A small twin turboprop plane sat on the black tarmac of Dallas-Fort-Worth Airport, engines lazily idling. The plane, a Brazilian made Embraer-120 was not the newest, nor sleekest of planes. At sixty-five feet long with a seventy-foot wingspan, it was an ugly squat little thing. To those who flew it, it was the ugly duckling of planes. It had a few cosmetic issues to be frank, but underneath it was a graceful and enormously strong swan of a plane that could carry you to any destination safely.

Inside the cockpit sat two men: Chris Hutching the pilot, and Patrick Davis the copilot. Chris was the senior pilot, having spent most of his twenty-year long career with FedEx, working his way up the ranks from simple roots as a flight engineer to the esteemed position of check pilot.  At nearly six feet and two-hundred-twenty pounds, he was a tight fit in the cramped cockpit. Today, he was present to evaluate then hopefully certify Davis as being a qualified member of the flight crew. 

Patrick was different than most of the men that he’d evaluated. While most pilot and copilot hopefuls came straight out of vocational schools dedicated to producing top-notch fliers, Patrick was different in that he’d first gotten a bachelor’s, then a master’s degree in mathematics, and only afterwards applied to pilot’s school. In Hutching’s book, it wasn’t a mark against the man, rather it was a plus. A degree in mathematics, while not strictly applicable to flying planes, meant that Patrick was a more well-rounded person overall. That he’d earned a masters showed his dedication. And he was certainly humbler than most of the other applicants that Hutching’s had interviewed, big hot-shot pilots from the Navy and Airforce, most of whom needed a lesson in humility and patience. They’d performed greatly in the air, and they earned their full marks, but they were a fair bit difficult to work with. ‘Interpersonal skills lacking’ was general the comment he wrote.
Both pilots had spent the last ten minutes running through their before-takeoff checklist, and now that they’d taxied short of runway 13-Left, they were ready for their pre-flight briefing. Briefings were necessary to ensure that both pilots were operating on the same page, and knew the same things. There were always several critical variables that changed flight to flight, like the plane’s fuel load and weight distribution. If one pilot thought one thing, and the other pilot another, it would be the perfect breeding for mistakes, mistakes that could bring an aircraft down. Thus many repeated briefings. They were tedious, but they were meant to save your life.
Leafing through the operating manual, Hutching found the appropriate section and started reading out loud.
“Take-off briefing. We are on runway thirteen left, climbing to ten-thousand. If we have an emergency or warning horn before vee-one, I will abort takeoff, and you will inform ATC. If the aircraft has reached vee-r, we will continue takeoff, then return and land. You will inform ATC of our intentions. Engine out procedures will be as per the chart. We are below maximum takeoff weight, so …” he trailed off questioningly. 
“We will make an immediate return,” responded Patrick.
“Yes. If we have a fire at or below vee-one, we will stop on the runway and evacuate downwind. Aircraft weight is?” Hutching questioned once more, flipping through his clipboard of papers.
“Aircraft weight is twenty thousand, nine hundred pounds, fuel and cargo loaded,” Patrick replied.

Finally, Hutchings located the page that listed the various ‘v’ speeds per weight. The heavier the aircraft was loaded with fuel, the more speed it needed for takeoff, and the longer it took to stop on the runway. Once the aircraft hit V1, the aircraft was literally moving too fast to stop on the limited space of the runway. No matter what happened, the pilots were required to takeoff. Vr was the ‘safety’ speed for a normal takeoff, and V2 was the minimum takeoff speed with a failed engine. 
“Vee-one is one oh two knots, vee-r is one one five knots, vee-two is one one zero knots,” he announced.
As he spoke, Hutchings shifted his focus around the cockpit, scanning, confirming, and triple checking that every last switch, knob, selector, and lever was in the proper position.
“Flaps are set to takeoff configuration of fifteen degrees,” he confirmed aloud, placing his right hand on the flap selector and pulling it down until it clicked into the correct slot.
“Checklist complete?” Hutchings asked.
“Checklist complete,” Patrick replied. “I do believe we are ready to ask for takeoff clearance.”
“We’re missing one checklist item.”
“Which one did I miss?” Patrick asked a bit nervously, flipping through his clipboard rapidly.
“I’ll show you,” Hutchings replied with a broad smile. 
And now for a bit of humor to lighten the mood, he mused. To Patrick, today’s flight was a very important one. He was being evaluated on his performance. He was prepared, he’d spent several months in paid training from FedEx, but he was definitely going to be nervous. Whatever score Hutchings put down on Patrick’s evaluation would determine Patrick’s future career for several years. Pay grade, opportunities for promotion, even how long it would take until Patrick was allowed to apply for pilot, they all depended on this evaluation.
Grabbing the public address microphone, a holdover from the days that the plane had carried people instead of cargo, he thumbed the button and spoke in a pinched, nasally tone. 
“Hello ladies and gentle-boxes, this is Captain Barry Friendly welcoming you aboard Federal Express flight one-one-seven, with nonstop service to Cimarron New Mexico. Our flight today will be approximately three hours, forty minutes. At this time, I would like each and every one of you to stow your personal electronic devices, place your tray tables in the upright position, and listen to the cabin crew as they begin your safety briefing. We hope that you are able to enjoy every last minute of your Federal Express flight experience. Remember: FedEx, when it absolutely, positively has to get there overnight.”

Concluding his spiel, Hutchings hung the dilapidated microphone back on its hook and turned his head to look at Patrick. Pilots lived and dies by their stone sober demeanor, always deadly serious all the time, but Hutchings could see the barest hint of a smile on Patrick’s face. Mission accomplished. Now Patrick didn’t look like he was facing a firing squad.
“Now you’re ready to ask the tower.”
After the brief moment of levity, the mood in the cockpit turned serious once more.
“Tower, FedEx one-one-seven is short of thirteen left. Requesting takeoff clearance,” Patrick radioed. As the copilot, he ran the ‘day to day’ parts of the plane, keeping track of the checklists and talking on the radio, among other duties. 
After a short moment, he got the reply that they were waiting for.
“FedEx one-one-seven, you are cleared for takeoff. Runway thirteen left. Climb to flight level one-hundred, then proceed with flight plan. Have a safe flight.”

Hutching double checked that the toe brakes were applied, then flicked the landing and strobe lights on. The gentle background idle of the engines increased to a hearty roar as he pushed the throttle levers from GND IDLE to MAX and the power levers from FEATHER to one third of maximum. Immediately, the aircraft strained forward, held only by the brakes. Glancing over the gauges and confirming nothing amiss, Hutchings released the toe brakes and advanced the power levers to full as the aircraft started to roll down the runway.
With two powerful Pratt & Whitney PW118A engines each providing nearly 18000 horsepower, and each connected to a 4-blade Hamilton Standard propellers, the aircraft simply beat the air into submission to speed down the runway.  
Inside the cockpit, Patrick kept attentively looking over the instruments, checking for anything erroneous, while Hutchings kept them centered on the runway with laser-like precision. As the needle on the airspeed indicator rose past 102 KIAS (knots indicated airspeed), Patrick called it.
“Speed alive, vee-one.”

Faster and faster they shot down the runway, their speed increasing every passing second. Moments later, the airspeed needle cleared 115 KIAS, and once again, Patrick called it. 
“Rotate!”
Hutchings pulled back on the yoke and the plane pitched upward, the nosewheel leaving the ground. Within moments the plane followed, flying upward and away from the runway.
Slowly the aircraft took to the sky, but there was still procedure to follow. Looking over his copilot’s panel, Patrick verified that the plane was climbing by checking the vertical speed indicator. Positive number, positive rate, call it. 
“Positive rate.”
“Alright, gear up,” Hutchings said.
“Gear up,” Patrick confirmed as he reached forward and pushed the landing gear lever into the up and locked position. A hydraulic hum filled the cockpit as the landing gear folded itself back into the body of the aircraft. A loud clunk signaled that it had fully stowed and retracted, which he verified by checking the lights on the gear panel. The indicator lights were off, and the lever was up. Gear retracted.
“Gear is up and the light is out.”
“Flaps to zero,’ Hutchings said.
“Flaps to zero,” he confirmed, reaching over the central pedestal and shifted the flaps lever. Once again, a hydraulic hum filled the cockpit as the wings of the aircraft reconfigured themselves to be smaller and more aerodynamic, the flaps sliding under and into the body of the wings. While the flaps boosted lift at low speeds, they produced parasitic drag at altitude that sapped performance. It was like driving around with your parking brake set, entirely do-able, but not recommended.

Hutchings kept his hands steady on the controls and the aircraft rose at a steady rate. Soon enough, they breached three-thousand-five-hundred feet. Both pilots were able to relax. Takeoff, one of the more dangerous periods of flying, had been to the letter and the initial transition to cruising altitude had been trouble free. Now both pilots settled in for the long and tedious flight. Tedium was boring, but much preferable to the excitement of danger.
“Pop it on climb, on nav, and autopilot on,” Hutchings commanded.
“Climb, nav, autopilot,” Patrick echoed as he leaned forward and dialed in the initial climb altitude and desired airspeed into the autopilot panel. The autopilot itself was a marvel of engineering. While it wasn’t from the latest generation of Boeing and Airbus’ flight computers, it could handle its own in plotting and following courses. Once he had confirmed that the heading and speed had been accepted by the autopilot, Patrick thumbed the ‘AP ENG’ button along with the mode selector and was rewarded when several lights on the autopilot panel turned on and his yoke stiffened, the mechanical linkages of the plane now under the control of the autopilot’s servos.
“Autopilot engaged,” Patrick announced.
Hutchings released his hands from the yoke and sat back in his jump seat. The cockpit remained calm and silent as the plane steadily worked its way up towards ten-thousand feet, gently banking and climbing to intercept the first waypoint. As they passed the waypoint, the autopilot gave a short trilling tone, audibly telling the pilots that it had localized onto the next waypoint and was successfully tracking it. Patrick flipped through the flight plan and verified that the autopilot was tracking the proper signal. In another hour they would intercept the next waypoint, but that wasn’t for another hour or so.

With everything squared away, both pilots settled in for the routine grind of flight.
[hr]
It was hour two of five when the problem arose. Hutchings was monitoring the aircraft while Patrick was reading his way through a training manual, an approved way for aircrews to spend the time. One moment everything was peaceful and proper, the next something exploded and the plane started banking left hard. 
Hutchings was the first to react, apprising the situation in an instant and reaching forward to grab the flight controls a moment later. He wrestled with them, an unknown force trying to pull the airplane leftwards into a death spiral. He fought it off with a healthy application of aileron roll and directed rudder. The plane seemed to stabilize, though now the nose was pointed distinctly down. A quick glance at his instruments showed that they were shedding altitude at an insane rate. He pulled back on his yoke and the plane seemed to regain an attitude more horizontal, though still pointed slightly downward. The immediate threat resolved, it was time to triage. 
There were several logical deductions that Hutchings made nearly instantly in his mind. There had been an explosion of some sort. Immediately, the aircraft had started pitching left. The engine gauges for the left engine didn’t make any sense, more completely erroneous that those that looked correct at first glance. It led to a worrying conclusion. Somehow, the left engine had failed, and judging from the loudness of the explosion and how many other systems on the plane had faulted, it hadn’t gone quietly.
“We’ve got the left engine out,” he announced.
“You said the left engine’s out?” Patrick asked.
“Yes. I need left power lever, Flight Idle,” Hutchings ordered.
“Flight Idle,” Patrick confirmed as he pulled the power lever on the throttle quadrant. Something was wrong. What was normally a very smooth operation of the lever now felt like pulling a rod through concrete. Something had damaged the internal mechanisms of the plane, and very badly.
The aircraft began to shake and shudder in flight.
“Left condition lever. Left condition lever. Feather”
“Left condition to feather,” Patrick confirmed. Feathering the propeller meant turning the blades so they produced no thrust and minimal drag. The intention was to reduce the drag that the failed engine’s useless propeller was exerting
As Patrick adjusted the propeller pitch selector, he heard the rapid beeps of the fire detection circuit indicating that the left engine had caught fire. A fire on an aircraft was always a serious matter. If they couldn’t extinguish using the fire suppression bottles or starve it of fuel, the lifespan of the aircraft would be measured in minutes.
 “Yeah we’re feathered. Left condition lever, fuel shut off!” Hutchings commanded. The simplest way put a fire out was to starve it of fuel. By cutting the flow of fuel to the engine, the fire would just die out.
“Left to fuel shut off,” Patrick grunted, straining at the effort of pulling the fuel lever down to fuel shut off. Something was wrong for all the delicate parts of the aircraft to have jammed so tightly.
“You said it’s feathered?” Hutchings asked. 
“Uh..”—Patrick confirmed against the instruments--”It did feather.”
“It’s feathered…What in hell’s wrong with this thing?” Hutchings asked aloud. When an engine failed, the proper procedure was to feather the propeller to minimize drag. However, feathering the propeller had done nothing to decrease the drag pulling them right. In his gut, Hutchings knew something was seriously wrong with the plane. Feathering always produced a positive net result for the flight crew, except this time it hadn’t. He’d flown a Brasilia with only one engine before, but that plane had handled nothing like his now. This was no ordinary engine failure. A regular engine failure didn’t threaten to send an aircraft plunging towards the ground head over heels.
“I dunno… got this detector inop,” Patrick replied, troubleshooting his way through the aircraft.
Something gave way and the entire plane started shaking violently. 
“I can’t hold this thing. Hold it, help me hold it!” Hutchings screamed.
Patrick grabbed onto his yoke and wrestled with Hutchings to take back control of the aircraft. It was a bear. The wind rushing over the control surfaces tugged and pulled. One moment the yokes were still, the next they were literally pulled against their limits. Still though, the pilots persevered. The longer they fought, the harder the plane fought back.
The already stressed airframe popped and groaned under the barrage. The main spar of the left wing had taken shrapnel damage from the exploding engine and had been weakened from the pilot’s fight for controls. It simply snapped and in a moment the entire left wing lost rigidity and simply crumpled in on itself. Ten tons of metal, man, and machine stopped flying and started falling, accelerating towards the earth. 
 [hr]
In the darkened tower that housed the Wichita Falls Air Traffic Control, senior controller Lars Nichols was watching his radar display intently, focused on the moving square that represented FedEx 117. As soon as he had seen them drop ten thousand feet in two minutes, he had pushed his regular traffic onto the other controllers working the station and gave them his full attention. A plane that dropped that fast was in an emergency, and the pilots likely unable to communicate. On his radar, he could follow the 
They shot up and down, seemingly bouncing around in the air. Once more they simply shot straight down, obviously out of control. Thirty seconds ago the small green dot that represented FedEx 117’s position came to a halt and started blinking every two seconds, warning the controller that the radar return signal from the plane had been lost. In times of uncertainty, training and habit kicked in. Lars picked up the microphone for the radio and keyed it.
“FedEx one-one-seven, I’ve lost your transponder, please say altitude leaving and current heading.” 
No response. He waited a moment, then tried again.
“Federal Express one-one-seven, this is Tower. I’ve lost your transponder, please say altitude leaving and current heading.”
The only noise on the radio was static. A final call.
“Fedex one-one-seven, I’ve lost your transponder, say altitude.”

Lars stared at his monitor, hoping that he would see the plane reappear on his screen.

Picking up the handset marked “FLIGHT OPS DIRECT”, Lars dialed a short number and spoke.
“This is Wichita Regional. We’ve had a plane go down, roughly three miles north of the airport. I need fire teams at these coordinates. Ready to receive? … Okay. Mike, Kilo, One, Romeo, Lima, One, Seven, Nine…”
As the controller read the coordinates off his map, he could see a single thin like of black smoke rising from the forest to the north.