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Flying blind
(adapted from a story by Sandy Guy and David Crofts, Reader’s Digest July 2001)
Nathan Ross was worried. Something wasn’t right. It was about eight, the wind was lashing the rain and Ross’s border collie was running around, barking furiously. Ross was standing in his yard in the raging thunderstorm, listening hard.
Ross had been interested in flying since he could remember and he made a hobby of tracking planes as they soared past. He listened again and could hear a small aircraft circling Tenterfield, flying past his house again and again. Suddenly the red and green lights of the Cessna broke through the cloud cover. Judging by the way the little aircraft was bucking in the sky he realised that something was seriously wrong. Either the pilot was lost or in trouble – or both.
Ross, who has a dectronics and communication business, owns an air–band portable radio, which looks like a cell phone and can be used to contact aircraft overhead. With this radio, he began to call the pilot. First he could hear only static, but then the radio came alive.
“This is Juliet Uniform Alpha – and no, I’m not OK, repeat, not OK. I’m not sure how much fuel I have left. I can barely see and I need help!”
“Don’t worry,” Ross reassured him, “We’ll organise something.” Ross did not feel as confident as he sounded, as he knew that Tenterfield’s airstrip was a grassy field with no runway lights or control tower. Getting the pilot down in the dark and rain on the airstrip surrounded by hills and mountains would be very tough.
Ross was concerned that it would be hours before the clouds would clear enough for the pilot to be able to see the airstrip. He knew there was a chance that he could crash into one of the hills surrounding the town. His best bet was to call Robert Wild, a local pilot who knew the airstrip well, and ask for his help.
Thirty minutes later, after having found flares, Wild spoke to Esmond Yasi, the pilot, and told him to follow the streetlights to the edge of town and then car lights on the main road out of town to the airfield.
“Tenterfield Ground, I’m at 700 feet and don’t know how much lower I can go.” The pilot’s frightened voice rang in Ross’s ears. “Stay calm, mate,” Ross said, noticing that the radiophone battery was running low.
“Forget about finishing lighting the flares,” Ross said to Wild, “The cloud cover is descending too fast and he must land now!” Blue and red police lights flashed in the dark. Townsfolk wishing to help sat in their cars, watching, with their headlights on.
From inside the cockpit, Yasi headed the plane for the airstrip. Suddenly he was momentarily blinded by a colossal flash of lightning and where Tenterfield’s lights had blinked just seconds before, there was total darkness. “It’s a blackout!” the voice from the ground told Yasi.
In desperation, Ross turned on the hazard lights of his car and roared his Mitsubishi through the wet streets of the town, heading for the airstrip, with the Cessna only 250 feet above him.
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