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“She’s slightly bigger than my plane.”
“We’ll have enough runway?”
Eric shrugged, still scanning the sky for the inbound plane. “Depends on how far out she lost power. If she slowed enough, then we should be okay. However, they chose our airport because if she’s coming in hot and too fast, they’ll have to ditch in the ocean.”
An open body of the bay lay beyond the end of the runway, probably why the airport was built here – to facilitate those types of landings in a worse case scenario.
“Where are they coming from?”
“Tower, this is Captain Eric Morris. What’s the ETA and original destination?”
“Three minutes.” The radio crackled. “Inbound from Masset Muni heading to Tacoma. Two crew, one passenger.”
“Roger.”
Whoever they were, they’d left the Queen Charlotte Islands and were heading into the USA.
Mitch exited the building and walked over to me, wiping his hands on a wipe. “Mechanical?” His question geared to Eric.
“We’ll see.”
“We have visual.” The tower radioed over.
“Incoming.” Eric pointed, and I followed his finger to the general direction.
The plane was indeed coming in hot and fast.
“Get inside,” Mitch said, and pushed me toward the door.
But I couldn’t leave. Instead, my eyes locked onto the plane barely sailing above the treetops.
“They’re going to belly land on the end of the runway.” Eric’s voice pitched. “There’s no landing gear.”
“You’re going inside.” Mitch picked me up and carried me in, Eric right on his heels.
I didn’t need to know when the plane was close, the grating metal against asphalt was a sound not to be missed. I cringed and covered my ears to the scraping. It didn’t take long, because the plane was going so fast, but it skidded by the main building in a heartbeat, and we plastered ourselves against the windows to watch as it headed towards the sea.
Since the immediate danger had passed, we stepped outside and continued to watch. The airport firetruck lit up and was ready to go. The local ambulance drove behind the building and idled, waiting for a go.
After another few heartbeats, the plane finally stopped moving. Eric and Mitch ran over and hopped into the ground’s vehicle, driving straight to the crash site. From my point of view, everything looked okay – at least it wasn’t a crash-crash andthere wasn’t debris scattered everywhere. It was going to be an expensive bill to fix the plane though.
In what felt like forever, the radio crackled with a no personal injury report on all three onboard from Mitch. Sweet relief, that was great news.
I set about calling the nearest motels to find lodgings, and since we were approaching the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, there were only a few available. I scratched down the information for the new guests to the area.
Some time later, Eric pulled up in the vehicle, and two men and a woman got out.
“Greetings, and welcome to Cheshire Bay.” I approached the Captain first.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’m Captain Elijah Lancaster. This is my first officer, Miss Sorcha Browne, and our passenger, Mr. Welsh.” There was a lilting accent; Irish perhaps? Maybe European?
Mr. Welsh, whose first name was a guess, seemed a person of importance, as the two crew members flanked either side. Plus, he was a trifecta of swoon. Tall, dark-haired, and incredibly handsome.
I shook all their hands and cleared my throat, reminding myself the necessity of being an ambassador to Cheshire Bay and to the airport. “Is everyone okay?” I quickly scanned their persons, no one seemed hurt, and they all walked without the telltale sign of limps from broken bones or sprains. “Shall I call the EMTs?”
“We are all fine. Checked us out as we de-boarded.”
Quickly, I did another roving assessment. Indeed, no one seemed physically hurt, but I imagined the emotional trauma was hidden.
