Reunion - Chapter Two

Reunion

Simon Stanford

Chapter 2

Crash!

Whilst the Rugby Team descended on the table in search of further alcoholic libations, the rest of the group took the time to carry on or start conversations and catch ups. Aside from the natural grouping of the Rugger Buggers there were was one other “tribe” apparent in the group. The geeks. Stephan Court, Subbu Esacam, Nalesh Mougal and the now rather incongruous looking Wiltshire, had all been in the top few places in all subjects at BGSB. In science and maths Leonard Wiltshire was always in the undisputed 1st place.

The other two members of the reunion party were harder to fit in, though if pushed Stephan would have described them as part of the “bad boys”. Those boys for whom trouble seemed to follow them around like a shadow or second skin.
One of them was also the only black guy in the class. Romney White, the irony of whose name you might think would make him a perfect target for racist name calling in the rough and tumble of senior school boys. However perhaps it was the fact it was a grammar school that there was very little name calling along the lines of race, that and the fact that by age thirteen Romney White was already nearly six foot tall and weighed 15 stone of almost pure muscle.

Romney had been a hard nut, no two ways about it. He had a reasonable intellect and had clearly earned his place at BGSB the same way as the other boys had. Though there was always that thought at the back of the mind that he had in fact failed his entrance exam but no-one had the nerve to tell him. This was of course completely untrue and when he put his mind to it Romney White could perform quite well academically as well as being a star of the athletics track.

In a change almost as dramatic as that undertaken by Leonard Wiltshire, Romney White was now a bona fide died in the wool, MBA qualified, self-employed “management transformation” consultant. That is to say, he was a complete arse. Seemingly only capable of conversing in the latest management speak of leverage, synergy and blue sky thinking. Even so he still kept himself in shape and this discouraged any real close questioning of what he was actually saying.

The final member of the group was Stuart Walker. At school he had been a slight, wiry boy his gaze constantly shifting about as though he were expecting at any moment to feel the hand of authority in his shoulder, which of course he frequently did usually in connection with some scam or other involving the contraband of the moment, be that cigarettes, video nasties or even for one craze driven term Rubik's cubes. Today he was a slight, wiry forty year old who still looked shifty and described himself as in the import-export business.

This was apparently one leopard that apparently had not changed his spots. He was however a very affable character with a winning smile and he chatted amiably with all members of the party, able to move between the groupings with ease.

Whilst the group waited Lili pressed her access card to the side door and walked out on to the air side tarmac of the airport. A short distance away a small baggage train was being unloaded into a less than pristine looking King Air 200 turbo-prop aircraft. Stephan , Romney and Stuart watched as Lili made her way round to the front seat of the tractor unit of the baggage train. Seated there with his feet up on the dashboard was a small Asian man in his early fifties wearing a brown leather bomber jacket, scruffy white chinos and mirrored Aviator sunglasses.

Lili approached him, swept his feet off the dash and proceeded to have a very heated conversation with him that involved much gesturing and pointing towards the group in the transfer lounge. Whenever Lili's head turned towards the lounge, the beatific smile would return to her face as she caught the eye of whoever was watching, then she would have more harsh words for the driver of baggage train.

“She's certainly not happy with him.” Stuart Walker commented.
“Well he's not exactly a power house of activity is he, leaving the loading of the bags to those other two guys” responded Stephan indicating two men in blue coveralls loading up the group’s luggage into the hold of the King Air.

After a couple of minutes Lili walked back in to the transfer lounge with the baggage car driver in tow. They came back in the side door and Lili brought the group to attention again, though this time only through normal speech.

“Gentlemen. This is Nguyen Tok. “ She paused briefly and looked down at the short man beside. He was actually shorter than she was. “He is the chief pilot of Tok airlines and will be responsible for your onward journey to Manila”.
“Chief Pilot and Exectif' directa of Tok airline” said Nguyen in reasonable English but with a thick Vietnamese accent
“You can call me Fly Guy” he said lifting his sunglasses on the top of his head and flashing a broad smile round the room.
“Ok boys. Let's go to Manila!” Guy said and headed towards the side door that would lead out to the waiting and now fully loaded aircraft. Lili bid them an enjoyable onward journey and said she would look forward to seeing them on their return journey.

The group followed Guy out to the plane. As they approached it, the less than pristine condition of the aircraft became more and more obvious. It had clearly seen better days. The paintwork was scuffed and a layer of grime had collected in corners of the windows of both pilot and passenger compartment. There appeared to be a burnt patch over one of the engines that seemed relatively fresh.

“Err..is this thing safe?” asked Nalesh Mougal , a somewhat nervous flyer at the best of times.
“Sure. Sure” said Guy jumping to grab the leading edge of the left wing and then in an athletic move flicking himself up onto the wing. He bounced up and down on the wing.
“See anything drop off?” he asked as a small shower of dust fell down on to the tarmac.
“Err no. “, said Mougal. “Erm how often do these planes crash?” he asked wanting to have some quantifiable statistics to help calm his nerves.
“Oh only the once” came the reply. “That's usually enough”.
“No that's not what I meant. I meant how many....”. Guy interrupted him before he could finish.

“Don't worry I very good pilot. Many night sorties over Hannoi, they never get me once” and with that he tripped lightly across the wing, dropped down onto the steps leading up to the side door and disappeared inside the plane.

There was a moment's hesitancy in the group and then Ian Prince led the Rugger Buggers inside. Esacam put a re-assuring arm round Mougal and lead him up the steps.

There were seats for 13 laid out inside the air craft and on 12 of them was a small plastic tray. Clearly the in flight meal was to be self-service. The group stowed their hand luggage into the lockers and then lifting the meal trays up they seated themselves down and having done up their seat-belts placed the meals back on the laps.

Guy appeared at the door to the cockpit and looked down the length of the plane “OK buckle up boys, we go now.” He was about to head back into the cockpit when he was called back by Mougal again.

“Isn't there a safety briefing?”. Guy let out a heavy sigh
“Yeah. Yeah ok. There's the door “ he said pointing to the way they had just come in with exaggerated obviousness and rolling of the eyes.
“If we gonna crash drop your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye” he cackled and disappeared into the cockpit slamming the door behind him. Barely had he got inside the cockpit than the plane began taxiing towards the main runway.

It paused momentarily as it squared up on the and then the engines roared to life and they began a somewhat bumpy take off run. That said, the take off itself and subsequent ascent were surprisingly smooth and this eased the concerns of Mougal and couple of the other sober and more nervous fliers.

Night blanketed the city of Bankgok as flight Tok Air 1 climbed to its cruising altitude and headed out over the ocean towards the Philippines.

*

The next two hours passed uneventfully then there was a loud bumping noise from underneath the left wing and the plane veered slightly to that side before straightening up. The passengers, most of whom had been asleep for a while were jolted awake. They looked about them wondering what was going on.

Guy appeared in the passenger compartment carrying a long thin spanner that was almost as tall as he was.

“Don't worry boys. All under control” he said and proceeded to lift a small panel under the feet of Subber Esacam, insert the spanner and work it back and forth vigorously for a couple of minutes in a pumping action. The group watched in open mouthed astonishment.

“There we go, all fixed now” said Guy and returned to the cockpit before anyone could question him.

The flight continued without further incident for forty minutes and the group were just dropping off to sleep when there was another bump and lurch from the plane but this time from under the right wing. The group once again bolt upright with attention waited for Guy to appear with spanner in hand but instead there was a crackle over the intercom and then his voice came to them from the ether.

“Ah ok boys we have a slight problem. I need to slow down and go lower. We'll be fine just take you a bit longer to get to Manila. Relax it'll be fine.”
There was a murmur of consternation through the passenger compartment and they were anything but relaxed by Guy's announcement.

Mougal sat rigid in his seat over the wing looking left and right counting the engines. They still appeared to have the same number they had taken off with , which was something.Esacam was going to lean over and re-assure him but to be honest he himself wasn't feeling that secure either.

*

An uneasy quiet came of the plane for the next thirty minutes as the first fingers of dawn crept over the horizon they were now flying towards, casting a pale golden glow over the passengers. This did manage to lift the spirits of the group a little. Seeing the dawn in any situation is probably always a good sign.

Suddenly there was another violent lurch and the plane dipped slightly, rose back up at a steeper angle and then levelled out. The tanoy crackled into life again.

“Gentlemen, if you look over the to right in just a moment you'll see......” there was a pause as the cockpit door flew open, “me” said Guy in the flesh as he appeared in the door. He took a running jump with both feet at the side door of the plane and it gave way with a screech and fell away from the plane. A howling gale whipped round the cabin as Guy disappeared through the gaping hole in the side of the plane which had now begun a sharp veer away from the exit Guy had just made.

“Holy fucking, fuck!” shouted Stuart Walker, neatly expressing the situation.

There was a general pandemonium in the plane only barely audible above the roar of the wind in the passenger compartment. The plane continued it's sideways lurching dive.
“Can anyone here fly a plane?” shouted Stephan. There was no positive reaction from anyone.
“Anyone, anything? Even once?” shouted Stephan again.
“I'll give it a go. I've got a bit of flying time” shouted a voice from the back of the plane. It was Gareth Laney the former Scrum Half and current regional area salesman for Bild Plastics, Northwest division. He pulled his way forward to the cockpit and Stephan went with him for no other reason than he felt he should.

Gareth sat down in the pilot's seat and looked about him. The plane continued its rapid screaming descent. A furrow came over Gareth's face.
“What , what is it?” shouted Stephan.
“The controls” said Gareth pointing to joy stick in front of him. “There's no triangle or square button” he said exasperated.
“What?” Stephan screamed, “The Playstation! You're looking for playstation controls!”
“Well I only said I'll give it a go” said Gareth as if that made everything ok.
“Well do something then!”
“With what?”
“With that, the control stick”

Gareth took a deep breath and grabbed the control stick, he tried to move it in the opposite direction to their current dive. The stick shuddered and shook as it fought the dive but the plane still continued on its downward trajectory. The muscles in Gareth's arms bulged as he fought to move the stick in any direction at all.
“It’s like it is locked solid” he exclaimed.

“I'll try to get help on the radio.” said Stephan having located the hand mike in the console above the control stick. He pressed the switch in the panel.
“May day!May day! This is…this is…a plane. Err Tok Air 1 May day!” He released the talk switch and waited for a response. There was nothing. He turned the tuning dial a couple of clicks and tried again. Still nothing.
The plane continued its steeply spiralling descent. Gareth had given up trying to control the plane.

“It's useless we might as well....wait look” he pointed over nose to the right. They were spiralling over an island of some sort. A large outcropping of rock, green forest and white sand was passing into and out of view as they continued their fall.

“It's going to come down on the land. That's good isn't it?”
“At these speeds, at this angle? I doubt it's any better than hitting the water. Probably worse.” said Stephan though somehow the sight of land cut through his despair and panic.

“May as well go back and kiss our asses goodbye” he said and they went back into the passenger compartment. The rest of the group had now spotted the landfall too and were clustered over to the right of the plane to get a better view. This wasn't doing anything to help the aerodynamics of the stricken plane.

“Everyone sit down and assume the brace position!” shouted Stephan it's our only chance. Realising he was probably right the group returned to their seats and crossing their arms over their heads they leant forward and waited for the inevitable.

*

It seemed to take an eternity for them but was in fact only about 30 seconds. The turbulence began to shake the plane violently though it did at least straighten up quite a lot from it's previous veering. Several of the group snuck glances out to the side windows to see grey green blur of forest and rock flash past only causing them to tuck their heads down tighter. The bottom of the fuselage struck the taller of the trees on the island ripping it open like a tin can spilling luggage over a wide area. The screeching and crashing were deafening and everyone felt sure they were not going to make it.

The plane was suddenly pulled sharply to the left and then right as it cleared the line of trees and careered along the crystal white sands of the beach. With a final bang and shudder it came to a stop up against a low sand bank at the edge of the foreshore, throwing up huge gouts of sand in the process.

The group where thrown back in the seats. For a few seconds no-one spoke and compared to the cacophony of the last couple of minutes there was an eerie silence. Then there came whoops and howls of delight from the group.

“We made it , we made it!” they shouted.
“B…G…S…B! B…G…S…B!” chanted the rugby team.

Then slowly the whole plane began to fill with a thick black smoke.