"Yeah, you need to come back to Toronto, uh, Turn right 180. You have about a 100 miles to fly"
I was already rolled into the right turn, and I switched on the Auxiliary Power Unit or APU. It's an emergency generator. Engines not only provide thrust, but the power required to manipulate the aircraft. My co-pilot began reading our descent rate (1000 feet/minute), speed (220 knots) and altitude (21 800 feet) to determine if we could make Toronto. We had 22 minutes to fly. No more. When we were about 60 miles from the airport. Now we had 11 minutes to fly and 11 260 feet in the air, we have awful news. We will not make Toronto Pearson Int'l Airport and Toronto City Centre Airport are out of question. We can make City Centre Airport but it will be too dangerous. The runway that is used for landings is too short for our plane and the runway that we would have to land on would be too dangerous: 25 knots of crosswind would be too dangerous to land. If we were to land, we risk a big chance of overshooting their runway and breaking up in the water. There was only one other place to land. Lake Ontario. Ditching in Lake Ontario would be extremely difficult. If not impossible. 4 minutes to fly. I radioed to the controller "Toronto Tower, Learjet Golf Zulu, we're gonna be in the water. 2 600 feet. City Centre Airport was 3 miles ahead of us. I knew that the best chance of surviving, was going beside the airport. We would hit the water about 6 miles ahead of the airport. A dangerous distance from downtown. Now the plane was at 178 knots, as I was getting ready for the ditching. I was too high and I had to do another dangerous maneuver to lose altitude but not speed. The side slip. I got down to 540 feet and 142 knots. I brought the plane to a pitch of 12 degrees for the ditching and reduced the descent rate. The altimeter read 40 feet. I just passed City Centre Airport and I saw a tree, and boats.
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment