Canada 857, we show you proceeding on track Scotland. Confirm your intentions.

I picked up the mike and waved to Jack that I would reply. London, we’re proceeding on flight plan for now and are sorting out our mechanical. We think we’ll be heading to destination as planned, but we’ll know better once we get to altitude and can check performance. Requesting our planned altitude of three-five-zero.

Air Canada 857, cleared to three-five-zero. Maintain your filed routing. Call Shanwick for your oceanic. Good day.

"857 cleared to three-five-zero. Good day, gentlemen, and thanks for your help.

Now climbing to 35,000 feet, I again settled down to business. Program the next nine waypoints into the INS computer, check that both Ken’s and my set had the same readings, get Jack to cross-check my entries for accuracy, and scan all instruments again for the hundredth time for anomalies. I sucked in my breath every time I saw the red and orange lights on the engineer’s panel, triple-checking our position versus the flight plan and the aviation chart. Eric returned with the stewardess who had nursing experience.⁷ Janet stood just out of sight of where Ken might see her if he opened his eyes, waiting to approach if I gave her the sign. I looked at Ken for a moment and realized he was fast asleep. He did not look any better, but his breath intake was even and not hesitant. When I motioned Janet forward, she moved in behind Ken. She bent over his head and sniffed. That arched my eyebrows, but I thought she must know what she was doing. She put her hand tentatively beside his neck and on his forehead. She did not look at me at all but turned and walked out of the cockpit. I did another scan of the dials and unbuckled my seatbelt.

Jack took my place, donning my emergency oxygen mask and calling one, two into the embedded microphone to ensure it was working. This is normal procedure when one pilot leaves the cockpit in a twoman operation. Today, while we had three pilots up front, only two of us were functioning. But Jack was sharp and on the ball, and I felt good knowing he was thinking ahead and needed no direction.

You have control, I said to him.

I have control, he concurred.

The pilot in control is in control, regardless of rank.

Understandably, I needed a bathroom break and to hear what the nurse had to say. In that order. Twenty-six minutes after takeoff. Janet was standing by the stairwell.

Captain, she said, noting my four shoulder bars, I don’t really have a clue what’s wrong with Captain Main. He’s not hot, and his throat and face don’t look swollen. But his breath stinks like sulphur and his shirt collar is damp. His colour is bad—he’s jaundiced and more mottled than I’d expect. I’ve flown with him before and I don’t remember him having that colour. I could wake him and take a pulse, but I hate to do that while he’s sleeping so soundly. He doesn’t drink, does he?

Ken did not drink, to the best of my knowledge, at all. I gave her a quick overview of how Ken had complained about his minor stomach ailment but was adamant he was okay to go, but it added nothing to her limited ability to diagnose him.

None of the back-end crew had known that Ken had not been with us during flight planning, as they were bussed to the aircraft after the three of us got off. As well, Ken was not well known to most of the crew, so few paid any notice to a quiet Ken sitting in the front of the vehicle on the way to the airport. Jack and I had not seen him in London; we had called his room to ask if he wanted to join us for supper on both nights, but he declined on the first and did not answer his phone on the second.

No, Janet, Ken doesn’t drink. Anything else in your experience that could tell us if this is really bad or just a weary old man with an upset belly?

I can’t think of anything else. It’s his colour that’s a worry. I doubt it’s a heart attack, but I can’t rule that out without more equipment. I’ll take a pulse if you want to wake him but that won’t tell us much. She seemed resigned to the lack of equipment.⁸

No, I said, let the man sleep. I’ll call you if he wakes and is willing to have you see him. Keep all this to yourself. The last thing we need is having the junior attendants jumpy because they think their captain is dying and they’re left with only me to get their butts home. Fear is contagious. I’ll restrict all crew from the cockpit except Eric. Only come up if Eric or I call you. And Janet—thanks.

She furrowed her brows and pursed her lips. What’s the vibration all about? I’m working the centre galley and the damn coffee pots are jumping all over the place. Even one of the passengers asked me if that was normal on a 747. He said if it was, he would rather fly the DC-8 because they’re much quieter.

She seemed to know instinctively that something was amiss, but I didn’t want to go into that problem.

Janet. I paused for a second. A gear door has a small alignment problem that’s causing the vibration. We’ll have it attended to in Montreal, but it’s not important now—just annoying. I’ll get Eric to provide a round of drinks on the house—that should take the sting out of the crowd.

She knew I was lying through my teeth but wasn’t willing to challenge me on it. There would be plenty of time to tell everyone on approach to landing if the gear did not come down and we had to take some drastic action. In that case, a full crash potential briefing for passengers would occur, and the less time anyone had to worry about it, the better.

I returned to the cockpit and reassumed control from Jack. At this point, I wanted all of Jack’s input as well as my own thoughts. I disconnected the autopilot and felt the controls. You can tell a lot about an airplane by the feel of the control column. The way the elevators respond to inputs and the way the ailerons feel in a slight turn tell you a lot.⁹ There is no manual for this—it is just intuitive. You either have it or you don’t. Thought becomes motion and motion becomes direction. It is a gift from Mother Nature, a gift common among those who love to fly, and I always considered myself blessed with that gift. To those who fly for the money and not because they love it, flying becomes a job. I would hate to have a job.

Now I felt the machine struggling to do what it was designed to do. It was decidedly not smooth. It had a slight wobble around the longitudinal axis as if hunting for a sweet spot that wasn’t there. There was a very light tremble in the elevators. The rudder, never light anyway, seemed resistant to my very slight inputs.

I commiserated with this marvel of flight. My thoughts were like a father to a child: I know, my darling, you have a tummy ache. But it won’t last; we’ll get you some medicine really soon and I promise you’ll feel better. Trust me.

Of course, I didn’t say that aloud. What I said to Jack was, Well, she has a bit of a tremor, but she should stay in one piece until we can get her back on the ground. Did you try the controls?

Jack looked a bit sheepish. Yeah, as soon as you went out the door. Feels okay but certainly not a hundred percent. I note our climb rate is going to hell, and I bet we don’t make three-five-oh.

Let’s see what our Mach number is when we level, wherever we level, and get a quick burn rate. We’ll be going through JP4 like a firehose at anything under thirty thousand.¹⁰

Mach is a speed in relation to the speed of sound. We had to keep our speed below the gear retraction speed of 270 knots indicated because we did not know how much of the gear was hanging out of the wheel well. Nor did we know whether the doors that normally fair the fuselage underbelly were jammed tight or simply hanging by a few bolts, ready to come asunder at any time.¹¹ One odd thing about flying that at times seems counterintuitive is that the higher the flight level, the thinner the air. Because the air is much thinner at altitude, less pressure is put on the extended wheel-well doors. So even though we would be in cruise mode, we would not be exceeding the gear speed on our airspeed instrument. The trick now was to get as high as possible so we would not exceed that gear speed and do possible further damage. At the same time, getting high enough would reduce our burn rate. Too low an altitude and we would suffer the penalty of too high a fuel burn and have to reduce power to stay under the gear speed. We were already noticing the struggle the machine was having trying to get high enough, which was the real trick.

With all that in mind, the next issue had to be addressed.

I knew, and so did Jack, that whatever was hanging out into the slipstream from the wheel well was adding to the drag and reducing our aerodynamics by some as yet unknown margin. We were coming up to Shanwick’s radio area coverage.¹² We would have to get our oceanic clearance soon and advise what our intentions were for the crossing. To go or not to go—that was the question.

Jack, what do you think about the crossing? Should we pull the plug and dump or carry on and take our chances in Montreal?

It sounded flippant, but it was not, and Jack knew he would have input into the decision. Jack was a high-time man with many flying hours under his belt, and he knew his stuff. The only reason he was not a captain was that he had joined the airline after a long stint in the military. He was not much younger than I was, but I had fifteen years more seniority than he.

Well, Bill, if the old bastard dies, we both gain a point on the seniority list, so why don’t we just fly as long as we can and see what happens?

I cracked a smile and realized I had been a bit officious for the last hour. A little humour was needed to lighten the mood, and Jack had provided it.

Got it, I said. I’ll file for Tokyo. That should take a few more hours.

I think she’s handling okay, said Jack, now down to business. Anything around the low thirties should get us to Montreal on fuel burn. Below that, we’ll have to pay pretty close attention to the numbers. Jack’s reasoning was the same as mine. Fuel burn was the elephant in the room. Too high a rate and we would not make the east coast of Canada. Heathrow would be reluctant to have us come back there, as it might well tie up a runway for many hours if the gear misbehaved and we slid in on our belly. They would take us, of course, if we called in a mayday and declared an emergency.¹³ They would definitely try to persuade us to go elsewhere, anywhere that had ten thousand feet of runway.

Then there was Ken. No way would an ambulance pulling up to a 747 in some off-company airport go unnoticed. Just asking for one to meet the flight was going to cause a fuss. Once the medics came into the cockpit to assist with Ken, the local agents would have the word out quickly. News media would be all over it in minutes. Stricken captain survives perilous flight, or Co-pilot lands stricken Jumbo by himself, or worse, Doomed airliner lands with collapsed gear, dozens hurt, captain has heart attack. I wanted none of the above.

We were coming up to 26,000 feet and our climb rate was falling. With barely 500 feet per minute on the dial, I could sense we were getting close to our limit of climb ability. I unplugged the autopilot and checked the trim on the elevators. I noted the trim was winding slowly towards the high end of the range.¹⁴ This meant the autopilot was using trim to keep the attitude but gaining little in the way of altitude.

Attitude and altitude are cousins. They look the same but have different habits. The correct attitude means the aircraft is flying efficiently in relation to the horizon with a slight nose-up cant. This gives the best range and best speed. If the trim is out of neutral range, it means the machine is either nose up or down and is working against itself. The autopilot, not caring about that detail, simply dials in the trim required to keep the machine climbing as requested.

Altitude, on the other hand, is fixed, depending on the pressure of the air mass in which the aircraft is flying. On weather maps you often see highs and lows. Flying from one air mass to another means the altitude (real height above ground) is slowly changing in real height but staying the same as far as the altimeters are concerned. Since all aircraft in the same air mass are flying on the same altimeter setting, all aircraft are at proscribed different altitudes in relation to each other and hence separated.

Jack, I said, this thing is about to stop trying to get to heaven. I think twenty-eight grand is going to be about all we’re going to get. I was also getting twitchy that our burn rate might be too high.

Let me get some more weather on the coast and see if we can get Gander as destination with Halifax as alternate.

Jack was busy on the radio while I nursed the trim and autopilot. Jack looked up and handed me the weather at Gander. It was not bad, but Halifax was close to alternate landing limits.¹⁵ We needed both to be able to head westbound.

We need to make a lot of fuel to get beyond Gander, Jack said.¹⁶ I have to get our oceanic clearance soon, he added.

Yeah, I know. I had to make a determination and it had better be the right one.

Tell you what, Jack. Ask Shanwick to see if they can get us a bit closer to Greenland for the crossing. Something just below the Polar Route so we can deke into Sondrestrom if we need to. I can’t cater for too many failures, but that would give us a fighting chance if we needed it. Also, tell them we’ll need twenty-eight for now, but as we burn off we’ll be able to make thirty or thirty-one grand. There won’t be a damn thing in the air at those levels except us, so we should be able to get a drift-up level to climb as we need.¹⁷

Good thinking, William. I thought I detected a bit of a smirk there but paid it no heed. Jack had a lot to lose if all this didn’t pan out. Besides, he was too much the pilot to play smart guy.

In truth, I was feeling pretty bullish about now. I felt I had things under control and we were on a plan that would cover as many bases as we could foresee.

Except Ken. He was still asleep but moving around as though dreaming. The shoulder harness kept him from sliding out of his seat but would not add to his comfort. I kept wondering if I had given him a square deal. Should I have dumped and gone back to get him to a hospital? Tried the gear anyway and said to hell with Boeing? The damn gear probably would have come down, everything would have been fine, and we would be within an hour of getting him to medical care.

If he died, I would carry that burden forever. Oh Bill, just get me home. His words kept echoing in my ears. But why was I listening to the old man’s words anyway? What the hell did he know about the problems we were dealing with and the combinations of possibilities, both good and bad?

Then it struck me. What would Ken do if the situation were reversed? What if it was me who was passed out and he had to make those calls? He would not be second-guessing himself, nor would anyone else. They would assume he had weighed the odds and chosen the procedure with the most promise. They would assume he had done what he thought was right at the time—good or bad. If I died under those conditions, it would be too bad, so sad, but those are the breaks.

Meanwhile, I had babies back there, kids and mothers and fathers. Crewmembers who deserved the best shot we could give them. A company that expected the right call because that is where they put their faith. Passengers who paid good money to go where their ticket sent them. They had put their faith in the system. In me, in Jack, in our training, in Boeing. In the entire modern aviation system.

Ken woke up, startling me. I need a glass of water … please. Ever the gentleman. His words were sharp and clear, with no hint of problems. I hit the call button and Eric was in the cockpit in seconds.

Ken, how are you? Eric beamed.

His beaming was short-lived. Ken half turned around and indicated he wanted water. We had a jug of water in the cockpit at all times but today we had no cups for some reason. Ken pointed to the jug and muttered, No damn cups.

I thought, Hey, he’s back.

Not really. He took a sip, leaned back, and closed his eyes. Give me the latest, Bill, he whispered.

We got our oceanic, we’ll be hitting Mac in ten minutes, and we’re going to level at twenty-eight grand. We have Gander with Halifax …

My voice fell. He was out again.

Eric said quietly, Jack, what’s the plan? I got the impression he was asking Jack so he would not interrupt my furrowed brow.

Jack, the third man on the totem pole and ever the politician, equivocated. Not sure yet, Eric, but Bill seems to think we can make the east coast and be down to landing weight by then. Gander is a potential with long runways, Halifax is even better because it has more company people on that station. Halifax has some ground fog, but that should burn off with the sun coming up in next hour or so. I personally would prefer to go to Paris and have a few days off with some of those sweet things in the back, but Bill says no. Then again, we just might have to put this sucker in the drink.

Eric grinned. Forget those sweet things in the back. They’re mine, and besides, you two have to use all of what little brainpower you have between your ears. When do you want your gruel of mashed meat and cold coffee? Bill, when do you want to eat?

Not for a while. Once we get over the ocean, maybe, but just a cup of coffee for now. I was not hungry, could not think about food. I was too focused on the potential problem at hand.

The company wants to know our intentions, Jack said. He had called the company to see if they had anything new to add to the last message. All they’d offered was that the local Boeing rep had indeed called Seattle and re-sent the same Do not cycle the gear message. They added that they really wanted to know where we were planning to go.

I scanned the panel. Engine parameters were all nominal. Fuel burn, now that we were level at twenty-eight thousand, was within a few pounds per hour of predictions that Jack had worked out on his circular slide rule.¹⁸ I double-checked his numbers and agreed with the calculations. The INS was fully programmed with our oceanic waypoints to the next nine points. The weather was good en route, no turbulence projected, and we were sitting in brilliant sunshine. The engines hummed their tune. Other than a minor vibration in the pole, nothing aroused suspicion there was anything wrong in our world. As we came up to 28,000, I realized that the airspeed had started to fall slightly and an increase in power would not get us any higher. I turned off the autopilot once again and gripped the pole. Our attitude was too nose-high and the shaking was increasing. I leveled out, retrimmed, and we settled at 28,000. That was all we were going to get out of this machine, this day, at this time, over Scotland.

We were indicating less than gear retraction speed, so there was no strain on the gear doors hanging into the slipstream. I turned in my seat and eyed Jack’s panel. Other than the red lights, nothing was unusual there. As I looked up, Jack stared straight into my eyes and his gaze did