Disastrophe

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

 Five hours of the flight have passed and I was still replaying those woman’s words in my head; surely she wasn’t for real? I decided to take my mind off it by gazing into the bright blue sky through the cockpit door that was slightly to the left of my seat and ahead. Most crew prefer to keep the door closed for fear of hijackers and terrorist attacks, but our captain insisted that this made him feel more in touch with the passengers. He thought that we should all be honoured with the astounding panoramic view that he got to witness. As I was gazing, I noticed our captain and first officer leave the cockpit and disappear into a room beside it, which I guessed was where they were to rest for a while. They were replaced by a relief crew, who would fly the plane until the ten hour mark, within moments.

 The next segment of the flight was pretty boring; I listened to a playlist on my IPod, ate an in-flight meal, chatted with Robbie and slept until I noticed that the pilots were swapping over again. The captain smiled at Robbie and I, who were the only two people awake apart from the crew. We flashed a brief smile back, and then continued our conversation. For about ten more minutes, all was calm.

 Suddenly, the plane started to shudder and swiftly bank right.

The first officer alerted the captain, “We’ve lost our right engine.”

 Robbie and I turned to face each other at such a rapid speed, I felt dizzy. Other passengers began to awake.

“Robbie, I have something urgent I need to tell you.”

“Crystal, I have something I need to tell you.”

“You go first. OK, we’ll both go at the same time.” We whispered in unison. “At the airport I heard the woman behind the desk say we had a possible fault with one of the engines.”

“You heard it too…” I murmured softly, sheer terror racing through my body. “It was real; we really heard that.” Robbie just nodded, took my hand, and once again nodded. The plane was still banking right, but at a decreasing pace. Those final few sleeping passengers began to stir and glance out of their window, most having to do a double-take at the confusing scene they were met with. A vast majority were thinking something along the lines of ‘It’ll just be a tricky turn’, but some were growing concerned and began questioning one of the stewardesses.

“I’m sure it’s just a routine turn, it’ll be gone in a few minutes,” She anticipated.

 While she dealt with enquiring passengers, the steward used the telephone near the cockpit to communicate with the crew more easily. I only heard a few murmurs, but from what I could gather, they had almost regained full control of the situation.

 Just as the steward had finished the conversation and had taken a few steps down the middle row, there was a vigorous jolt, making him latch onto a seat so that he didn’t fall over. The power of the jolt slammed the cockpit door shut. No one made an immediate attempt to re-open it; it was best that we didn’t know how much the crew were struggling in there. At least we then began flying in a straight path again.

“Well, that could have ended far worse than it did!” Robbie stated as he sighed in relief, his fingers still wrapped around mine.

 Little did we know, a tilt to the right was only the beginning of this flight’s problems…