Inspiration from blog writing-prompt-s.tumblr.com :

“You work at an air traffic control tower. A plane that disappeared 12 years ago has contacted you on the radio to let you know they’ll be landing at the airport in 15 minutes.”



“Mayday, mayday, mayd-” came the message., cut off in the middle. Suddenly I was wide awake, all my training kicking in.

“Station calling mayday, this is Busselton Regional Airport. Please state your emergency.” I answered immediately.

“Mayday, mayday, this is Malaysian 370”

I didn’t immediately register the call sign, just wrote it on a flight strip and stayed focused on the call, already in emergency mode.

“370, this is Busselton, I read you. Please state your emergency.”

“Busselton, Malaysian 370, we’ve got fire in the cabin and we need to land immediately. Is your runway available?”

“Roger, 370. Can you please state your aircraft type and number of souls on board?”

“Busselton, 370, we are a triple-7 with 239 souls on board.”

“Roger, 370. Do you need to dump fuel?”

“Busselton, 370, that’s a negative, we’d like to come in to land immediately if possible.”

“Roger, 370. Please confirm your location”

“Busselton, 370, we are at three-two degrees three-niner minutes south, one-one-fiver degrees fiver-zero minutes east, descending past flight level two-zero-zero, bearing one-oh-six true at three-seven-niner knots.”

“Roger, 370, maintain one-oh-six true and descend to flight level one-zero-zero. Reduce speed two-fiver-zero knots. Path is all clear of traffic, you are first in line to land on runway two-one. Please acknowledge.”

“Busselton, 370. Maintain one-oh-six. Descend one-zero-zero. Reduce speed two-fiver-zero. Path clear to runway, first in line to land, runway two-one. Thank you.”

“370, will you need emergency services upon landing?”

“Busselton, 370, af-” Silence for a few seconds.

“370, Busselton, I missed the end of your answer”

No answer.

“370, Busselton, please repeat”

No repeat.

“370, Busselton, come in”

They didn’t.

“370, Busselton, please acknowledge”

No one acknowledged. Unsure what to do, I nevertheless called emergency services, thinking ‘better safe than sorry’, to make sure they’d be on the runway when the plane landed.

All the while I kept trying to contact the plane. When they reached the point where they needed to turn, I called, “370, Busselton, turn right, heading two-zero-seven, reduce speed one-eight-zero knots, you are cleared for a straight-in approach. Wind Conditions are clear, visibility unlimited, wind is one-fiver knots out of two-two-fiver degrees. Please acknowledge.”

“Busselton, 370, rog-” came the brief reply. I tried to contact them again, while staring at the radar screen. Suddenly I realized how nervous and scared I was. I’d never had a crash before. I’d never even had radio difficulties with an aircraft.

As I called out repeatedly to the plane, I kept my eye on the radar. I saw it turn and head down toward the runway. Then, suddenly, meters away from the threshold, the plane vanished from the screen. By then I should be able to see it clearly out the window. Nothing. Craning my neck to look over the monitors, I tried to see it. I stood up for a better view. Nothing there. Dumbfounded, I stared back and forth between the radar and the runway. I then fumbled for the phone to call the emergency response team. They hadn’t seen it either. The burning plane had completely vanished. It was like-

A jarring alarm brought me back to reality. A nightmare. It had all been a bloody nightmare! I hadn’t lost a plane, I was lying in bed, at home, with nothing to worry about except getting up and going to work.

So as usual, I got up, woke my roommate Joe and hit the shower. While I was washing I thought back to my nightmare. It was still vivid in my mind, and I couldn’t shake it. There was something creepy about that nightmare… I mean, aside from the nightmare part. Ridiculous. Nightmares are just in your mind. It must have just been nerves… Maybe I’m close to burning out, maybe I need a vacation.

Still, there was something nagging me at the back of my head. To convince myself of the absurdity of that impression, I played it again in my mind. The call from Malaysian… Oh. That was it. Malaysian 370. Why that particular flight number? In fact, why would the flight number stay so imprinted on my memory of the dream when I was already starting to lose some of the details? That must have been it.

As I killed the water and put the shower head back, I dismissed it again, for what I hoped would be the last time. It was just a nightmare, Malaysian 370 was just a fluke, maybe because of the fuss it caused almost 4 years ago when it vanished.

Dried and dressed, I went to the kitchen for a bite to eat. Joe was there, ready to go. He was always faster than me at preparing.

“What took you so long?” he asked. I realized just then that my thinking must have taken longer than I thought.

“What? Oh. Nothing. Did we get more cereal bars?”

“Yeah, I put them in the big cupboard.”

“Thanks”

I checked the time and realized we were running late. I just grabbed a couple of the bars, stuck them into my bag and signaled to Joe that we should go.

The drive to the airfield was fairly quiet. As Joe swung the car around the corner of the airfield and drove past the area where the private jets are parked I looked at them. The Cessnas, the Learjets, the gliders and all the way in the distance, a few ATR-72s sporting the livery of the only commercial airline based here.

We parked the car in the staff parking lot and got out. I told Joe, “Enjoy your shift!”. He nodded back, then made his way to the tarmac to coordinate ground services. I made my way up to the control tower (basically just a large third-floor office with a bay window sitting on top of the small terminal building).

I sat down at my workstation and logged in. Steve was still there for another hour, and before he left he passed on information from the previous shift. I was going to be alone tonight, as it was a quiet time of year. Before Steve left I went downstairs to the vending machine for a Diet Coke (the vending machine in the actual office only has regular). He and I chatted for a bit, catching up on life and everything (he’d just been on three weeks’ vacation), which kept me awake and interested and best of all, thinking about anything but the nightmare.

Once alone, however, it came back with a vengeance. I didn’t seem to be able to just forget it. Usually my dreams and nightmares are gone within the hour. But it just kept nagging.

And then…

“Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is Malaysian 370”. Oh no. It’s happening. My nightmare is coming true. What the hell is up with the world? Anyway, just in case, I do have a job to do and bosses to report to, so I answer.

“Malaysian 370, this is Busselton Regional Airport. What is your emergency?”

“Busselton, 370. We’ve run out of fuel and have lost both engines. We’re gliding down.”

“Roger, 370. I only see you on primary radar. How many souls do you have aboard?”

“Busselton, 370. We have 239 souls aboard.”

Oh bugger. Sounded like a larger jet. At that size, I wasn’t even sure whether it could land decently on the runway here. At least they were out of fuel, that made for less weight.

“370, Busselton. Please confirm your location.”

“Busselton, 370. We’re at one-one-four degrees oh-six minutes east, three-three degrees, fiver-four minutes south, gliding oh-eight-fiver degrees at four-zero-zero knots from flight level two-fiver-three”

“Roger, 370. Continue on your track of oh-eight-fiver for sixty nautical miles, then turn left to two-fiver degrees to align with the runway. Conditions are clear and dry, wind is oh-one-niner at twelve knots. Cleared to land, you are first in line. Please acknowledge. Will you require emergency services?”

“Busselton, 370. Continue oh-eight-fiver for sixty miles, turn left two-fiver toward the runway, cleared to land first in line, wind one-two knots from oh-one-nine. Yes, we will require emergency services. Repeat, we will require emergency services.”

“Roger, 370. Calling emergency services.”

Suddenly I woke up. Apparently I’d just had another nightmare about MH370, having dozed off at my post. Panicking slightly, I checked the radio logs and the planned schedule in case I’d missed any flights. I hadn’t. The perks of working night shift. I resolved to stay awake for the rest of the shift. Maybe out of shock that I had dozed off during the shift, more likely because I was freaked out at what might have happened if I’d actually missed an emergency while I was asleep.

The rest of the shift happened quietly, however. No extraneous flights, no problems, everything ran like clockwork. When Dan arrived for his shift at five, I took my usual late break to meet Joe out on the tarmac for a breath of fresh air and a smoke. Dan was a smoker, so he had to take his breaks outdoors. I’d stopped smoking a year ago, but this time I figured maybe a cigarette would help me clear my mind so I borrowed one from Dan and walked down. As I exhaled the first puff I sat down against the wall and asked Joe, “Have you ever handled an emergency out here?”

“No… why would I?”

“I don’t know… Plane on fire, both engines dead, whatever”

“Naaahhh. this is Busselton, what are the odds anything like that’s going to happen here?”

I took another puff and blew it out before answering.

“The size of the airport doesn’t change the fact it might happen”

“True… But it might make it less likely. You remember, a few years back, when I applied for a transfer to Perth?”

“Yeah”

“It was going to be more interesting, bigger airport, more action”

“Yeah, I imagine it would be”

“I turned that down after all… Simpler, quieter here, and I already make almost as much”

“Right” I said simply, and kept smoking. He was right, of course, it was much quieter here. But emergencies can happen everywhere and anywhere. I was really troubled by the two back-to-back matching nightmares. I wondered what it could all mean (if anything - I don’t believe in that kind of stuff).

After a few minutes I crushed the cigarette butt under my shoe.

“Hey, I gotta go. Meet you here at six?”

“As always!” he answered.

Before I left, I looked around at the airfield. Still the same Cessnas, Learjets and ATRs, nothing more. You couldn’t fit much more or much bigger planes on this airfield anyway. Joe was right, it was simpler and quieter here.

Back in the control tower, Dan was relaxing, reading some adult magazine (he is a randy bugger), with his screens dead in front of him as usual. There would be a couple of scheduled flights to handle within the hour, I knew, then the rest of the day team would start arriving and I’d be off back home.

“All quiet up here?” I asked.

“You know it!” he answered.

I sat back down at my workstation, still bothered by the nightmares. I decided to pull out a notebook and take some notes on them to see if I could make any sense of them later on, especially if they were to happen again. No sense came just then. I left the notebook there, lying open, in case a brainwave came. It didn’t.

At seven my shift was over, so I said goodbye to the team, walked down to the car and found Joe already there. As we drove out of the parking lot something caught my eye: almost dead ahead, in plain sight, was a 777 that shouldn’t have been there at all. They’re too big to land here.

“Hold up, Joe. What’s that triple-7 doing here?”

“Yeah, that’s weird.”

“Think we should go check it out?”

“Why would we do that?”

“I don’t know, something about it just feels weird”

“A great bloody wide-body on a small airfield like this? Course it’s weird. Still no reason to butt into their business”

“Yeah but get this: we didn’t have any wide-bodies all night, and I don’t think you have either”

“So? Maybe it was here last night.”

“It wasn’t, I remember”

Now he seemed at a loss for words. I sensed he just wanted to get home to bed. But I couldn’t leave this alone.

“Let’s go check it out.”

Reluctantly, he accepted. We drove back into the airport, this time right onto the tarmac, and parked next to the jet. We got out and walked around it. “Malaysian Airlines”, it said, and had the now famous red-and-blue stylized plane/bird thing on the tail fin. Its registration was 9M-MRO. A quick search on my phone indicated this was indeed the plane that had vanished, MH370. I pinched myself to make sure this wasn’t also a nightmare.

“This is it. Joe, this is the actual plane, MH370!”

“What? You don’t mean… Are you bloody joking?”

“No, look!” I showed him my phone, then pointed to the plane’s registration.

“We’ve got to report this. If it IS the jet, we could be in for a hell of a reward.” I said.

“Yeah, but you were in the tower and I was on the ground when it popped up… How would we explain this?”

“I don’t know, we can figure that out later. The authorities have been looking for this jet for years.”

We both stood there, hesitant, unsure what to do.

I said, “We should check it out. Could you get a moving staircase here?”

“Sure. But… You’re not thinking of going aboard, are you?”

“Just to make sure this isn’t some kind of weird prank or something. Better not be if we report this to the authorities.”

“Yeah, guess you’re right. Come on.”

We went to fetch one of the moving staircases and tucked it up neatly against the jet’s forward port-side door.

I went upstairs then, unsure, started by knocking on the door. No answer.

I knocked again with the same result.

Then I decided to open the door. I pulled the outside latch and moved the heavy door aside.

Inside, all was silent and dark. Nobody was there. Moving through the cabin with my phone’s flashlight on, I looked around. Not a soul, not a sound. On each seat was a rose and a picture of someone. I went back to the door and called out to Joe, “Hey, you’ve got to check this out, it’s really weird.” He joined me a minute later.

“Crikey” he said as he saw what was there. Together we moved back to the end of the plane, the same eerie scene greeting us at every row. We then went to the cockpit. There too, a rose and a picture lay on each seat. Then we heard something: the door slamming shut. We looked at each other, unsure what was going on.

“I’ll get that open again” Joe said, and hurried out of the cockpit.

Looking at the instrument panel, I noticed they were all off. Normal, the plane wasn’t flying. Then out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement. The throttle was moving up slowly. Then I felt the plane start to move.

“Joe!” I called out, not sure what was going on.

“What the hell’s going on?” he answered.

“We gotta get out of here!”

“Well this door’s stuck… I’ll try the other side”

Meanwhile, I decided to try to pull the throttle back down. As soon as I touched it, however, I found myself in the pilot’s seat, all buckled in. “What the…” I tried to release the seat belts so I could get out of the plane. They were stuck. I then tried to at least stop the plane. Pulling the throttle down and pushing on the brakes as hard as I could, the plane slowed a little, but then raised the throttle again with a vengeance.

“I can’t get it to stop!” I yelled to Joe.

“I can’t get this door open either!” he yelled back.

Glancing out the windshield, I noticed the plane was already lining up onto the runway.

“Then get the overwing door! I’ll join you in a sec, we’ve got to get out, and not in front of the engines!”

“Right-o”

Just then the throttle shot up out of my hands, and I was thrust against the seat back. I hoped Joe would be OK. The plane was taking off.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, almost at the overwing door”

“Get that thing open quick, we’re taking off!”

“What the hell are you taking off for?”

“I’m not doing it, the plane is!”

“What?”

“Just get that damn door open!”

“It’s stuck too!”

By now it was too late anyway… Even if we’d gotten out of the plane alive, we’d have been dead meat landing from over five meters up at close to 200 knots…

Then something else happened: voices popped up. I heard voices, as though from a crew talking to air traffic control. The instruments were all still off. No radio, no GPS, no altimeter, no ADI, nothing. Yet I heard voices. Joe shouted something, but his words were blanked out by the voices.

By now we were in the air, unable to open the doors, to control the plane or, in my case, even to get out of my seat. Survival instinct told me I had to try to get this plane back on the ground at all cost. Lucky I was such a big fan of flight simulators! But it really isn’t the same, especially with no instruments.

I tried moving the control column, but it wouldn’t budge. Panicking more and more, I tried putting more force on it, jerking it one way and the other, but it wouldn’t respond.

After several minutes we were over deep ocean and still I wasn’t able to control the damn jet. Then suddenly, unwanted, unbidden, came an urge to just push the control column forward. I fought it off, thinking it was just my desperation and resolve beginning to fail. But it came back, over and over again. I kept fighting it off, and trying to fight with the controls.

Then came something else: along with the urge, a voice in my head, saying “…don’t…fight…destiny…must…closure…”. And a force, unseen, unknown, irresistible, pushing my hands toward the control column. Forward, forward…

The last thing I consciously saw was the sea rushing up toward the plane’s windshield.

***

ATSB investigator Kelly Cochrane looked at the aerial picture for the hundredth time, lost for words. In his 42-year career in air crash investigations, he’d never seen a case quite like this one.

“What the bloody hell…”

Two pieces of wreckage were obvious, floating on the surface. A tail fin with a red-and-blue stylized plane/bird, and a piece of fuselage with “9M-MRO”.

And just near them, floating there: hundreds of roses and pictures.

In the intervening days they’d found that the plane did match MH370, vanished for four years. It was already hard enough to explain just that. Then news came in that there were only two victims, neither from the actual plane and both, it seemed, employees in some small regional airport near Perth. And the pictures were all of victims of the original flight.

“Excuse me, Mr. Cochrane?”

His secretary Sarah was at his office door.

“Yes?”

“This just came in from the - umm, pilot - well, that victim’s sister. She said it might be useful for the investigation.”

“What is it?”

“She was going through his stuff, and it seems he left this notebook at his control station the night before the crash.”

“And?”

“And it’s mostly information from his training for the post, and details about some flights he’s handled, but… well, you should see the last entry for yourself.”

Cochrane took the notebook and sat down to read it. Indeed, most of it looked like boring, humdrum stuff. He skipped ahead to the last handwritten page. As he read, disbelief and confusion grew stronger in his head. What the hell was this? All this told anyone was that the guy had had two nightmares about the plane before all this happened. He made to throw it away, but then something struck him. The very same flight, that very flight that had vanished years earlier… It couldn’t be… He’d always firmly believed that there was no such thing as coincidence.

He then set to work typing a letter.

When he finished, he printed the letter, signed it and took it to HR, where he dropped it right into Sebastian’s in-tray. He then left the office for the final time.

Half an hour later, when Sebastian was back from his meeting, he saw the letter in the in-tray.

“Dear Sebastian,” it read, “I have spent 42 years piecing together hundreds of aircraft and crashes. I have proven my worth over decades of investigations and succeeded every time in finding a full and complete explanation for all the facts of every case. And even though I do say so myself, I believe i have earned every bit of praise I have received over the years for my work.”

So true, Sebastian thought. Cochrane had been a brilliant investigator for his entire career, even coming up with a brilliant case-breaking detail on his very first investigation, after all the others had failed. He read on: “But now, with this case, I cannot in good conscience provide an answer. Faced with such strange and counter-intuitive evidence, I have to either give an outlandish supernatural explanation and go against everything I believe, or admit to complete ignorance. This case has beaten me. That is why I believe this is the right time for me to retire from the service, effective immediately. I wish to leave now rather than after this case, which it seems would inevitably result in the first blemish on my record.

"As for the ongoing investigation, I think the best that can be done is to just file it as additional evidence of the previous MH370 disappearance, and leave it at that. There will be no satisfactory solution. Yours, Kelly M. Cochrane”

***

A few days later, Bunbury Airport air traffic controller John McDuff was sweating. He’d just awoken from an awful nightmare. He was in the cockpit of a 777 and a voice was telling him “…don’t…fight…destiny…must…closure…” over and over again, while an irresistible force pushed his hands onto the control column and forward.