Excerpt from "On Wings of Trust"

Major Level-3 emergency! Smoke and presumably fire in the aft cargo compartment that we didn't have access to! My gut tightened and my heart thumped … ValuJet, SwissAir … flights destroyed by flash fires. How much time did we have? Could we make it down?

No panic, but urgent action …. I put the breakfast tray on the flight deck, turned back and reached for the overhead panel … lifted the protective flap and pushed the button activating the aft cargo fire extinguisher—the one shot we had. Couldn't see how big the fire was … would the extinguisher put it out? Would we know?

I held my breath as we stared at the flight panel. Seconds ticked by … in about twenty, the red warning did go out. Presumably, the fire was out. I resumed breathing.

“OK, Arnie, let’s get down”—no dumping fuel in a smoke/fire emergency … just get the plane down, no wasting time … alert air traffic control in case smoldering remains flare up and we suffer a ValuJet/Swiss Air-type catastrophe: “Oakland ATC, Flight 70 requests an emergency divert. We had an aft cargo smoke indication that we think is extinguished—we hope is extinguished.”

ATC, Air Traffic Control, responded, “You are near Reno, just off to your left, pretty much right below you, thirty-seven to forty miles away.”

“We’ll go there” … have to get down fast to land in only forty miles.

Arnie configured the aircraft for descent on autopilot at 6,000 feet per minute—very rapid descent of 19,000 feet in a little over three minutes. The aircraft inclined down toward the 10,000 foot Sierra Nevada Mountains. I pushed a button that alerted Terri, the lead Flight Attendant, to come to the flight deck. I needed her to keep the passengers calm.

"We’re making a divert into Reno to have something looked at before going over the mountains. The landing should be normal." I glanced at Terri: no sign of anxiety. "If things do go to hell in a hand basket, I’ll press the emergency button."

At 15,000 feet, we just about had preparations for the emergency landing under control when the warning chime sounded again and a new bright red message flashed on the flight panel display screens:

My response to this second major emergency warning was disbelief rather than fear. Double emergencies almost never happen...

Carole’s book, On Wings of Trust, is available through Amazon. Keep reading...Buy it now!