The Green Zone

John Farnum was a busy man and had a lot of things on his mind. His most pressing task right now however was to clarify what he thought he had just heard from the Air Traffic controller at O’hare. “ O’Hare this is American three-niner-five. Can you repeat your previous transmission.” “American three nine five, this is O’hare, repeating. You are now clear for landing on runway 6. Please descend to three thousand feet and begin final approach.” John and his co-pilot Hank Smith looked at each other with raised eyebrows. O’Hare was telling them to go ahead and land their plane in the worst snow storm Chicago had seen in a decade. When they left Heathrow nine hours ago it had been a rare sunny winter day in London. Weather reports had called for light snow squalls in the mid west but what he was seeing now was absolute white out conditions with zero visibility. They had considered diverting to St Louis but there were reports of tornado sightings there, so here they were at 9000 feet circling in a holding pattern with 16 other jets waiting for the weather to clear. “Uh, O’hare this is American three-niner-five again” said John, “Request continuation of current holding pattern until we get a break in the weather.” “ Negative American three nine five. We are looking at a clearing weather situation within five minutes. We need you in an approach pattern at three thousand so we can get some of these other birds on the ground. Do you copy?” “Roger O’Hare. American 395 clear”. John put down the microphone , picked up the in flight intercom and said. “Folks this is your Captain from the flight deck, it looks we have some good news…..we are now cleared for landing. Once again we’re sorry for the long wait but it looks like we should be on the ground in a few minutes.” John looked over at Hank and smiled, even though he didn’t want to admit it, he was enjoying himself. Since leaving the Air Force for a job as a commercial pilot three years ago he had become increasingly restless with the mind-numbing predictability of his job. These big jets practically flew themselves .All he had to do was make point it in the right direction and the on board computers would do the rest. Today however there was nothing predictable about this landing. Runway 6 was the shortest of the 8 runways at O’hare but also the most sheltered and the easiest to keep snow free. The air traffic controller had picked it for this reason but it only gave John a bare 4500 feet of runway to make his landing. John began a steep curving descent down to three thousand feet. Normally the autopilot would do this but he had just turned it off and taken manual control of the plane. His turn radius and rate of descent were significantly faster than if the Boeing had been left to its own devices, but the air traffic controller had told him they had a weather window opening up and he didn’t want to miss it. Hank glanced over as the plane rolled a few degrees past “the coffee- spill zone”. He knew that John was a great pilot but all these ex-Air Force guys used the slightest excuse to take the stick. The problem was they thought they were still in Iraq trying to land in Baghdad, not bringing in a load of British tourists. Still he had to admire the dexterity with which John put the big plane through its paces. They leveled out at three thousand and Hank brought the flaps up without being told. So far so good, they were now in a direct line with the runway which was 4 miles away. With any luck they should break the cloud ceiling in a few minutes and get a visual on the runway. John eased back into his seat and pulled the throttle back to an air speed of 220 knots. It was a little slower than he would prefer but he wanted them to hit the runway at about 180 knots instead of the usual 195. It didn’t sound like much but he figured it would give them an extra few feet of stopping room. The plane shuddered and groaned, it didn’t like being asked to go this slow while flying and John knew it. “Hold on big fella, we’re almost there” he murmured and edged the throttle down even more. Since leaving the Air Force 2 years ago John had quickly risen through the ranks at American to become the fastest co-pilot ever to be promoted to left chair and captain his own plane. He had been the first pilot to go through the annual 2 day flight simulator training course without an error and on nights like tonight he was proving why. In the back, the passengers glanced around nervously and shot anxious looks through the windows. John’s headset crackled with static and then burst to life “American three-nine-five, this is air traffic control, please state your location” said a new voice. “O’Hare we are currently 2.3 miles out from runway 6, altitude 2800 feet heading vector 698”. That was strange thought John, we should be on their local radar by now, but from years of flying he found it best not to question air traffic control, “Just let them do their job and I’ll do mine” he thought.