Mayday at Two Thousand Five Hundred Read Online Free

doing terrific. Just keep giving it that much correction whenever I tell you. Just a touch, okay?”
    â€œOkay. By the way, who are you and where are you?”
    Chuck laughed. “Sorry for not introducing myself. I’m Chuck Westmore, a friend of your uncle’s. I’m following you right now in my airplane.”
    â€œAre you the guy in the Piper Cub?”
    â€œYeah, that’s right. Have you ever flown an airplane before?”
    â€œYeah, my Dad’s airplane.”
    â€œIs it like your uncle’s?”
    â€œPretty much. They both have a 182.”
    â€œThat’s great. Have you ever landed a plane?”
    â€œYeah, my Dad’s.”
    Chuck felt a touch of relief, of hope. He knew they weren’t out of the woods yet, but at least they had a fighting chance. “That’s great, Jay. That’ll sure help. Now let’s work out a little code, all right? If I say left, you give it just a little bit of left aileron and then come back to neutral, okay? If I say right, then you do the same thing to the right. Same for up and down, you understand?”
    â€œYeah, all right.”
    â€œThe biggest danger is overcorrecting, doing too much of something. We have to do it in small pieces, slow and easy.” The Skylane was starting to veer to the right. “Okay, give it a touch of left.”
    Now the airplane rocked back to level again. Good. This kid was doing all right so far.
    He had to call for help, but there was no time to do that and still talk to the lad to keep him flying safe and level. Aviate, then navigate, then communicate, went the old pilot safety slogan. Oh well, he thought, one thing at a time. We’ll wake ‘em up with the transponder. At least they’ll know where we are.
    On the right side of Chuck’s control panel was a small black box with four numbers and a little knob under each number. This was his transponder. Every time a beam from a radar station would sweep over the plane, the transponder would send back a signal telling the people in the control tower the number or code on the transponder and the plane’s altitude. Right now the four numbers were set to 1200, a code that meant he was just out buzzing around in clear weather. No doubt there were several airplanes in the area with transponders set to that same code, so the people in the control tower wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. But that was about to change. He started twisting the knobs until the number was 7700, a universal distress code.
    That should wake them up, he thought.
    In the control tower at Boeing Field, the controllers had just heard about the WestAir 757 making a safe emergency landing at nearby Seattle-Tacoma International and were breathing a sigh of relief. They’d been on alert in case the 757 needed to land at Boeing, but now that whole mess was over, and they could get back to their regular routine. Ben Parker, the tower chief, a veteran air-traffic controller with a graying crew cut and somber expression, allowed himself at least a slight glint of happiness in his eyes. Apart from that he was silent, his hands on his hips, as he watched his staff of three men and two women cheer and give each other high fives.
    Until the alarms went off. Loud beeps and blinking red lights on the control panels filled the room.
    â€œWe’ve got a seven-seven!” someone exclaimed. The cheering and talking stopped.
    â€œNever a dull moment,” Parker muttered, then called out, “All right, let’s look alive, let’s get on it!”
    Every controller manned his or her station, monitoring the radios, searching the radar screens.
    â€œSoutheast,” announced Barbara Maxwell, a dark-haired lady in her thirties wearing a small headset. “About fifteen miles out.”
    Ben Parker stared grimly over her shoulder. He could see the blinking target on her radar screen. “Any voice contact?”
    Maxwell switched over to the