The Detour

Part 4: Sweating

"Regional two niner two seven" It was the flight controller.

"Regional two niner two seven. Roger."

"Hi. We understand you're enroute to Mecca."

"Roger, Mecca."

"Vector directly to AKINO."

A waypoint! Thank goodness! We had someplace to fly to! I entered AKINO into the Flight Management Console. Course 274. Almost due west. Sounded about right. I hit the program command button. I felt the plane respond to the autopilot, banking slightly to the right from 270. "AKINO, Copy."

"At AKINO, contact Colombo Control for further instruction."

"Thanks, Jakarta!" Sri Lanka! I'd forgotten, and it's closer than India! Maybe, just maybe...

"You're welcome. Good luck!"

Years ago, we only had radio beacons for navigation. After a while, they started naming the intersections of the beacons; if one beacon was at a particular angle with respect to another, you could tell the controller that you were at a particular waypoint. They're on the charts. Today, with GPS, we can program our autopilot to go anywhere, and we have a new set of waypoints that are simply latitude and longitude coordinates. Nearly all of them are five-letters long, just as most of the beacons are three, and airports are four. AKINO is a GPS waypoint.

It took thirty minutes to get to AKINO. We said goodbye to Jakarta Air Traffic Control, they wished us luck, and we contacted Colombo Control. They were expecting our call and gave us more navigational waypoints, in order: TEBIT. HC, MTL, VCRI. That last one grabbed my attention – four letter codes are airports! I glanced over to Martin. He looked as surprised as I felt. Dare we hope? I steadied myself and looked over my shoulder at my 'guest' in the cockpit, Mr. Hand Grenade. I entered the codes into the Flight Management Console. The airport was about 80km further than our fuel estimate.

The controller continued to give us letters and numbers. Mr. Hand Grenade didn't seem interested.

Have you ever driven your car on "E," certain that you've got another two or three liters before your engine starts sucking air and dies, certain that the gas station a dozen kilometers away is close enough? There is a big difference between certainty and knowledge, isn't there? No matter how certain you are, you still sweat up until the moment you roll into the station and stop in front of the gas pump, don't you?

Cruising at ten thousand meters and point seventy nine Mach, it took about an hour to get to TEBIT. An hour of watching the needles slowly drop, little by little, lower and lower. Ahead, open sea, open sea, and more open sea. The closer we get to TEBIT, the more nervous I get. I watch the gauges and wait, listening for a sputter, a hiccup, anything to hint that an engine is about to cut out, and then the other. I wait for a hint that our quiet glide down to the water is about to start.

TEBIT disappeared from the console screen. I felt the plane gently change course towards HC, another waypoint. .

"Take the controls, Cap," Martin said, "I've got to use the restroom."

"Bird's mine," I replied, as I took the controls. Before our guard realized what was happening, Martin had released his seat belt, and was out of his seat.

"Get back! Get back in your seat!"

"C'mon, man. I've really gotta go."

She yawed slightly, then straightened out. An alarm went off. An alarm I'd been dreading.

"What's that?"

"Shit! One of the engines stopped," I said, clearing the alarm.

"What did you do? Start it back up!"

"I didn't do anything. We're running..."

Another alarm sounded as the screens went black.

"Fuck!"