Epilogue Episode One: The Pilot

Epilogue is a series of short stories following the final moments of different people in a singular location at the end of the world. Season one follows the passengers on a plane travelling from Brisbane to Hobart.

In Episode One, we follow Captain Jack Howard as he and his co-pilot desperately, and futilely, try to keep their plane in the air.

Captain Jack Howard was just over two hours into the three hour flight from Brisbane to Hobart, cruising over the glistening of the Bass Strait in the cockpit of the 747. He had left the Australian mainland behind a short while before and was now entering into his favourite part of the journey. There was something special about having the blue of the sea below and the azure sky above.

Jack was fifty-two years old and he’d spent a sizable percentage of that time in the sky. In his younger years, he had been a navy pilot on an American aircraft carrier. After meeting his future wife, he had moved to Australia and made the transition into being a commercial pilot. It was a life that suited him. No matter where he settled down, he belonged in the air. It was where he was most at ease. Too long on solid ground and Jack started to feel antsy.

Even by his standards though, this flight had been essentially perfect. They had gotten off the ground as close to on-time as any crew ever did. No pilot nor passenger enjoyed an extended stay on the tarmac. Then, once in the air, the sky had been clear and the weather good. There hadn’t been a lick of turbulence.

His co-pilot, Max, was young and newer to the airline. Jack wasn’t very familiar with him and had never flown with him before. However, Jack found him professional, competent and easy to get along with. He had flown with all sorts over the years and some were easier to deal with than others, but Max was cut from the right cloth. Neither too uptight nor too relaxed.

Jack was at the controls, but there wasn’t an exceptional amount for him to do at that stage. Their landing wouldn’t be imminent for another half hour or so and there wasn’t much to be done in the way of adjustments until then with how smooth the flight was going.

“Flying over the sea is always the best part,” Jack said. “It’s the one thing I miss about doing international flights.”

Flying domestically, Jack did get to fly over the water more often than a lot of people would expect for a pilot working in Australia. But he definitely spent far less time with the ocean beneath him than he had when he had been in the navy, or when he had flown international flights.

“Why did you change?” Max asked, stretching.

“Family,” Jack replied. “My wife was never the biggest fan of me being halfway around the world all the time to begin with, but she tolerated it. Then we had kids and I decided I’d rather be closer to home for them. My kids have grown up now, but I don’t want to upset Tahlia by going back to the long international trips.”

“That’s good of you,” Max remarked. 

“As long as I still get to fly, I’m content.” 

“I hear that,” Max said. “I decided I wanted to be a pilot when I was eight and never changed my mind.”

“It was much the same for me.” Jack laughed. “Now I’m in my fifties, bald and still can’t dream of giving it up.”

“You’ve been doing this for a while,” Max replied. “Do you know what that is then?”

Jack’s attention snapped back to the task at hand. It was the sort of question that demanded your full attention as a pilot. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been doing his job, but he hadn’t noticed the change in the colour of the sky.

The change was coming from behind the plane, that had a lot to do with it. But now that his attention had been drawn to it, Jack was realising that the sky was turning a reddish colour. Twisting to look out the sidemost window of the cockpit, he could see that the further to the north-east he looked, the more red the sky became.

“Not a clue,” he admitted. Jack looked down at the instruments, they weren’t showing anything that indicated he should be concerned. “Instruments look fine on my end.”

Max, looking nervous despite his efforts to remain professional, confirmed that there didn’t seem to be any cause for worry. “Same here.”

“Hmm.” Jack was experienced enough not to panic at the first sign of something a little out of the ordinary. Especially when the instruments were displaying that everything was fine and the flight was remaining smooth. But, there was something about the sky being dyed red behind them that made him uneasy. “It’s probably nothing, but call it in just to be sure.”

Jack kept his focus on the instruments, listening to Max contacting the nearest air control.

“The sky has gone deep red in the north and north-east. We’re not having any problems at this stage, but it’s weird. Any idea what it’s about?”

Through his own headset, Jack heard the controller responding from where she was based at Hobart. They hadn’t received any alarming information, but they were starting to notice the change themselves.

“Aurora australis?” Max wondered aloud.

“Not during the day. Definitely not from behind us.” Jack frowned. The more he thought about the red sky, the more it perturbed him. In all his years in the cockpit, he had never seen anything like it. “Might be a good idea to put on the seatbelt light. Just to be safe.”

Max flicked on the signal informing the passengers and flight attendants to return to their seats and buckle themselves in. 

Minutes later, there was a thunderous, explosive noise from behind them. The plane suddenly jerked upwards. Then, just as abruptly, dropped straight down several feet. Jack’s stomach sank with it. Even as he pulled back on the yoke, the entire aircraft started to rattle with teeth-chattering turbulence. He could scarcely hear the screaming of the passengers in the cabin behind him over the sudden cacophony of warning noises.

“Shitshitshitshitshitshit,” Max exclaimed, hastening to examine the instruments and identify the problem.

Jack clenched his jaw. He didn’t have time for unnecessary words. He was focused on the losing battle he was in to maintain stability.

“Left engines are damaged,” Max said. “Think it has something to do with the sky?”

“No idea,” Jack replied. “But we have more important things to focus on. I’m struggling to keep us from nose-diving.”

“Seriously?!” Max had gone so pale Jack worried he’d pass out. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Putting the alarm aside, Jack was inclined to agree. If the problem was just some damage to the left engines, they’d have a harder time, but wouldn’t be in imminent danger of a crash.

“Ask the cabin crew to take a look at the wings if they can,” Jack said.

“On it.”

Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t hard for them to contact the flight attendants through the intercom. They were all buckled in close to the stations and eager for answers. It only took a couple of minutes for one of them to struggle over to a window view and back to give Max the information he requested.

“They said the wings look a little beat up,” he said. “But nothing looks to be on fire or broken off.”

“So we’re shaking and dropping and we don’t know why? Call it in and get us permission to land back in Melbourne.” Jack was trying to maintain a semblance of calm but, internally, he was afraid. Nobody could really have no fear when their plane was making every effort to plough into the sea, but Jack considered himself a consummate professional. Maybe it was the sky getting ever redder, but he could feel panic setting in. That only made him more afraid. It was when you panicked that you made critical mistakes. Between Max and himself being so shaken and the unexplained severity of their situation, he had judged it was best to get back on the ground as soon as possible.

“This is flight TB204. We’re having problems staying airborne. There’s some damage to our wings and left engines and severe turbulence. We heard a loud boom earlier, but no sign of what it actually was or why we’re struggling so much up here. We’d like to turn back around and land, see if we can figure out what’s going on.”

Disconcertingly, the reply that came back was garbled and choppy.”...not the only ones… uncertain…atmosphere… request…confirmed.”

Jack and Max shared a look of disquiet between them before the latter continued his dialogue with the controller. “We’ve got static. Confirm that we can turn around?”

More static hissed through their headsets along with the reply. “Turn around.”

“Start making preparations, I’ll let everyone know,” Jack said. He let Max get to work, taking a deep breath even as he strained against the controls. He put on his best “captain voice,” then spoke over the intercom. “Ladies and gentleman, this is your captain speaking. You might have noticed we’ve had some turbulence and some surprising bumps. Our instruments are saying we don’t need to be too alarmed, but we’re going to turn back towards the mainland and set down so we can take a look and make sure we’re all good to continue. We appreciate your patience.”

As he finished his statement, Jack set to work trying to turn the plane around even as he struggled to keep it at the right trajectory in the air. He was immediately met with something concerning. No matter which way he twisted the yoke, the plane didn’t change direction. He tried to change the orientation of the rudder with the pedals at his feet. As best as he could tell, it was moving but not as much as it should be.

“Ailerons and rudder aren’t responding,” Jack said. “We can’t turn.”

“Seriously?!” Max yelped. Jack could hear the rising terror in his voice. “Let me try.”

“Your aircraft,” Jack acknowledged, choosing to stick to the appropriate formalities of transferring control, even though procedure was clearly slipping from Max’s mind. He watched as Max attempted to turn the 747. He saw his co-pilot’s eyes widen with abject horror. He couldn’t get the plane to turn either.

“Shit. What do we do?” Max looked to Jack for guidance.

Jack had Max transfer control back to him and tried to present a calm and composed front. The reality was that he wasn’t feeling much better about the situation than Max was though. He could feel the hum of adrenaline in his blood and though he fought to keep his mind clear, it was a struggle.

Just keeping the plane in the air was a struggle. He had to keep it on the right trajectory. If they dropped too much, they would stall and plummet even faster. He was already fighting a losing battle on that front. If they couldn’t turn and get to safety, they would plummet into the sea. An intentional water landing was a lot more survivable than people tended to think. The greatest concern was how quickly rescue could arrive. An unintentional crash was a different matter.

Jack took a deep breath to steady his nerves. They couldn’t afford to lose their cool. There were a few hundred people on the plane whose safety would be determined by his and Max’s state of mind. They had problems. Serious problems. But Jack decided to focus on solutions.

“Okay,” he said. “Keep calm. We’ve got this.”

“Do we?” Max asked. It wasn’t sarcasm. It was a legitimate question. 

Jack tried to smile confidently. “Sure. We can’t turn and we’re falling out of the sky, but we can deal with the inconvenience. We have options.”

Max nodded, steeling himself. Jack could see the resolve return to his eyes. He was starting to worry that his earlier assessment of Max had been wrong, but that assuaged his concerns. He felt like they could get through it.

“I don’t think we’re going to make it back to land,” Jack admitted. “But if we know we’re landing in the water, that gives us time to prepare. We call it in so they can mobilise in advance and we’ll get as close as we can so they get to us faster.”

“To Hobart?”

“The mainland,” Jack said. Max opened his mouth to remind him they couldn’t turn, but Jack cut him off. “If you go below you can manually change the flaps with the hydraulics. There will be a delay so we’ll have to watch our timing, but we can turn that way.”

“Alright.” Max was quick to get to his feet, struggling some as the aircraft continued to rattle and shake.

Jack called in the change of plans to the control tower as Max hurried out of the cockpit, shutting the door behind himself. He heard something resembling confirmation through the ever increasing buzz of the static. That was going to have to be good enough.

The next part of his job was letting everyone else on the plane know what was coming.

“Ladies and Gentleman, I have an update for you on our current situation,” Jack spoke over the intercom. “Our problems have turned out to be a little bit more serious than it originally appeared. As a result, we are going to be performing a water landing. That’s a lot safer than it sounds and we’re going to get as close to the mainland as we can first so help will be with us quicker. Just make sure you have your life jackets on and that you listen to the flight attendants and everything will be fine. We’re just going for a bit of a dip before your travels continue.”

With that out the way, Jack wiped his brow, finding he was perspiring quite severely. He thought to himself it was a good thing the passengers only heard his falsely steady voice, instead of being able to see how stressed he actually was; sweating profusely, gripping the controls with white knuckles and burning arms, red-faced and breathing heavily. It was a miracle he had been able to present confidence to Max and his passengers at all.

“Ready to go,” Max called in. His voice was also obscured by static, although not nearly as badly as the control tower.

“Okay,” Jack said. “Try and bank us left.”

The minutes that followed were the tensest of Jack’s life. They seemed to stretch on entirely too long and it took all of his restraint not to call in to Max and ask for an update. He didn’t break though. Max needed to focus. So did he. The plane was still doing its best to descend against his wishes.

Then, the trembling plane’s left wing started to dip, causing the 747 to start banking to the east. Jack kept a careful watch on the plane’s attitude. If they dipped too much, they were going to have even more problems on their hands.

“Okay, level us out a bit,” Jack said into his headset.

“Understood,” came Max’s curt reply.

Once more, the wait between instruction and result was gruelling. Manually manipulating the hydraulics was slow and required Max to be careful not to over or under do his job. Still, Jack chose to trust Max could handle it. It made more sense for him, the more experienced pilot, to be the shot caller.

“That’s good,” Jack said. The aircraft was losing altitude faster as a result, but it was now curving steadily to the left in a wide arc. A voice in the back of Jack’s head was shouting at him that turning back into the redder sky was a bad idea. But he tried to silence it as worries about superstitions.

Ignoring his hammering heart, the organ pounding so hard he felt it in his fingertips, Jack did his part to keep the plane’s altitude up. They wanted to descend slowly.

“Okay, that’s nearly a full turn. Straighten us up, Max. Good work.”

“On it, Captain,” Max replied.

Then disaster struck.

The plane suddenly dropped down several feet. It became even harder for Jack to keep its trajectory safe. His arms were burning from the effort. More concerningly though, instead of straightening out, the 747 was dipping further and further left. He heard the panicked cries of his passengers.

“What’s going on, Max?!” He couldn’t help but yell through the headset. “The left wing is dropping further, not straightening up!”

There wasn’t a reply.

“Max? Max?!”

Nothing.

A fresh horror started to dawn on Jack. Something must have happened to Max when the plane suddenly dropped. That had caused the opposite of what Max had intended to occur and now, his co-pilot was unable to respond and - most likely - unable to fix the issue.

“Max?! Come on!”

Nothing.

The aircraft tipped further and further to the left and Jack was powerless to stop it. The terrified, discordant screams of the passengers pierced his ears. Jack felt a sick sense of calm wash over himself, entirely in opposition to the agitation behind him. There was nothing else he could do. 

An intentional water landing had a survival rate of nearly ninety percent, Jack recalled. However, crashing into the water’s surface at a bad angle, at breakneck speed, wasn’t nearly so survivable.

He hoped at least some of his passengers would survive. He hoped his family would know he had done everything he could to make it back to them.

“Brace for impact,” he said over the intercom. He was surprised by how calm his voice still sounded - professional to the very end. Or maybe it was just the calm that came with acceptance.

He heard the cabin crew shouting calls to brace.

The last thing Jack Howard saw was the red sky above reflected on the blue sea that rushed up to greet him.