The first hour or so passes without incident, but we're checking the weather at Kennedy every few minutes. The trend is bad. I'm doing double takes with the printouts. Gusts hitting 35 knots, hail, icing, moderate to severe turbulence. It's all out there, waiting. "Better pull up the latest for our alternates too," advises Clay. I type in Philadelphia, Bradley, Boston and Providence, checking the ceilings and running fuel calculations. Should Kennedy fall into a hole, we'll need legal weather and fuel for a diversion.
Out the window, the contours of the storm are clearly visible -- a canyon face of ragged cloud, thousands of feet high and immeasurably wide. The sky turns from blue to white to an oily, gunmetal gray. Then the turbulence starts. Our descent is, to put it one way, aggressively bumpy. We're tossed and heaved as intermittent downpours pelt the windscreen. The intensity of the rain has a certain tropical strangeness -- the sheets of water starting and stopping, starting and stopping. It's eerily smooth and silent for a few seconds, then brutally turbulent. The noise is so loud that Clay and I can hardly hear each other.
The approach queue is a long one, meaning lots of low-level vectors and maneuvering. As we're banking and bumping, speeding up and slowing down, the flight attendants chime in, asking if we could please cool the cabin because "people in the back are throwing up."
Finally we're cleared for the ILS approach to Runway 31L. At 2,000 feet, we're showing winds at an astonishing 80 knots. On the ground, the gusts are topping 40, with braking action "fair" along the rain-swept tarmac. Braking reports are normally a snow and ice thing. I'm not sure I'd ever heard one pertaining only to rain.
The ride down final approach is horrendous, with the airspeed fluctuating so rapidly it's impossible to call out the changes. Plus or minus 10, 15 ... who can tell?
We're at a thousand feet when the plane in front of us breaks off his approach, reporting a 30-knot shear. That's just crazy, and Capt. Clay opts for a go-around. "Missed approach," he says, hitting the go-around switches. The switches command the proper climb angle and simultaneously drive the engines to target power.
We're bouncing around, the altimeters staggering upward. I'm making my callouts, dialing in speeds and altitudes, raising the landing gear, adjusting the flaps, making sure I get the sequence right.
The controllers offer a second approach. Thanks anyway. "Let's go to Bradley," says Clay. I'm good with that.
Bradley International Airport, halfway between Hartford, Conn., and Springfield, Mass., is only about 15 minutes away, and now things become even busier. I feel like I need six hands and three brains. I'm retracting the flaps and slats; resetting the autopilot and flight directors; readjusting the bank limiter, dialing in more airspeed and altitudes -- all this while coordinating the diversion with air traffic control.
Climbing through 5,000 feet comes the next slew of tasks: digging out the charts and maps for Bradley; reprogramming the flight management system for the new destination and appropriate instrument approach; double-checking the weather; running the checklists; talking to the passengers; talking to the flight attendants; sending an ACARS (Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System) message to company dispatch. Mind you, the plane continues slamming through some of the worst imaginable weather -- maybe the harshest low-level stuff I've ever experienced.
"Yeah, I'll take this leg," I say to myself, mocking Clay's earlier decision. "You just relax." I manage to get everything done without him screaming at me, but I wonder if he would rather have somebody else -- anybody else -- in the right seat instead of a rube like me.
Shortly thereafter, we're on the ILS into Bradley, where the weather is deteriorating rapidly toward minimums. The storm is moving in over Connecticut. We've got fuel and weather for Boston, if need be, but the prospect of a double diversion is something we'd like to avoid. We touch down on Runway 6, breaking out at about 300 feet. A few minutes later the heavy winds blow in, bringing ice pellets and freezing rain.
Welcome back. Reinitiation by fire.
Flights like this are frustrating for a couple of reasons. Aside from the obvious challenges, it can be difficult to console the passengers. They're frightened, airsick and not easily convinced that they weren't in mortal danger. The turbulence was uncomfortable, we admit to a handful of rattled customers outside the jetway at Bradley, but nothing a jetliner can't handle. And the go-around, although noisy, jostling and unexpected, was routine. An abrupt transition from descent to ascent, while dramatic to the senses, is perfectly natural for an airplane. We did the right thing not in direct response to danger but to avoid it.
Some of the people are grateful to hear this. Others look on skeptically.
Mostly, though, everybody is eager to get going again. Call it a day? Heck no. After a 90-minute wait, recatered, refueled and restocked with barf bags, the weather having somewhat improved, we're ready to launch again for New York.
First, however, we need to be deiced -- a procedure that's a bit more complicated than simply spraying the plane with fluid. The guidelines in our manual go on for several pages. There are precipitation intensities to consider, "holdover times" and so on. Then, just as we're ready to taxi, we're hit with a malfunction. There's an overheat indication in one of the cargo compartments. The indication turns out to be false, but in order to proceed with the balky light, the book tells us that maintenance staff must go into the cargo compartment and manually close a particular valve. This means returning to the gate and unloading the entire compartment. It also entails rerunning all of the checklists and getting a fresh weight-and-balance report and a new takeoff performance sheet. By the time this is all complete, another hour will pass.
Capt. Clay does his best with a lengthy P.A. announcement, the response to which is a collective, angry groan from the cabin. As you'd expect, the passengers are miserable. It's probable that many are connecting the cargo light problem with the terrible weather. At this point, right or wrong, there's an unshakable presumption of danger enveloping the entire operation. People are edgy and distrustful -- even more so than normal. It becomes important that we communicate carefully and honestly.
At long last we're airborne, headed for another wind-whipped approach into Kennedy. Clay's at the controls again, and conditions are still awful -- just not as awful. Second time's a charm; we land.
Still no reprieve. Two hours later we lift off again with a new contingent of customers, none of whom realize that their crew has already endured two trips through a virtual hurricane.
But this time our destination is Florida, where things are balmy and calm -- almost jarringly peaceful by comparison.
It's my turn to fly, and my sunset landing will be the first nonsimulator touchdown I've made since 2001. "Switch off the autopilot once we pick up the glide slope," coaches Clay. "And the auto-throttles at a thousand feet. Hand-fly the approach. It's good practice."
Coming down finally, adjusting the power, I picture the engines -- the big forward fans of the Pratt and Whitney motors -- spinning faster as I nudge the levers. I listen for the sounds of acceleration, many feet behind me. And maybe that's a bad idea. Pilot Psychology 101: You never fly the aircraft, you fly the instrument panel. Too much awareness of the ship itself -- its size and tonnage -- is unhelpful, not to mention intimidating. The aircraft should exist only in abstraction, as the values and settings displayed by the instrument panel. There is no aluminum, no flesh or fuel; only numbers.
From a pilot's point of view, the smoothness of landing doesn't mean a whole lot. Some touchdowns are intentionally rough or "crooked," as dictated by crosswinds and other factors. To me, a landing is little more than the final punctuation mark in a much greater body of work. Most passengers don't see it this way, and have a tendency to judge the entire flight by the sensations of this one small moment. Better make it a good one.
My touchdown, if less than sensational, is smooth enough to avoid dirty looks from our riders as they disembark.
Well, in truth there are loads of dirty looks -- the usual grunts and snarls of disgruntled fliers. But I try not to take them personally.
Do you have questions for Salon's aviation expert? Send them to AskThePilot and look for answers in a future column.
About the writer
Patrick Smith is an airline pilot. His column is archived here.
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