Chapter 14
He encountered three right away. A young couple in their twenties seemed almost unharmed. They were caring for a shell-shocked man in a T-shirt. He appeared to have a head injury and was huddled against the outside of the fuselage.
“You guys okay?” Sharpe asked.
The pair looked up and, in spite of his mismatched clothing, seemed to recognize him as a crewmember.
“Yeah, we’re good, all things considered,” said the young man.
“We ended up in a snowbank over there,” the woman added, jabbing a thumb toward a distant pile of white.
Sharpe knew such things happened in all crashes, random strokes of fortune, both good and bad, that had no rational explanation. “Okay. Get that guy inside and find him something warm to wear. Same goes for you two.”
They said they would, and Sharpe continued on.
He walked a wide circle around the fuselage, hoping to find more survivors, but also wanted to survey the damage.
Although the left side of the cockpit had been crushed, the fifty feet of fuselage behind it was relatively intact.
The belly of the jet had accordioned on impact, and when he reached the far side, he saw the jagged remains of the forward cargo door in the distance.
A pile of checked suitcases and cargo had spilled from the opening of the crushed compartment.
One large roller bag had cracked open, and amid the pile of clothing strewn on the ice was a dark trench coat with a wool liner.
Sharpe had only been exposed for a matter of minutes, yet he could already feel his hands going numb.
Armani might be great for a night at the opera, but it wasn’t made for conditions like these.
He walked over, switched out to the far heavier coat, which was only slightly small, and committed to returning later to find better gear for everyone.
But first I have to make sure there’s no one out here freezing to death.
He kept going, and had nearly completed his circle around the wreckage when he saw a sight that caused his gut to clench. Two contorted bodies lay motionless on the nearby ice. Both passengers were clearly dead, and he paused respectfully.
It wasn’t the first time Sharpe had seen such a sight.
In addition to being an F-22 pilot in the United States Air Force, he’d been his squadron’s flying safety officer.
This meant he had been trained to investigate aircraft accidents.
He would never forget the horrific sights from his first crash scene.
An Air Force executive transport jet had gone down while attempting to land in a storm in Italy.
The wreckage of the C-37A, the military equivalent of a Gulfstream V business jet, along with the remains of three crewmen and five passengers, had ended up strewn across the side of a mountain.
Those sights and smells, jagged and raw, had been forever seared into his mind.
Equally unforgettable was the accident board’s final report, a damning backdrop of poor weather and failed ground equipment.
Yet it was the crew’s procedural errors, and their lack of situational awareness, that had borne the brunt of the blame.
Sharpe wondered if the dreadful scene before him would become his own legacy.
His professional tombstone. Had he and Captain Fowler made mistakes?
Might they have done something to cause the dual engine failure? What would they be remembered for?
He forced his dark thoughts away. The possibility that others needed help had to be his focus.
The fuselage had separated just in front of the wing, and his circle ended near the breach.
A giant groove, obviously made when the forward section had skidded to its resting place, tracked into the distance and disappeared in swirls of snow.
If there was more wreckage, it would be at the other end of this rut.
The storm was strengthening, the visibility getting worse.
The frigid wind cut at his exposed skin like rusty razor blades.
The trench coat was helpful, but his exposed face and hands were going numb.
Unfortunately, better clothing would take time—and in these conditions, any delay at all meant others might freeze to death.
He put his head down and shoved his hands deep into the coat’s pockets, his determination, or maybe his conscience, driving him onward.
He set off, following the icy channel, and told himself that the rest of the jet couldn’t be far away.
After a few minutes the visibility improved, but only slightly.
A glow appeared ahead, and soon after he reached the point where the groove ended.
It was the outcome he had both feared and expected.
Bill Fowler’s words echoed from the grave. “Four hundred thousand pounds on ten tires? Not a chance.”
The captain had been spot-on.
The scene was a hellscape. The colors and the textures were those of death, of devastation.
The ice shelf had collapsed under the aft two-thirds of the jet—the heaviest part.
Low flames tongued over the frigid sea and the ice groaned from nearby fissures.
This was the impact point. The hill of ice they’d struck—he realized now, an iceberg embedded in the pack—had been obliterated, replaced by a temporary lake.
The bulk of the jet lay somewhere below.
Thousands of gallons of jet fuel, which was lighter than seawater, had risen to the surface and was burning pyre-like.
Sharpe scanned across the broad field of debris.
Some pieces were floating amid the flames, others scattered across the ice, and tendrils of smoke were being whipped away by the wind.
There wasn’t a human in sight, living or dead.
Even so, he couldn’t stop himself from calling out.
No one replied.
He stared for a long moment, reeling from a scene that would surely haunt him for the rest of his life.
Bill Fowler had been right about the ice not being strong enough to support a wide-body airliner.
But he’d also been wrong. The forward fuselage was light enough, and had struck at a low enough angle, that the ice had held to support it.
If they had known that ahead of time, could they have done anything differently?
His thoughts tumbled into a cul-de-sac, a hopeless series of what-ifs, until a glacial blast of wind brought him back to the here and now. There was no time for recriminations. They had done their best in the moment. They had saved a few.
He turned and began walking back, but as he did, nightmare scenarios began to form in his mind. Could the storm outlast their supplies? Would hypothermia set in? What if the ice began to fragment under the weight of the wreckage?
It was a commander’s duty to worry—and he would do exactly that until every survivor was safe. Then, perhaps, he would someday be remembered for the passengers he saved.
Not those who were lost.