Chapter 4

Ron took the controls and they took off. The weather stayed clear and Ron headed west toward Valdez. The plane was handling flawlessly and Cal started to nod off. Brenda seemed to be deep in thought. Carl was content looking out of the window at the scenery. Shortly after they crossed over the U.S./Canada border into Alaska Ron felt a bump like a car running over a 2 by 4 in the road. The plane continued to fly perfectly. Cal raised his head and asked what Ron had done. Ron asked Cal to start checking all of the instruments and to look at the outside of the airplane to see if he could determine what had caused the bump. Everything seemed all right.

"What was that?" Brenda snapped.

Ron and Cal ignored her and calmly continued to check for the cause of the bump, trying to not alarm the passengers. After several minutes Ron asked Cal to check the controls and Cal took the wheel and pedals.

"The rudder seems to be a little stiff," He told Cal.

Cal flew the plane for a few minutes.

"They do seem stiff," he said.

"Check the rudder and see if you can see anything," Ron told him.

Cal looked out of the rear windows of the cabin at the rudder. Although the cockpit had rear windows, the vision aft was not perfect. Cal continued to stretch as far left and right as he could to find if there was a problem.

"What the hell is going on?" She snapped several times.

Both Ron and Carl ignored her. Carl started to get that frightened look on his face again and grabbed the edges of the seat almost putting his fingers through the leather. Carl started to pale and he remained silent. Brenda was trying to figure out what was going on and ignored Carl. Cal got back into his seat.

"The rudder looks like it's loose at the top," he said.

"Check for the closest airport and we'll head for it, send a Mayday," Ron said calmly, "Give Dawson our position and destination."

Cal checked the maps and found a small airfield at the north edge of the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge at the town of Northway and started the Mayday call. Dawson responded immediately and Ron and Cal knew that people were scrambling to plot their exact position and course. Ron knew that the U.S. Coast Guard would respond also and would probably assist in any rescue efforts, if rescue were needed. Ron started to have more trouble controlling the plane. It was getting harder to maintain the heading for Northway.

"Everybody brace yourself," Ron shouted, "I'm going to flip the plane on its side and use the elevator to control my heading."

Ron flipped the plane on its side twice and tried to bring the plane around to the proper heading using the elevator on the horizontal stabilizer. The plane was not responding well enough to fully bring the plane around to the proper heading. The second time Ron flipped the plane it was hard righting the plane. Ron decided that he would put too much stress on the rudder if he kept trying that same maneuver. If the rudder fell off the plane would be uncontrollable and they would be in an uncontrolled crash. Ron thought to himself the absurdity of the term controlled crash.