The takeoff roll had been a particularly laborious affair. Cargo was never permitted to ride in front of passengers and combined with their baggage; the tailwheel was sluggish to lift from the runway. Not to mention the fuel load that would take them home to Lhasa had put them right under max takeoff weight. Luckily, Gunsa had a plentiful runway and Cole had been obliged to use a plentiful amount. He’d been pretty liberal on the throttles to get them climbed out safely and was sure the passengers probably didn’t appreciate the deafening sound of the turbo-props. From the cabin they were exceptionally loud, rhythmically churning under the heavy load, but climbing nonetheless. 

Normally he enjoyed a challenging departure under heavy weight. Throw in a cross-wind, a dirt strip and a building snowstorm and he was right at home. The high altitude demanded a delicate touch on the controls or a pilot could find himself in a precarious situation rather quickly. This time though, he’d hardly said a word once again letting Xi handle all the call outs and watch the gauges. His face was stern as they came towards end of the departure procedure and as soon as they were clear with Gunsa control and under their own navigation, he handed the controls over to Xi and grabbed his clipboard. For about the fiftieth time since he’d swiped them off the dispatch printer, he began scanning the ship’s papers.

Pilots were naturally a superstitious lot and for Cole the day had far too much of the unexpected. As a bit of a student of aviation history he knew all the classics had been marked by little hiccups and doses of the unusual along the way that eventually culminated in total disaster: Tenerife, Pan Am 103, TWA 800, 9/11. His eyes looked over the cargo manifest. He’d taken on four heavy containers simply marked on the manifest as [i]CG[/i] which meant, [i]Chinese Government[/i] with a weight measurement. He’d hauled them before, but never more than one or two. The regular pilots just referred to them as “bricks” because no one ever knew what was in them and the load amounted to unknown dead weight. As the captain he could technically refuse any cargo he deemed unsafe, but thus far he’d never heard of any airman turning away the Chinese authorities.

He ran a hand over his face. What was even more unusual were some of the passengers. Some of them had been permitted to transport weapons. This was unheard of. If it hadn’t been for the containers he would have swiftly left them on the ramp at Gunsa. Sometimes one had to know when to keep his mouth shut though. He glanced up at their airspeed. Xi had them nestled into a speedy cruise. The young Chinaman may not have spoken perfect English, but as a flyer, he knew when something stunk. They would both be damn glad to reach Lhasa.

[hr]

They had just about put two hours behind them when Cole accepted a cup of tea from the flight attendant. She was nice enough and not bad looking either. He was just into the first hot sips when the whole aircraft shuddered violently as if a great hand had just swatted their port side. The cup flew out of Cole’s hands and the horizon tilted unnaturally across the windshield. His hands were instantly on the controls before he could say, “What the fuck was that?!”

The aircraft rapidly began lurching harder to port with an ominous mechanical groan. The control yoke along with whole plane itself began shaking with turbulence. Cole found the elevators nearly unresponsive and he quickly abandoned all delicacy and hauled back hard on the column jamming the rudder pedals hoping to ease the downward sideslip of the nose. He was almost standing up in his seat under his belts looking comically as if he were trying to hold the whole weight of the plane in the air with shear brute force.

Directly above and dead-center of the overhead panel was the fire control panel and Cole instinctively glanced up at it. Only one red light was lit, [b]AFT CRG[/b] the rear cargo bay next to the loading doors. [i]Holy Shit, we’re on fire...[/i] He thought. Almost as soon as the thought ended he saw Xi’s fingers swiftly activate the fire suppression system. 

“She’s too damn heavy!” Cole shouted. He knew his efforts were only slowing the inevitable if they didn’t do something, immediately. The nose was still dropping and the airspeed continued to increase. Once they accelerated past the maximum performance envelope the whole thing would fly apart before they hit the ground. “Dump the wing-tanks!” By some stroke of genius or accounting oversight, someone had ordered all the BT-67’s in the company with the very expensive fuel jettison feature. Using both hands simultaneously, Xi flipped back the safeties and mashed the switches forcefully. For a millisecond, Cole fleetingly hoped the fire suppression system had worked otherwise they were about to spray the flaming tail section with jet fuel. 

After a few seconds the nose-dive started to ease enough that they began gradually losing some airspeed to drag, but were still descending and the Tibetan plateau was filling the windscreen rapidly. The whole aircraft continued to stubbornly slip to port forcing Cole to keep it countered with what was left of the rudder response and the ailerons. The wings lightened as they emptied their burden of fuel, but the elevator seemed to be immovable keeping them pointed towards the Earth. “We’re not going to get out of this dive.” He said grimly. “When we dip below one-twenty lower the gear and start dropping the flaps on my command.”

The BT-67 conversion process carried over the DC-3’s massive flap array which when fully deployed looked like a giant row of paneled doors hanging from beneath the wings. If a pilot dropped them too early on a normal approach they could raise the nose and muck up the landing. Since Cole knew his aircraft was only going to make one more landing, he planned to have Xi slow them with the first two notches on the flap control then dump the rest when they were right over the ground. God willing, they would belly-in instead of strike nose first. He hoped the landing gear would only help cushion the impact. Whatever the case, he knew if they hit too hard the belly fuel tanks, where fuel could not be jettisoned, would ignite and likely kill everyone that was still alive.

Both men tightened as the ground came up. Cole had pointed the nose at the best looking place he could manage. What appeared to be an ancient riverbed. For a moment he could see their shadow coming up to meet them like a dark wraith in waiting.

Xi faithfully dumped the flaps on command and the nose immediately rose above the horizon on an invisible cushion as the air flow under the wings was disrupted. Cole felt the port tire and gear strut hit first and for a moment it almost felt as if it would hold, but the hit was hard, very hard. The starboard tire contacted the ground right at the moment its portside counterpart failed and folded back under the wing and from that moment they were passengers along with everyone else.

[i]Just hold together…[/i] Cole thought to himself. He still gripped the column as they rode out the belly strike. Every bolt, every screw, every gauge, every molecule in Cole’s body shook like nothing he’d ever felt. He waited for the fireball, but it didn’t come. Only more dirt and dust kicked up over the nose as they slid and after only a few short seconds, stopped in total silence.