Radio silence.
It's a practiced dance in aviation. Aircraft declare emergencies daily for a variety of issues, very few are seriously life threatening. Still, you can almost feel the tension over the radio. Having been on the listening end of this conversation many times over the years, I can imagine the conversations in cockpits throughout the region. I wonder what's happening? Who was that again and where are they going? I wonder if I know them?
Center calls back. "Roger, I understand you are declaring an emergency. When you get time, I need a brief description, souls on board and fuel remaining. Your request has been forwarded to the tower and you can expect the runway of your choosing. Descend at pilot's discretion and maintain 4000 feet."
As an emergency aircraft, you are given the latitude to do pretty much whatever you want. Most pilots don't like wielding that power because many of us have been on the "make way" end of it over the years. Flying into a busy airspace, traffic is tightly metered and speed restricted. An emergency aircraft sends the rest of that dance into controlled chaos. The emergency aircraft is not metered. It has been given the green light all the way to the runway. Everyone else in the vicinity is slowed or sped up, put in a holding pattern, spun away or even told to go around. Traffic on the ground is held and the runway effectively closed for everyone but the emergency aircraft.
As we get closer to the runway, my heart begins to beat harder. My brain is trying its hardest to convince my body to chill out. We've tied-up every possible loose end. A blown tire would have left debris on the runway in Denver or caused abnormal indications when the gear was raised. Engines have run normally for the better part of 3 hours. Hydraulics reservoirs are full and pressure normal. Electrical indications are normal. Fuel consumption is on schedule. What we are doing is out of an abundance of caution. Beyond an abundance, really. So, there is no need to be anxious. I look over to the Captain and brief the plan. Same as always. At the end, I add in the abnormal procedures.
"Alright, so the book says to land with auto-brakes off and land as soft as possible. I'm going to come in on speed but leave the power in until about 10 feet. When we touch down, I'll use full-reverse and slowly come on the brakes. Back me up on the rudders in case it actually is a blown tire. As we've told ATC, we'll plan on stopping on the runway to have our landing gear inspected by maintenance before continuing to the gate. Any questions?" The Captain shook his head and we continued to the runway.
"Gear down. Flaps 30. Abnormal landing checklist." The moment of truth. If anything was wrong, this would be the last chance for an indication. The captain reaches out and pulls down the seemingly aggressively large 2-feet long gear handle. The 3-gear indicating lights cycle from extinguished to red indicating the gear is officially in transit. We can feel the subtle swinging of the metal arms as hydraulic fluid rushes to the actuators and swings the landing gear in place. Within a second, all three lights illuminate green. A bit of relief.
Moments later, the tower clears us to land and adds,"alright, the equipment is standing by at the approach end of the runway and midfield. They are going to follow you down the runway until you come to a full stop. We are looking at you now with binoculars and it appears your landing gear is normal from what we can tell. Cleared to land."
Everything is set and I focus my attention 4 miles ahead at the approaching runway. Even in the middle of the day, it is blatantly evident that the over 2 mile long stretch of concrete that is our destination is being hugged on its right side by flashing red and white lights. Several large fire trucks, ambulances and airport operations vehicles sit close enough to be immediately of assistance but far enough away to let us do our thing. Somewhere among them, I imagine there is a truck with two maintenance technicians but they don't have lights and so invisible to us. From the terminal, I muse to myself, this must appear to be a real spectacle.
"1000 feet, cleared to land," the captain calls out. "All systems are in the green."
I continue to fly the airplane without any help from the autopilot to the ground. At around 60 feet, the beginning of the pavement passes under the nose and the airplane starts to count down the feet above the runway. "50..40..30....20.......10." Right before 20, I pull the nose up to flare the aircraft. The cadence of the call-outs from the computer slows as the aircraft briefly suspends its descent over the runway. With the engines still at approach power, the aircraft could float the entire length of the runway. At the 10 second mark, however, I slowly bring the throttles back to idle. The drag is too much and the aircraft begins to sink. When the wheels finally touch, it's nothing more than a low frequency rumble from somewhere behind us. One of my best and smoothest landings ever.
I feel the spoilers, the large panels on top of the wing, deploy marking the official end of the flight. As they extend to nearly straight up, lift on top of the wing is nearly zeroed out and the aircraft settles onto the runway. Nothing feels abnormal, I think to myself. With the nose still in the air, I reach to the front of the throttles and unlock the thrust reversers, sending them into idle reverse. The nose settles onto the ground and I pull back on the reverser handles sending the engines into full reverse. Nothing feels abnormal. Feet on the brakes, I gently start to add pressure. The pads grab onto the discs and slowly I increase pressure on the pedals. Nothing feels abnormal. At just under 100 mph, the reversers are stowed. Seconds later, I bring the aircraft to a full stop in the center of the runway and EXHALE. Had I been holding my breath this entire time?
Looking over at the Captain, I smile. "Well, I've definitely had worse landings." He smiles back and we both look out the window as the fire trucks converge on us. He gets on the PA and lets everyone know in the back what is happening, as he did throughout the flight and we await news from under the airplane.
"Tower, this is Rescue 1. We shot the gear with IR. Temps are hot but normal. Sending in the mechanics." As expected, the brakes are hot after stopping a 150,000lb aircraft from 150mph. A few minutes later, over the radio, "Tower, this is Rescue 1. The mechanics have inspected the landing gear and have found nothing abnormal. They are good to taxi to the gate for closer inspection."
After coming to a stop, there really couldn't be any bad news. The potentially dangerous part was over. We taxi the aircraft into the gate, set the parking brake and part ways. The trip is over. Time to go home.
****
While sitting in the back of the plane as I commuted home to St Louis that night, I reflected on the day's events. Even though we treated it as an emergency, we knew deep inside that nothing was really ever wrong. We went above and beyond what was required of us just so that we could ensure the safest possible outcome when we landed. Later, evaluation of the flight data recorder would determine that an atmospheric anomaly caused the sudden jerk to the left. Nothing a normal pilot couldn't handle.
As I expected I would, in the midst of the stress of a potential serious malfunction and emergency landing, I performed on par. My now approaching a decade of aviation experience had prepared me well to live up to the task of executing a never-before-tried maneuver perfectly after only having read about it in a manual.
Still there was one thing I couldn't shake. It wasn't the nearly 3 hours of stress and problem solving that went into the flight. It wasn't seeing the emergency vehicles waiting for us at the airport and knowing WHY they were there. It wasn't the moment that lasted a hour in the feet above the runway as the wheels touched down. It wasn't even the smiles and profuse thanks from the passengers as they walked off the airplane.
Before every flight, I send a text to Nicole which she always return. "I love you, bye." It is something we've been doing for as long as I can remember. While it seems cute at the surface, it is a gesture that I strive to make even on the busiest of preflights and I do so because of situations like these. While highly implausible, there is always a chance that the text I send before pushing back from the gate will be my last. Those four words may be the last she ever hears from me and I don't want the last thing she sees to be a haha or the beginning of a bad joke. I want her to know that from the moment I send it until the time I can talk to her again, even if that time is never, how I feel. I love you. Bye.
As I was sitting there in my window seat looking down at the Gateway Arch, lit bright against the Mississippi, I couldn't help but think of our ritual. I pulled out my phone and looked at my texts one last time before touching down. What was sticking in my mind was that soon our ritual will change. I will have to send, "I love you both," and her reply will be, "We love you too."
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