Chapter 86
Above Mauna Loa, Hawai‘i
Brett and the Cutlers were in a replacement Airbus 225 newly purchased by J. P. Brett, and they were preparing to give the world a front-row seat to the biggest volcanic eruption in history.
“Shit!” the pilot, Jake Rogers, yelled as the helicopter bucked and jerked and then dropped a few hundred feet in a couple of seconds.
Rogers had just banked the Airbus in a wide swing around the summit and was now bringing them back to Mauna Loa from the southwest.
“Wind shear?” Brett asked.
“I fucking wish,” Rogers said.
Leah Cutler looked out the window, wondering what the pilot was seeing. Her husband, acting as his own videographer for this flight, kept his camera focused on the top of the mountain, waiting for the perfect moment to start filming.
“Is there a problem, Jake?” Leah Cutler said.
“The lava’s already spitting out of vents down there,” he said. “Hard,” he added.
The big helicopter bounced like a small boat in a rough sea.
To Brett, Rogers said, “You told me the lava would be on the other side!”
Before Brett could respond, the helicopter jerked again even more intensely than before, as if a ground quake had reached up and taken a swing at them.
Rogers fought the controls. “Shit, shit, shit!” he yelled.
“What is the problem?” Brett yelled back.
“It’s happening, that’s what the problem is!” Rogers said. “She’s about to blow!”
“Get ready, Oliver!” Brett slapped Oliver Cutler on the back. “The pictures are going to be incredible.” To Rogers, Brett said, “Get closer.”
“You don’t understand!” Rogers said. “We’re already too close!”
“Keep shooting, Oliver!” Brett said.
“Are you insane?” Rogers shouted at J. P. Brett. “We can’t be here right now.”
“Are you insane?” Brett said. “This is why we came here!”
Rogers looked down, knowing he had flown too close to this side of the mountain, the side that was supposed to be safe enough for them to be in this airspace.
Another vent opened to their right, the force of this explosion more powerful than the first; the molten rock and gas shot at the helicopter like a small missile trying to take them out of the sky.
Rogers felt it spraying the underside of the Airbus 225, rocking it again.
“We’re getting out of here now!” Rogers shouted.
He had flown around here for a long time. Had taken far too many chances, even if he had lived to tell about them. Had taken some in Brett’s other beast of a copter.
But even he wasn’t prepared for anything like this.
“My only choice is to take her up!” Rogers said.
“Get me out of here!” J. P. Brett said to Jake Rogers.
Not us. Me.
Leah Cutler was screaming hysterically, the way she had when their cameraman had fallen out of the helicopter.
Rogers reached for the cyclic, the stick that controlled his horizontal thrust, and altered the tilt of the rotor disk. As he did, he felt rocks hitting his blades.
Leah Cutler kept screaming.
“Will you please shut up!” Brett snapped at her.
“Go to hell!” she snapped back.
“Guess what,” Rogers said. “That’s where we’re all going if I can’t get us out of here.”
They were at least gaining altitude, even with what felt like shrapnel hitting J. P. Brett’s newest fancy helicopter, which was now bucking wildly.
Rogers was fighting his own controls. He realized now that there was no way they were making it back to the airport or even over to the Military Reserve at Mauna Kea. The best he could hope for was to get over the summit to the other side of the mountain and the new helipad the army had built near the Summit Cabin.
The pilot felt as if he were trying to push the Airbus up this side of Mauna Loa himself.
Come on, baby.
Almost there.
In the next moment, Mauna Loa erupted, underneath them and all around them. The Airbus bounced up high in the sky and then began to drop like a stone.
Jake Rogers was blinded by the flashing lights all around him and he thought how beautiful they were as the helicopter was sucked down into the summit.
The screaming stopped then.