Chapter 271: Forced landing in Tokyo Bay!
Yokohama is close to Tokyo, so it is also close to Haneda and Narita airports. Therefore, even if you want to go to Yokohama, most people will choose Haneda or Narita airports instead of the small Yokohama Airport. Because it is too close to Yokosuka in the north, Yokohama Airport is often affected by military activities, resulting in flight delays or cancellations, which invisibly greatly reduces people's enthusiasm for choosing Yokohama's local airport.
Yokohama Airport mainly operates domestic routes, and its operating scale is far inferior to that of nearby Haneda and Narita airports. Even compared with similar branch airports, Yokohama Airport has shrunk in size and is on the verge of closure.
But such a marginalized airport has reached the peak of its attention today.
A large number of police cars and ambulances were densely packed outside the runway of Yokohama Airport, and outside the cars there were some special personnel armed with live ammunition waiting for ANA Flight 45 to land.
Soon, a black dot appeared in the sky above the fifth side of Runway 27. After a moment, the outline of the black dot gradually became clear, and finally the shape of the plane was revealed.
Here we come!
As the plane appeared, the people who were waiting outside the runway with bated breath immediately perked up. Before that, the airport had informed them of the situation on the plane, and that the plane would stop where it landed, and then it would be time for them to take action.
The plane's altitude was constantly decreasing, and the rumbling sound of the engine spread over, making the already solemn atmosphere even more depressing.
A moment later, when the plane had descended to the point where every detail of the paint on the fuselage could be seen, the rescue commander immediately ordered everyone to take their positions and wait for the plane to land.
However, amid the roar of the huge aircraft, everything seemed to be going on normally at first. But soon, even the security and medical personnel who knew little about aircraft began to notice something was wrong.
Too fast, the plane is sinking too fast!
Many of these people are regular personnel at Yokohama Airport, and they are stationed at the airport most of the time. They can see the plane landing from a relatively close distance from time to time. After a long time, they can probably know at what rate the plane should sink. But the sinking of ANA Flight 45 is obviously abnormal, which is not the state of a plane about to land.
However, everyone's surprise had not yet stopped. Just before the wheels of the plane were about to touch down, it suddenly showed an extremely obvious right roll. In the cockpit, Xu Cang just instinctively brought a slight right slope, but the reaction on the plane, especially from the perspective of outsiders, the roll caused by this slope was extremely obvious.
"Not good!" The chief rescue commander's face immediately darkened. He was the only one in the field who had some flying knowledge. The others just felt that something seemed to be wrong, but they had no idea to what extent.
But the rescue commander had been a pilot before, but he quit for some reason and switched to ground work at the airport. In his experience, such a fast sinking with a right slope was obviously not a normal landing posture.
If the pilot's skills weren't too poor, then something serious had happened in the cockpit. Moreover, the plane was about to touch down, so there was no chance for correction.
"Should we take off again?" This thought came to the rescue commander's mind.
But at the moment this thought came to mind, the right main wheel of the plane touched the ground first. The impact energy brought by the huge object weighing tens of tons was all pressed on the right main wheel. In an instant, the shock absorber strut of the right landing gear was directly pressed to the top, but even so, the energy of landing was not released, and was directly borne by the tire.
After the right wheel touched the ground, the left wheel had not yet touched the ground, but the front wheel touched the road first. The right wheel tire could not withstand the huge impact force at all, and it immediately deformed, and then with a loud muffled sound, it exploded directly. From the perspective of the people on the ground, they could even see the tire fragments flying far away after the explosion.
However, the explosion of the tire was not without effect. The force was mutual, and under such a huge downward impact, the plane bounced up again in an instant after the tire exploded, and the left wheel was airborne again without even touching the ground.
In fact, this is also related to Xu Cang's manipulation.
Before landing, Xu Cang had pre-positioned the speed brakes. After the plane entered the air above the runway, Xu Cang realized that the plane had a lot of energy, so he closed the throttle a lot, but not all of it. He planned to make a judgment in the last ten feet.
At that time, Xu Cang could roughly see the outside world, but it was definitely not as good as normal times. Therefore, Xu Cang had some doubts about the accuracy of his judgment of the sinking, so he controlled the throttle more conservatively.
It was precisely because of this consideration that Xu Cang's life was saved.
When the speed brake is in the pre-position, if the throttle is pulled to the slow position, the speed brake will automatically rise at the moment of touchdown. As long as the speed brake rises, it will destroy the lift of the aircraft. In this way, it is unlikely to bounce the aircraft off the ground again relying solely on the elastic force of the tires.
However, if the plane did not take off but touched the ground directly, the right wheel tire would have blown out, and the direction of the plane would be difficult to control, and it would be unknown whether the right landing gear had suffered any damage due to the excessive impact.
In addition, Xu Cang was injured by Kuroda Takashi's sudden attack, and he actually could not spare the sustained energy to control the already difficult-to-control plane.
Due to the combination of multiple factors, the plane was likely to run off the runway.
If at some airports with harder soil, there might be a small chance that running off the runway would not cause much harm, but at Yokohama Airport, this possibility would never occur.
The soil outside the Yokohama Airport runway is very soft. If the plane runs off the runway, the landing gear and engine will definitely sink into the soil. Under the multiple forces, the plane is very likely to disintegrate directly, and the consequences are unimaginable.
Fortunately, Xu Cang misjudged the sinking and did not fully close the throttle. It was because the throttle was not at slow speed that the air brake did not automatically rise after the right wheel touched the ground, so the wing could still generate lift, and with the rebound force of the wheel, the plane took off all of a sudden.
However, at the moment when the plane took off for the second time, the rescue commander suddenly saw something shiny falling from the plane. When the plane rose to a sufficient height, the rescue commander rushed out first, and when he reached the edge of the runway, he was stunned by the situation on the runway.
There were a lot of tire fragments scattered on the runway, and even some metal parts. The landing was so heavy that the rescue commander felt that the impact was enough to break the right landing gear on the spot.
However, from the visual observation just now, the right landing gear was obviously not broken, but the situation is probably not going to be much better.
After scanning the runway surface, the rescue commander immediately reported to the tower via intercom: "Tower, I have seen a large amount of FOD on the runway surface. Please notify the crew immediately."
FOD, or Foreign Object Debris, refers to foreign matter that may harm an aircraft. Of course, this is no longer a possibility, but once an aircraft lands on this runway, it will definitely be damaged, so this runway cannot be landed.
"Received, please stay away from the runway and keep a safe distance." The tower overlooks most of the airport, and of course, can see the rescue commander running to the edge of the runway. At any airport, the runway is a restricted area, and under normal circumstances, no outsiders are allowed to approach.
However, taking the special circumstances into consideration, the tower did not pursue the matter further and simply asked the rescue commander to get away from the runway as quickly as possible.
"knew."
The rescue commander did not leave immediately, but squinted his eyes and looked up at the plane . Facing the sun, the rescue commander found that after a short period of time after the go-around, the landing gear of the plane had not been retracted.
He knew that after the go-around, once the throttle was applied, the flaps would be retracted to the 15th position immediately, and then the gears would be retracted during the positive ascent. The three actions were done in one go, and the whole set would not take more than ten seconds. However, it had been more than ten seconds since the plane had been lifted up, and the landing gear had not been retracted yet, which was obviously abnormal.
At such a distance, he couldn't see the position of the flaps, and if the flaps didn't change, the situation would be really precarious.
Just now, the captain heard the cockpit door unlocked, and just as he opened the door, he saw Kuroda Takashi piercing Xu Cang's left palm. He was shocked and was about to enter the cockpit, but Xu Cang had already pushed the throttle to full, and with his right hand, the plane switched directly from a downward dive to a high-angle attitude.
The change in posture was so great that not only was Kuroda Takashi caught off guard, causing the blade to slip out of his hand, but the captain was also caught off guard and almost fell backwards. He was right at the entrance of the cabin door at the time, and there was nothing to hold on to. Fortunately, the captain reacted quickly and grabbed the door handle immediately, which stabilized his body.
In the cockpit, Xu Cang held the knife in his left hand and stabbed it into Kuroda Takashi's right shoulder blade, causing Kuroda Takashi to break out in a cold sweat due to the pain.
After subduing Kuroda Takashi with one blow, Xu Cang pulled back his right hand, grabbed the upper control wheel again, and continued to pull the stick back. In order to pull out the knife in his left hand, he turned the main electric trim back greatly. However, no matter how to say it, the input amount of the main electric trim on the elevator in a short period of time is still far less than that of the manual one. After the initial climb, the lift attitude of the aircraft began to decrease.
The reason for this situation is that the aircraft's landing gear has not been retracted and there is always huge resistance.
"Xu Cang, speeding, the flaps are too fast!"
Xu Cang had just regained control of the cockpit when the captain's anxious voice came from behind. Xu Cang's heart trembled, and he took a look at the ground speed, which was already over 180 knots. Even considering the influence of the wind, it was basically certain that the indicated speed was not much different.
One hundred and eighty knots, and still rising rapidly. This is obviously a bit dangerous.
The speed at flap 40 was 165 knots. If it exceeded by 10 knots, Xu Cang would not care much. After all, it was understandable that flaps could not be taken into consideration under special circumstances. However, the speed had exceeded 180 knots, and in the reaction time, it had reached 185 knots.
This is obviously too much!
Even if there is a flap unloading function, exceeding this much may have a negative impact on the aircraft flaps. The aircraft already had many problems due to the broken windshield, and the landing gear system was probably also severely damaged by the previous hit. If the flaps have problems again, the follow-up will be really disadvantageous.
In this situation, Xu Cang did not move his left hand, but pushed the steering wheel hard, and just by doing so, the speed of the plane was reduced. After that, Xu Cang released his right hand and operated the flaps with his right hand, moving the flap handle directly to the flap 15 position.
Using the right hand to operate the flap handle in the co-pilot's seat is actually the opposite operation, which is quite awkward. However, Xu Cang was holding Kuroda Takashi with his left hand, so where could he spare his left hand?
Moreover, after retracting the flaps, Xu Cang did not stop for a moment and retracted the landing gear.
Although Xu Cang's left hand did not relax at all, it did take away some of his energy. Kuroda Takashi was still able to fight back despite the severe pain, and actually grabbed Xu Cang's left wrist. Xu Cang was already in unbearable pain from the piercing in his left palm, and he could not exert any strength.
After being grabbed by Kuroda Takashi, he was about to break free when he heard hurried footsteps. The captain, who had stabilized his body, rushed in and pulled Kuroda Takashi's hand away, and Xu Cang was finally able to withdraw his left hand.
The captain did not dare to pull out the knife from Kuroda Takashi's shoulder blade. He just held Kuroda Takashi's neck with his right arm and shouted to the back of the cabin: "Help!"
The co-pilot who was waiting outside also rushed in upon hearing this. The cockpit of the Boeing 737 is very small, and some enthusiastic passengers wanted to come in to help, but they couldn't squeeze in at all, so only the captain and the co-pilot could do their work.
The captain was responsible for restraining Kuroda Takashi, while the co-pilot pulled his seat back. It seemed that the two had already discussed it when they were outside, and their cooperation was not unfamiliar at all.
Kuroda Takashi was stabbed in the shoulder blade and was bleeding. His strength was fading and he was completely unable to break free from the captain's control. The co-pilot pulled the seat back far enough and said to the captain, "Okay!"
So, the captain exerted force and lifted up, and Kuroda Takashi was pulled up. Then, the co-pilot came forward to help, and the two of them worked together seamlessly, and they lifted Kuroda Takashi out neatly.
As soon as Kuroda Takashi left, Xu Cang finally freed his hands and continued to retract the flaps to five.
At this time, Xia Shuyue, who was anxious outside, rushed directly into the cockpit. At this time, Xu Cang's left hand was holding the throttle lever, but the blood from the wound on his palm had already flowed down along the throttle lever, and some of it even dripped onto the fire alarm panel.
Seeing such a horrific scene, Xia Shuyue was so anxious that she almost cried: "Brother, your hand, I'll go get a bandage."
Not long after, the captain came back. He sat back in the captain's seat and noticed the injury on Xu Cang's hand. He asked nervously, "Is your hand okay?"
"It's okay." Xu Cang said softly. This was not Xu Cang being mysterious, but he really had no strength.
Soon, Xia Shuyue came in with a roll of bandage and bandaged Xu Cang lightly.
"Let me take the controls," the captain said, holding the steering wheel.
Xu Cang half lowered his head and pointed at the ground speed and the cockpit altimeter above his head: "This is the speed and altitude reference, is it ok?"
Even though he was a captain, he had never flown like this before. But after a brief hesitation, the captain nodded heavily: "It should be possible, leave it to me."
"You give me a hand, I'll continue flying after you've bandaged him." Xu Cang said, and looked at Xia Shuyue who was squatting in the aisle of the cockpit bandaging him. The airflow from the windshield blew Xia Shuyue's hair into a mess, and her eyes were also red. It was unknown whether it was the wind or some other reason.
Xu Cang turned sideways and put his right hand on the top of Xia Shuyue's head. Xia Shuyue felt something and raised her head slightly, just in time to see Xu Cang's pale face.
"Once you've bandaged yourself, go sit in the back and don't walk around. Got you?" Xu Cang said softly.
"What about you?" After bandaging the wound, Xia Shuyue looked at Xu Cang, whose face was getting paler and paler, and couldn't help feeling nervous.
"Of course I have things I need to do." Xu Cang forced a smile: "Go ahead, I'm fine."
Xu Cang patted Xia Shuyue's head, as if he was admonishing a child, full of concern.
"Don't worry, just leave it to me. Mr. Xu Cang, don't worry too much." The captain interrupted at this time and gave Xia Shuyue reassurance.
Xia Shuyue looked at Xu Cang. She knew that Xu Cang had his own mission, and all she could do was not to disturb him.
"I know." Xia Shuyue stood up slowly: "Then I'll go out."
"This isn't a comfortable place, go ahead."
Xia Shuyue stood up. If she hadn't held onto the observer's folding chair with her right hand, she wouldn't have been able to stand. This was when the speed was relatively slow. When the speed was particularly high before, with Xia Shuyue's physique, she might not even be able to stand steadily.
Xia Shuyue hummed and said nothing more. She walked out of the cockpit and closed the door.
As soon as he came out, Xia Shuyue heard the roar of Kuroda Takashi.
After being lifted out of the cockpit, he was secured to his seat with a tie and belt with the help of the co-pilot and some enthusiastic passengers. A knife was still stuck in his right shoulder blade, and blood was constantly oozing out.
But even so, it couldn't stop Kuroda Takashi's madness.
The co-pilot and another male passenger both held down Kuroda Takashi with both hands, fearing that he would break free.
As soon as she saw Kuroda Takashi, Xia Shuyue remembered the injury on Xu Cang's left palm.
The co-pilot who was controlling Kuroda Ryuji saw Xia Shuyue coming out and subconsciously asked, "Is Mr. Xu Cang okay?"
However, Xia Shuyue walked over with a gloomy face and said nothing.
When he was close to Kuroda Takashi, he roared again and twisted his body wildly, as if trying to break free. The co-pilot looked thin and not as strong as the captain, and the other male passenger didn't seem to be very strong either.
Even with their combined efforts, they were unable to control Kuroda Takashi. Without the help of the tie and belt, they would not have been able to control Kuroda Takashi at all.
"Someone come and help..." The co-pilot was not trying to show off his strength. Seeing that Kuroda Takashi was unable to control himself, he wanted to call for help.
But before he could finish his words, Xia Shuyue had already walked up to him, and with a stern look in her eyes, she pulled out the sharp knife from Kuroda Takashi's shoulder blade. As soon as the knife was pulled out, the wound went from oozing blood to spurting blood.
This was not the end. After Xia Shuyue pulled out the blade, he turned around and stabbed it directly into the back of Kuroda Takashi's right hand. The force was so great that it pierced through Kuroda Takashi's right palm and then nailed into the armrest of the chair on the spot.
The co-pilot and the male passenger who came to help were both shocked. Kuroda Takashi had no strength to struggle. The severe pain made his body twitch continuously, and he finally passed out.
"This..." The co-pilot let go of Kuroda Takashi, but after seeing Xia Shuyue's eyes, he instinctively took a step back. He felt that Xia Shuyue really wanted to kill Kuroda Takashi.
When he entered the cockpit just now, he saw Xu Cang's injuries. The co-pilot absolutely did not believe that Xia Shuyue's knife had no personal grudges.
Not to mention him, the other passengers in the cabin were all silent when they saw Xia Shuyue's actions.
What a cruel woman! She stabbed through Kuroda Takashi's palm with a knife without even blinking.
Xia Shuyue let go of the knife handle and said nothing. She just walked silently to her original seat and sat down, as if she had not done anything before.
A male passenger sitting next to Xia Shuyue felt a chill on his back for some reason. He coughed twice and then moved to the side awkwardly but politely.
In the cockpit, as soon as the flaps were fully retracted, Xu Cang leaned back in his chair, looking a little weak: "Is your company's air security non-existent? Did you just let the criminals attack the cockpit? When I came over to subdue the criminals just now, I didn't see a security officer. Does your plane have a security officer?"
At this time, Xu Cang finally had some space and energy to complain about what had just happened. To be honest, this incident was really a bit magical. From the moment Kuroda Takashi attacked the cockpit to the moment he was subdued, it seemed that there was no safety officer from beginning to end, as if there was no such person on the plane.
But Xu Cang remembered that there should be security on foreign flights as well.
"Of course we have a safety officer." The captain said with a little embarrassment: "It's just...she may not be very used to such occasions."
Xu Cang turned his head to look at the captain, and suddenly thought of a possibility: "You are not saying that the safety officer is one of the flight attendants, a part-time one?"
The captain nodded a little embarrassedly: "I'm a little sorry, but this is the situation. Our company does not have full-time aviation safety officers. They are all part-time by flight attendants."
"I..." Xu Cang slapped his forehead. No wonder the security guard hadn't shown up. It turned out to be a useless guy.
Unlike in China, where most of the security officers are full-time, and many of them are retired from the army or police system, and all of them have real skills, in foreign countries, many of them are part-time, and some of them are flight attendants.
Xu Cang didn't say anything else. After all, ANA was not the only one doing this. It was considered an industry practice.
This kind of part-time aviation security officer may be able to handle minor incidents on a regular basis, but when faced with a truly dangerous situation, he simply cannot handle it. This time is an example. I guess the part-time security officer himself was at a loss.
With a heavy sigh from Xu Cang, he pressed the radio button: "Tower, ANA45 has taken off again."
The tower actually noticed ANA 45's go-around early in the morning, but they were afraid of interfering with the crew, so they waited for Xu Cang to report it before they immediately said, "ANA 45, maintain an upward course at an altitude of 4,000 feet and report your intentions."
Xu Cang raised his head slightly and glanced at the cockpit altimeter, and immediately said: "The altitude is 4,000 feet. We apply for a right turn and a second approach."
"No!" However, Xu Cang's intention was directly rejected by the tower: "Our ground personnel reported that a large amount of FOD was found on the runway, suspected to be tire fragments and some parts. Please confirm whether your aircraft has any new faults."
"FOD?" Xu Cang and the captain looked at each other.
The sound of the plane's tire bursting was quite obvious, so Xu Cang could naturally distinguish it. It was not surprising that there were tire fragments on the runway. The situation was urgent just now, so Xu Cang forgot about it.
The tower mentioned that there were still some parts of the aircraft in the FOD, which didn't seem to be good news. It meant that the previous blow seemed to have caused some damage to the aircraft other than the tire explosion.
As he spoke, Xu Cang's eyes fell on the landing gear indicator, and his face suddenly darkened.
He had just retracted the landing gear, but after so much time had passed, except for the left landing gear, the indicators of the front and right landing gear were all red, which meant that both landing gears were not retracted.
The captain had not noticed the . When he followed Xu Cang's gaze, he immediately noticed the abnormality of the landing gear indicator.
"Is there a problem with the front landing gear and the right landing gear?" The captain did not notice Xu Cang's operation just now, so his reaction was naturally slow.
"The right wheel touched the ground first. You should have felt it. It landed quite heavily and the right tire exploded. But I didn't expect that there would be problems with the front landing gear as well." Xu Cang said helplessly.
The captain covered his eyes with his right hand to block the airflow and looked up at the rear top panel. There was another set of landing gear indicators on the rear top panel, which were independent of the main landing gear indicators and could indicate the status of the landing gear separately.
However, unlike the main landing gear indicator, the alternate landing gear indicator only has three lights instead of the six lights on the main landing gear.
Looking over there, all three landing gear indicator lights were off.
"Let me try it?" The captain looked at Xu Cang for his opinion.
Xu Cang nodded, tacitly approving the captain's attempt.
The captain glanced at the ground speed, which was about 210 knots, within the speed limit for landing gear release. After a slight pause, the captain lowered the landing gear, which had not yet been put into the neutral position.
After a short wait, only the left landing gear indicator lighted up. The captain looked up again and saw only one left landing gear indicator lighted up green.
"This is terrible!" The captain looked very unhappy, and silently retracted the landing gear again: "Is that part of the FOD on the road surface part of the landing gear?"
Xu Cang sighed: "It looks like it really fell a bit heavy."
The captain glanced at the fuel gauge. Due to the incident with Kuroda Takashi, the plane had to take a lot of detours. In addition, the flight from Osaka to Tokyo is a short distance, so the fuel supply was already limited. At this moment, the fuel level was already a little tight.
"Yokohama Tower, how long will it take to clear the runway?" asked the captain.
"We need to check the runway to confirm this, but even the slightest problem will take more than 20 minutes. According to the initial feedback from the ground staff, the runway condition is not optimistic, and 20 minutes is not enough."
"Twenty minutes?" The captain's eyes moved back and forth between the fuel gauge and the flow meter. If the current engine flow meter was used, it would be dangerous to hold out for twenty minutes. Moreover, the tower had already stated that twenty minutes was the most conservative estimate, and it was highly likely that it would be longer than twenty minutes.
"What do you say?" The captain did not make a decision himself, but looked at Xu Cang. It can be seen that he is now mainly based on Xu Cang's opinion.
Xu Cang barely thought: "I think we will have to make an emergency landing with a single landing gear. The runway at Yokohama Airport is too narrow, and it will be too stressful for you. I won't wait any longer, and I will apply to go to Narita Airport."
After Xu Cang finished speaking, he waited for the captain to report his decision to the tower. However, he found that the captain was looking at him, and he couldn't help but ask curiously: "What's wrong? What's the problem?"
"You want me to land? Land with a single landing gear?" the captain asked back.
Xu Cang couldn't help but frowned and raised his bandaged left hand: "So you want me to land? In this state, you still want me to land?"
A layer of cold sweat broke out on the captain's forehead. He didn't say anything, but he looked very embarrassed.
"Is a single-gear landing difficult for you?"
At this critical moment of life and death, the captain could not hide anything and spoke out his thoughts directly: "I can only say that I am not sure. Landing with a single landing gear... this is a lot of pressure for any captain."
Xu Cang narrowed his eyes: "Not sure... do you mean the chances are high or low?"
The captain seemed a little embarrassed: "To be honest, 20%, I only have a 20% chance."
"Damn it! How difficult is it to land with a single landing gear? Just control the left wheel of the plane to touch the ground first, touch the ground with a large attitude, then slow down with one wheel, and touch the ground with the belly at the lowest speed. Isn't that enough?"
In Xu Cang's words, single-wheel touchdown seemed very simple. Just like how Jordan talked about shooting, jump together, wait for the opponent to fall first, and then shoot, isn't it?
The captain's face was extremely stiff. What Xu Cang said was a very simple matter was extremely difficult for him.
"Compared to a single-wheel landing, I estimate that if we reach Narita Airport, we may only have two chances at most. If..."
"If you can't get down the first time, I'll do it the second time!" Xu Cang snorted.
He was actually a little weak now, just a symptom of excessive blood loss, and landing in this state was simply a joke. However, if the captain really couldn't be relied on, then he would have to bite the bullet and go ahead.
Maybe single-wheel landing is indeed a bit difficult for ordinary pilots.
The captain licked his lips and said, "We are now estimating the amount of fuel. If the approach to Narita Airport is fruitless, there may be no chance for a second approach. What should we do then?"
To be honest, the fuel level of the aircraft is very ambiguous now. It may be able to support two approaches to Narita Airport, or it may only have one approach opportunity.
It goes without saying that there are two approaches, but what if there is only one? If you fail to seize the opportunity, won’t you have to wait for death after the go-around?
Xu Cang's face became increasingly heavy. About half a minute later, he said, "Then we won't go any closer. Let's go to the northeast."
"Northeast?" The captain was stunned for a moment: "Northeast of Narita Airport, that's East...Tokyo Bay?"
