Legendary Captain

Chapter 336 A Special Situation Occurring Once in Seventy Years

In seat 38A, a window seat in the rear section of the cabin of flight 6334, a child excitedly waved his hands. As the plane turned onto the runway, he became even more excited, grabbing his mother's hand and shaking it repeatedly, shouting, "We're taking off! We're taking off!"

"Okay, okay, we're about to take off, I know!" Mom replied helplessly, while checking the child's seatbelt again and reminding him, "You're in kindergarten now, you should be more sensible. We're not at home, keep your voice down."

This mother is quite well-mannered; she knows that her child's noise might disturb others, so she specifically talked to the child about it.

The child was quite sensible and immediately lowered his voice, asking, "Mommy, is this okay?"

"Okay, okay!" The mother was very satisfied with her son's good behavior and patted his head. Even the passengers sitting near the aisle praised him, saying, "Your son is really well-behaved. I've seen so many children shouting and yelling on airplanes, and their parents don't care."

Children often lack self-discipline and sometimes don't realize that their noise can inconvenience others. In such cases, parents should intervene. Regardless of the effectiveness, parents should at least make it clear that they are trying to stop them.

However, in reality, many children on the plane were making a lot of noise, and their parents completely ignored them. Some even played with their children, which only made the children more excited and out of control. In this passenger's eyes, all of this was a sign of poor manners.

However, the mother and child next to them displayed much better manners. Not only were the parents well-mannered, but the child was also sensible and very likable.

"Not at all, not at all!" Hearing others praise her son made her much happier than hearing praise for herself; the mother's eyes narrowed into slits with laughter.

As the engine noise suddenly increased, the child realized that the accelerator had been pressed and immediately started waving his arms and legs excitedly. However, he still remembered his mother's instructions to keep his voice down and just pulled his mother to look at the scenery outside the window.

The mother had flown many times and was no longer interested in it, glancing at it twice before looking away. The child, however, maintained a high level of interest until takeoff.

Shortly after the plane took off, the children even pressed their faces against the windows to look out.

Children are naturally curious, and as long as they don't make a fuss or do anything out of line, their mothers tend to ignore them. Suddenly, the child, peering out the window, asked, "Mommy, are the airplane's wings moving?"

"Yes! That's how it's designed." Mom had some understanding of this, knowing that the wings of a passenger plane are not completely rigid, but have a certain degree of elasticity. During flight, the wings will sway up and down slightly. Although it looks a bit scary, it is actually very safe.

"Oh, just like birds?" The child was still innocent and cute. He remembered that birds flap their wings up and down when they fly, so he figured that airplanes must be the same.

Mom smiled gently: "Yes, just like birds. Son, just watch quietly, Mom's taking a nap."

Taking care of a child is incredibly exhausting, especially this time without her husband's help. Even though her son is quite well-behaved, it's still extremely tiring to take care of him alone. Sure enough, she started feeling sleepy as soon as the plane took off. Right now, her son is behaving well, allowing her to rest a bit. But once the child's patience wears off, she'll have a lot to do. She needs to take a nap during this time to recharge.

"Okay!" The child was completely absorbed in the scenery outside and didn't care about his mother at all. However, the child's voice soon returned: "Mommy, why is the engine shaking too?"

"The engine?" The mother completely disregarded the child's words, not even opening her eyes. "Isn't it the engine that's swaying with the wings?"

"No!" the child looked again and again. "It's just the engine shaking!"

The mother slowly opened her eyes: "Is the engine shaking?"

Suddenly, the child screamed, startling the mother. She said reproachfully, "Why are you so jumpy? What if you scare someone?"

The child turned around, looking somewhat bewildered, and said to his mother, "The engine flew away!"

"What are you saying?" Mom said. "Some things shouldn't be said carelessly. Children say the truth, children say the truth."

"Really!" The child tugged at his mother's sleeve, gesturing with his hands, "The engine flipped backward and flew to the back, really!"

Suddenly, before Mom could react, the plane spun violently, as if it had encountered severe turbulence. At that moment, Mom sensed something was wrong. She grabbed the armrest of her seat to steady herself and leaned towards the window, glancing towards the engines. But in that glance, she saw that the engine nacelles, which should have been under the wings, were completely empty.

The mother's mind went completely blank; she almost lost the ability to think. But the child, oblivious, innocently asked, "Mommy, what if the engine flies away?"

"What should we do? What should we do?" The young mother was really panicked at this moment, especially when she felt that the plane was starting to have some unstable and abnormal fluctuations. At first, she thought it was just encountering turbulence and didn't take it seriously, but now it seemed to be caused by the loss of an engine.

Just when she was almost at a loss, the little child next to her shook her arm a few times, and she realized that she should do something.

At that moment, the cabin crew announced over the intercom: "The aircraft is experiencing turbulence during its climb. Please fasten your seatbelts. Thank you!"

"They don't know?" It was clear from the announcement that even the flight attendants had interpreted the plane's unusual shaking as turbulence. By this time, the young mother had regained her ability to think.

"We have to tell them!" The young mother kept pressing the flight attendant call button, hoping to get the flight attendant to come over.

The flight attendants in the front cabin, number three and the chief flight attendant, could indeed hear someone pressing the call button, but since it was shortly after takeoff, they shouldn't have gotten up to serve.

"Let's leave it for now," the chief flight attendant said. With the plane's attitude changing so drastically, what if a flight attendant gets up to find that passenger, loses their footing, and gets injured?

Flight attendant number three glanced at the passenger who had pressed the call button: "He's in the middle of the cabin. I'll go check on him once the plane is leveled."

The flight attendant hummed in agreement and said nothing more.

Normally, in situations like this, passengers would stop pressing the button once they realize no one is responding. However, this passenger kept pressing the button, which annoyed the flight attendant.

"What does she want?" the flight attendant said, somewhat annoyed. "Make an announcement and tell her to wait a moment."

"Okay." Flight attendant number three picked up the microphone, ready to make an announcement. Suddenly, the call bell stopped. Flight attendant number three was startled, glanced at the cabin, and saw that the passenger who had pressed the bell was already half-asleep. Was he coming to find them?

This action startled the third flight attendant, who immediately made an announcement over the loudspeaker: "Passengers in the cabin, please sit down immediately and fasten your seatbelts!"

However, the woman who got up kept pointing out the window, her mouth moving as if she were saying something. But the noise in the cabin was too loud, and she was too far away to hear anything.

Conversely, the passengers in the rows surrounding the woman heard what she was saying and turned their gazes outside. When they saw the engine was gone, a commotion erupted.

This time, it wasn't just a matter of pressing the call button anymore; it seemed that many passengers in the area near the woman started making a fuss.

"What's going on?" The noise was so loud that even the flight attendant sitting inside was startled. However, she was wearing a seatbelt and her upper body was not able to move freely, so she could not see what was happening in the cabin.

Flight attendant number three didn't know exactly what had happened, but judging from the situation, it seemed like something was wrong!

Seeing that the flight attendant still hadn't come over, the woman became anxious and started pacing around. She then stood up completely, seemingly determined to go to the front cabin crew area herself.

Flight attendant number three dared not let the passenger come over, and quickly called out over the loudspeaker, "Madam, please sit down first, I'll come over."

The situation was suspiciously unusual, and Flight Attendant No. 3 could no longer sit there peacefully. She felt it necessary to go and see what had happened.

"Are you going over there?" The flight attendant frowned as she saw flight attendant number three unbuckling her seatbelt.

Flight attendant number three quickly unbuckled her seatbelt and said to the chief flight attendant, "Sister, something seems to have happened! I have to go check it out."

"Something's happened? What happened?" The flight attendant's heart tightened. Flight attendant number three had been flying for a long time and wasn't a newbie who had just boarded a plane. If she said something had happened, it was very likely not just a rumor.

"I don't know." Flight attendant number three removed the last seatbelt. "I'll go check."

As she spoke, the third flight attendant stood up, steadied herself against the cabin wall, and walked into the cabin.

The flight attendant's eyelids twitched wildly. She loosened her shoulder straps, but not her waist belt, so her upper body could move more freely. She turned slightly to the side, wanting to see the scene in the cabin, but suddenly, the plane shook violently again, throwing the flight attendant back.

At this point, the flight attendant couldn't help but feel a little nervous. She was a seasoned frequent flyer, and she had a good feel for turbulence. But the plane's current condition didn't seem to indicate that it was encountering turbulence!

Or is there some other reason?

The swaying just now almost knocked the third flight attendant over. However, she managed to hold onto the backs of the seats on either side of the aisle and slowly made her way to the rear of the cabin.

"What's wrong?" Flight attendant number three asked as she approached the passenger who had just pressed the call button.

The young mother, her face ashen, pointed tremblingly out the window: "The engine...it's gone!"

"What?" Flight attendant number three was startled for a moment. Then, following the direction the young mother was pointing, she leaned forward and looked out the window. She immediately saw that the area under the left wing was completely empty.

Flight attendant number three gasped, and then, almost instinctively, fear finally overwhelmed her reason. A trembling voice squeezed out from her throat: "The engine's out!"

Binjiang Tower Command Room.

Tower controller Gu Wei was humming a little tune with satisfaction. He had just let Xingyou 6334 off, and he would soon see off Kunlong 9411. There would be no more takeoffs or landings for about ten minutes, so he could take a short break.

After confirming on the radar that the distance was sufficient, Gu Wei spoke into the microphone: "Kunlong 9411, ground wind 200/01, runway 20, ready for takeoff."

"Runway 20, ready for takeoff, Kunlong 9411!"

After the Kunlong Airlines crew finished replying, Gu Wei took off his headphones, raised his hands, and stretched out a long, lazy yawn: "Ah, that felt great!"

Seeing Gu Wei's lazy appearance, his colleague said helplessly, "What's wrong with you? If the director sees you like this, he'll scold you again."

"Ugh, the peak arrival and departure period is finally over, what's wrong with stretching a little? And you're going to criticize me for that? It'll only be ten minutes before I have to get busy again," Gu Wei said, quite dissatisfied.

My colleague shook his head: "You were just stretching, you're like a lump of mud now, you're about to slide down."

To be honest, Gu Wei's stretching posture was not very elegant; his upper body was almost slumped in the chair.

"Seriously, I can't even take a break from this busy schedule, it's killing me!" Gu Wei sighed, looking up at the sky. "They won't even let me rest. I'm going to die from exhaustion on this command platform."

Although he said that, he pulled out a cup of milk tea from somewhere and leisurely started drinking it.

Like the cockpit, the use of lidless cups is strictly prohibited in the control room due to the presence of many precision instruments. Therefore, many air traffic controllers prefer to use straws to reduce the likelihood of spilling tea.

"Ten minutes, finished a cup of milk tea, feeling refreshed and ready to get back to work." Gu Wei chuckled. "Who invented milk tea anyway? It's delicious, replenishes energy, and feels so good."

"You're still gaining weight, huh?" my colleague laughed.

"You think you know everything?" Gu Wei rolled his eyes, then glanced at the radar to see the position of Star Travel 6334 flight. He felt it was about time to have them switch to the approach frequency.

Suddenly, Gu Wei glanced outside, a habitual action. But upon looking, he noticed an unidentified object plummeting straight down from the sky.

"Hmm?" Gu Wei straightened his back slightly and squinted to take a look, but he still couldn't see clearly because of the distance.

"Give me the binoculars," Gu Wei beckoned to his colleague.

"What's wrong? Looking at the scenery through binoculars?" his colleague joked. However, even though he was teasing Gu Wei, he still took the binoculars from him.

"Boring." Gu Wei snorted, took the binoculars, and looked towards the spot where the unidentified object had fallen, muttering, "What the hell was that!"

The unidentified object finally fell onto the grass not far in front of the 02 runway. Gu Wei looked closely through his binoculars, and his left hand, which was holding the milk tea, suddenly trembled, and he spat out the milk tea in his mouth.

"Gu Wei, what the hell are you doing?!" Gu Wei's colleague was startled by his behavior and quickly grabbed a tissue to wipe up the water stains, not wanting to damage the equipment.

At this moment, Gu Wei's face was filled with boundless terror, completely oblivious to his colleague's reprimands. He put down his binoculars, pointed to the beginning of runway 02, and said in a trembling voice, "I just saw something fall from the sky."

"What? It fell onto the runway?" The colleague was taken aback. If something fell onto the runway, the runway would need to be temporarily closed for inspection. "Did you see what it was? Let me tell the field manager."

The track maintenance staff are responsible for inspecting and cleaning the runway.

At this moment, his colleague noticed that Gu Wei's right hand, which was holding the binoculars, was trembling. He immediately sensed that something was wrong, so he snatched the binoculars and looked in the direction Gu Wei had just pointed.

In his field of vision, a somewhat deformed object suddenly came into view. At that moment, his colleague's voice trembled: "This is... an engine?"

After a brief moment of mental blankness, Gu Wei grabbed a tissue and wiped the water from his mouth: "You keep an eye on things, I'm going to find the director!"

After saying that, Gu Wei threw the milk tea into the trash can and turned to go to the rest room to find the duty manager.

Watching Gu Wei leave in a hurry, a dark cloud couldn't help but hang over the colleague's heart.

What a big deal!

In the cockpit, the sudden, unexpected yaw of the aircraft immediately made Tang Jian tense up. Instinctively, after the aircraft yawed, Tang Jian tried to correct it by pressing down on the control plate.

However, he suddenly discovered that the plane was not only yawing, but also sideslipping.

"This is..." Tang Jian's heart tightened suddenly as he thought of a terrible possibility.

Immediately, the main warning lights and signal signs directly in front of Tang Jian's field of vision all lit up. He glanced down and felt a chill in his heart. Sure enough, the lower DU, which was originally off, had started displaying data, indicating that there must be some abnormalities in the engine data.

As he had predicted, after discovering that the aircraft was sideslipping, Tang Jian felt that there must be a problem with the No. 1 engine, otherwise there would not be sideslipping. The ejection of the lower DU undoubtedly confirmed his idea.

So what exactly is the reason?

"Verify the fault!" Tang Jian was focused on controlling the aircraft and had no time to analyze the fault. He could only entrust the responsibility of verifying the fault to Lian Shanxue, which was also Lian Shanxue's responsibility as a PM.

In fact, even Shan Xue did not expect the malfunction to come so suddenly. Her gaze fell on the engine data display of the DU, where she saw that N1, engine oil quantity and engine oil pressure were rapidly decreasing.

"Is the engine severely damaged?" Lian Shanxue was momentarily at a loss, but soon, the engine's N1 value, as well as the readings for oil level, oil pressure, and vibration, all disappeared. A chill ran down Lian Shanxue's spine: "No, the engine has detached!"

"Engine detached? How could that be? Impossible!" Tang Jian roared. Although engine detachment training was conducted in simulators, he had never encountered such an incident in actual operation. The only time this had happened in civil aviation was twenty or thirty years ago abroad. Tang Jian couldn't believe he was so unlucky as to encounter an engine detachment incident that was extremely rare in the entire history of civil aviation.

It's important to know that the engine nacelle is incredibly robust, making it virtually impossible for the engine to detach. From Tang Jian's perspective, he simply couldn't accept this idea.

"Damn it, do you even know how to read?" At this moment, Tang Jian didn't believe Lian Shanxue's judgment at all, and even felt a little angry with Lian Shanxue for it. But when he glanced at the DU and saw that the boxes representing engine data were blank, Tang Jian's heart sank.

The engine really did detach!

In the sixty or seventy years of civil aviation history, he encountered an engine detachment incident that had only occurred once before.

At this moment, he became the "second person" in the history of civil aviation.

Tang Jian couldn't accept it! He pressed down on the steering wheel with one hand and braced his foot against the rudder, trying to look back, but due to the design limitations of this aircraft, the engine could not be seen from the side window. Tang Jian was so anxious that he broke out in a sweat.

"Watch your condition!" Tang Jian panicked. The already unstable aircraft deviated even more significantly in an instant. Originally, after takeoff, it should have turned left onto track 180, which is due south.

However, Tang Jian was unable to control the plane at all, causing it to keep turning left and soon deviating from the standard departure procedure.

"I know, I know, but I can't fix it!" Tang Jian was both anxious and angry. After discovering that the plane was sideslipping, he put the right rudder on and the right slam on the brakes, almost to the bottom. But the plane was still slowly turning left. He couldn't understand why this was happening.

Tang Jian had flown simulator exercises involving engine detachment before, but never to this extent, where even with extreme maneuvering, he couldn't correct the aircraft's condition. Could a single engine detachment really cause such a massive deviation in the aircraft's state?

Lian Shanxue's feet were already on the rudder, but she wasn't using much force. She could feel Tang Jian pushing the rudder to the right, and there was nothing wrong with that action. Moreover, Lian Shanxue had seen Tang Jian's right-hand rudder movement, so why wasn't it working?

Even Shanxue couldn't understand it!

If the cause of the aircraft's uncontrollable yaw cannot be found, then the aircraft is uncontrollable, which is almost catastrophic for a pilot.

Just as Lian Shanxue was racking her brains trying to figure out what the reason was, she suddenly noticed that the plane's sideslip had started to increase, which could be clearly seen from the sideslip gauge.

"What's wrong?" Lian Shanxue suddenly felt the rudder under her feet become unstable, and when she looked at Tang Jian's right leg, it began to tremble slightly.

Lian Shanxue narrowed her eyes; Tang Jian couldn't hold on any longer!

For a normal pilot, the time spent on single-engine pedal is rarely more than ten minutes. If it exceeds ten minutes, the calves will feel extremely tired.

From the moment the anomaly occurred until now, only a few minutes have passed, far below the average level a pilot can sustain. This isn't because Tang Jian's physical condition is poor, but rather because the pressure he's under is immense. High pressure causes the muscles throughout the body to stiffen, and the same movements become more tiring when muscles are stiff. Furthermore, Tang Jian has been maintaining maximum rudder input throughout, which consumes far more energy than a normal single-engine training session. Normally, during single-engine training, the rudder is rarely fully engaged, but this time, for some reason, even with the rudder fully engaged, he couldn't correct the aircraft's sideslip.

Due to various factors, Tang Jian's physical strength was rapidly depleting, and the trembling of his right leg was the best sign of this. If this continued, his right leg would soon cramp up.

Lian Shanxue hesitated for a moment, then gripped the steering wheel with her right hand while gradually increasing the pressure on the control surface with her right foot, asking, "Take control?"

Tang Jian was stunned for a moment, only to feel his right leg trembling more and more obviously. Helpless, he could only say, "Hand over the controls, you take the helm."

"Okay, take control, rudder in hand." Lian Shanxue took over the controls of the aircraft expressionlessly. After taking control, she found that even with the rudder pedal fully depressed and the turn scale fully engaged, the aircraft was still turning left, which was simply incomprehensible.

If they can't find the problem, they'll just be spinning their wheels like headless flies, and in the end, their plane will crash and they'll all die.

At this moment, the third flight attendant, still not recovered from the shock, staggered back to the front cabin crew quarters from the passenger cabin.

"What's wrong?" Looking at the pale-faced flight attendant, even the slowest person would know that something serious had happened.

"The engine is gone." Flight attendant number three was still reeling from this horrifying fact. She let out a long sigh: "I need to report to the cockpit."

The chief flight attendant was speechless with shock. Although Star Travel Airlines had suffered many misfortunes, she never imagined that something like this would happen to her.

What does it mean for an engine to be gone? From what she has seen, heard, and thought, it is impossible for her to find an example of an engine flying away.

In the cockpit, Lian Shanxue tried her best to correct the aircraft's condition, but after trying for a while, she found that it was all in vain and could only settle for maintaining the current state of the aircraft.

At this moment, the flight attendant's call request ringed. Tang Jian originally wanted to ignore it, but he couldn't help but keep calling, which annoyed him. What kind of time is this, and the flight attendant is still making a fuss?

Enraged, Tang Jian answered the phone: "What the hell is going on that's so deadly?"

Tang Jianzhen really wanted to hear what the flight crew could say. Even if there was a malfunction, let alone a regular flight, the flight crew wasn't allowed to disturb the cockpit during takeoff.

However, a single sentence from the flight attendants caused Tang Jian's expression to change drastically.

"Captain, we can see from the cabin that the left engine is gone," said Flight Attendant Number Three. The thought of the engine being gone seemed ridiculous to her, but it was a fact.

"The left engine?" Tang Jian's jaw tightened. It really was the engine that had detached. He had encountered a once-in-seventy-years special situation.

The speakerphone was on, so Shan Xue could hear Tang Jian's conversation with the flight crew, and her expression turned quite unpleasant.

This actually involves another issue: if it's just the engine detaching, then the abnormal aircraft condition it's exhibiting now doesn't match the descriptions in the manual and during training at all.

What exactly caused this? Was it an error in the manual, or was it not just a problem of the engine detaching?

After a brief period of control, even Lian Shanxue felt a bit tired. She finally understood why Tang Jian had given up so quickly. It wasn't that Tang Jian was physically weak, but simply maintaining the aircraft's condition was already extremely difficult.

If the problem cannot be identified, then forget about landing, it will be impossible to even control the plane.

On the control tower, Xu Jingzhong, the duty manager who had been urgently summoned, rushed into the control room, his forehead covered in sweat. He had seen that the peak arrival and departure times were over and wanted to take a break, since he had worked the night shift and his body couldn't keep up without rest.

But he had just lain down when Gu Wei rushed over and pulled him up. On the way there, he heard that Gu Wei had actually discovered an engine that had fallen from the sky, and Xu Jingzhong was completely taken aback.

The issue now is not which engine fell to the ground, but which aircraft the engine belonged to.

"What's the situation? Which flight is having problems?" When Xu Jingzhong arrived at the control tower, panting, the other commander who had just replaced Gu Wei pointed to the radar screen: "Director, Xingyou 6334 flight has deviated from the standard departure procedure."

"So what do you mean?"

The commander said in a deep voice, "It must be one of Xingyou's planes that crashed!"

(End of this chapter)