I looked out of the window, waiting for his plane to come into visual range, and when it did an icy feeling crept through my body. I’d seen him fly so many times before that the second I saw the plane, I knew something was off. There was nothing particular that stuck out; it was more of a feeling in the pit of my stomach. And I was right.
‘Pan-pan, pan-pan, pan-pan,’ he said, and I sat bolt upright.
‘Flightbird Six Zero Zero, did I hear you correctly? Can you confirm a pan-pan?’
‘Yes, confirmed.’
At the sound of those words, which rippled through a slight moment of silence in the room, the atmosphere around me changed as all the other air traffic controllers turned and looked at me. ‘Pan-pan’ indicated that something was wrong.
‘This is Flightbird Six Zero Zero, we have a problem with the undercarriage. Landing gear will not extend. We do not have three greens. I repeat, we do not have three greens.’
The ATCs all looked at each other. This wasn’t an emergency, yet. Pilots were trained for this, but for me this felt like an emergency and it was taking all my calmness and coolness to respond accordingly.
‘We copy, Flightbird Six Zero Zero. Please switch over to emergency frequency one to one decimal five.’
‘Copy, City Tower, switching to emergency frequency one to one decimal five.’
I looked around the room as I waited for him to switch to the other frequency. I closed my eyes and pulled out the emergency file from my memory banks. I read over it quickly in my mind.
ASSIST. Acknowledge, Separate, Silence, Inform, Support, Time.
‘City Tower, this is Flightbird Six Zero Zero on emergency frequency.’
‘We copy, Flightbird Six Zero Zero. Please state your intentions.’
I waited for what felt like ages before his voice came through again.
‘This is Flightbird Six Zero Zero. We’re going to go around and request entry into Signal Hill VOR holding pattern. Requesting flight level six thousand and will troubleshoot the problem and get back to you.’
‘Copy that, you have permission to enter Signal Hill VOR holding pattern. Hold east on the two seven zero degree radial, right turns, and maintain six thousand.’
He paused, and I was sure he was going to say something else to me, but he didn’t. Everyone in the tower stood up and watched as the approaching plane started going back up into the sky. I put a pencil between my teeth and bit down until the plane disappeared above the clouds. I looked at the clock. How long would it take them to troubleshoot? And how much fuel did they have? How long could they remain in the holding pattern for? At speeds of two thirty knots, the inbound leg would take a minute, outbound leg another minute, two right turns into fix end and outbound end, two more minutes. I bit the pencil again and stared at the clock, willing time to move faster, but it didn’t. And after the longest four minutes of my life, I heard him again.
‘This is Flightbird Six Zero Zero. We have troubleshot the problem and are still unable to confirm landing gear down.’
My stomach tightened and the atmosphere in the room became tense.
‘Copy. What are your intentions?’ I asked. I waited again, and another minute passed in deathly silence, as Andrew was no doubt discussing with his co-pilot. The second hand dragged around the clock in the most painstakingly slow manner. And then he came through again.
‘City Tower, this is Flightbird Six Zero Zero. We would like to do a low approach for visual inspection of landing gear.’
‘Copy that! We will stand by for visual inspection.’ As that was said, just about everyone grabbed their binoculars and rushed to the window. We lined up shoulder to shoulder, waiting to see the plane. And when it finally appeared we all leaned in, straining to get a visual on his landing gear. And when we finally did, an icy pit formed in the very bottom of my stomach.
‘And do you see them?’ he asked. At this point, the usual script for procedure went out the window; pilot and air traffic controller no longer had to communicate in a formal manner, repeating each word and phrase. In these situations, we were allowed to talk in a casual manner. It helped ease the tension of the situation.
‘No. Sorry, Andrew. I can’t see them.’
‘Shit,’ he whispered.
‘Can you confirm your intentions?’ I asked again. The ball was always in the pilot’s court when it came to emergencies. They had trained for them, and it was up to them to decide what to do. There was a pause. It wasn’t longer than thirty seconds, but it felt like for ever.
‘We will return to Signal Hill holding pattern to burn off fuel. Please can you stand by for emergency landing.’
I looked at Barry, the air traffic controller next to me, and clicked my fingers at him. He immediately jumped into action and called the emergency ground crew. I clicked my fingers at Pier, the ATC in charge of Ground Control, and he started clearing the runway, and now it was up to me to start clearing airspace, putting other planes into holding patterns and diverting the ones that I could to other airports.
‘How long do you think it will take to burn off enough fuel?’ I asked, desperate to know. The longer he was in the air, the worse the situation was. We needed him on the ground as soon as possible. But we also needed him to do his emergency landing with as little combustible fuel in the aircraft as possible.
‘Estimate one hour.’
