Flying into the Void

Time 0606 December 3 2014. The morning at Sydney Airport.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL: Flight 296 you are cleared for takeoff on runway 2/5.

FLIGHT 296: Rodger, Flight 296 is cleared fro takeoff on runway 2/5

Flight 296 is airborne at 0607

CAPTAIN HAYES: Good morning passengers. Welcome to Westaire Flight 296 on route to Broken Hill. Please read the information and safety in the pouch in front of your seat and familiarise yourself with all safety procedures. We expect to arrive at Broken Hill Airport a little after 8:45 am.  We are carrying a near capacity load of 16 passengers, a little freight and Co-pilot Phillips and myself. Sit back and enjoy the view. The weather forecast is sunny and a light breeze on route and the same in the city of Broken Hill. Although the seat belt sign will shortly be switch off we do advise passengers to wear their seat belts for the duration of the flight whenever seated and of course under commonwealth laws no smoking is permitted at any time. Thank you.  

At 0710 Passengers drift off into a drowsy sleep.

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0910 The expected Flight 296 has not arrived. There is concern among those who are meeting friends and family.

RADIO NEWS: This is a news flash. Flight 296 has not arrived at Broken Hill Airport. The flight is about half an hour overdue.

RADIO NEWS: This is the 10.00 news bulletin. The flight expected from Sydney has not landed as expect at Broken Hill Airport.  The little Metroliner plane has been spotted over South Australian flying it is believed flying on autopilot. The fate and condition of the on board passengers and of the flight crew remains unknown. The plane will retain its direction and altitude until the fuel runs out. This is expected at about 10.30 am.

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At 10.30 am on Flight 296

TREVOR: I must have slept. Are we nearly there?

WENDY: That’s funny. My watch says 10.30 and we are still flying.

TREVOR: So does mine. What’s going on?

Stephan knocks on the cockpit door but no response.

CAPTAIN HAYES: We have overshot our target and the controls are not responding to our commands. I have been listening to radio traffic and news of our predicament is known. We know our exact position but are unable to communicate this by the radio. We are being carried only by autopilot and we are unable to switch it off.

Passengers are shocked, nervous and hysterical and uncertain of their fate.

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12:45amthe wreck is located.

RADIO NEWS: The wreck of Flight 296 has been found in the north west of South Australia. All lives on board lost. It is believed to have crushed about 2 hours ago. The Department of Civil Aviation has announced an investigation into the accident. Police have for the time being withheld the names of all the passengers. We will bring more details as they become known.

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On board Flight 296

STEPHAN: How much fuel in on board.

TREVOR: I wouldn’t expect the captain to be telling us that. What would be the point? We’re in the fast lane for a dreadful death.

GLENDA: I think we should have run out of fuel by now. There is no way they would put nearly 7 hours of fuel for a 2 and a half hour flight.

CLEM: Why are we here?

TREVOR: A bit late to be getting all philosophical now mate.

CLEM: No I mean why haven’t we crushed yet? Why are we still flying?

Captain Hayes comes into the passenger cabin.

CAPTAIN HAYES: We should have crushed more than 2 hours ago but here we are. We can monitor radio traffic but we can not make ourselves acknowledged. We can not make the plane respond to what we want and we should have run out of fuel. The fuel gauge has flat lined hours ago.

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At 16:10

MINISTER FOR AVIATION: My deepest sympathies go out to the friends and families of the deceased. We do not at this stage know the cause of the accident. We do know that the aircraft was not responding to radio communication. An investigation team will be arriving at the scene early tomorrow morning.

JOURNALIST: Were the pilot and co-pilot conscious?

MINISTER: We know they were not responding so that is a possibility.

JOURNALIST: Carbon monoxide poisoning?

MINISTER: That would be one workable hypothesis but I’ll wait for the investigation team to complete their work before speculating.

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At 2016 on board Flight 296.

GLENDA: OH MY GOD! Oh my God. I’ve got it! Just like Archimedes. I have got it.

TREVOR: What?

GLENDA: We are all dead. The plane crushed at around 10.30 am at the time the captain said it would have, and we’re all flying into the void on board a plane which no longer exists and we no longer exist. We are all DEAD. Just fucking dead. We are all dead.

CLEM: Think about it. None of us are hungry. We are not thirsty. None of us need to go to the toilet which is just as well because there are no toilets on this small tube of an aircraft.

TREVOR: No fuel. No response to radio communication or to mayday calls. The plane is not responding to commands from the controls.

CLEM: So the plane just flew on autopilot until it ran out of fuel. We crushed and burned and here we are deluded about being alive in the afterlife.

MARYANNE: So what now if we are all dead? Do we all arrive somewhere? I mean we must be all flying to heaven or something.

RUSS: I suppose so. We’ll find out I guess.

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6 December 2014

RADIO NEWS: Memorial services for those killed on Flight 296 have been held in several churches. Aviation experts now view the probable cause of the air accident as carbon monoxide asphyxiation. Known by the chemical symbol CO it is an odourless gas. The passengers and flight crew would have only felt drowsy as they drifted off to an eternal sleep.

AIR ACCIDENT INVESTIGATOR: We will download the black boxes for more information. The indications so far at the crush scene do not point to a mechanical failure.

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17 January 2015 on board Flight 296

MARYANNE: I always looked forward to entering heaven as a committed Christian but we’ve been on this flight for just on 6 weeks.

CAPTAIN HAYES: (seating inside the passenger cabin) I never believed in an afterlife and certainly not the Christian Heaven.

TREVOR: I had never decided. Never worried that much about religion. If this is the afterlife as it must be then it’s not a very big space to spend eternity. Not even enough room to stand up.

MARYANNE: I don’t think we’ll spend eternity here. Surely not. That’s not what Jesus promised.

15 June 2017 on board Flight 296

CLEM: Well I think it must now be quiet clear. This is whare we are forever. In a pipe basically with little room. This is it. And forever is a very long time.

RUSS: Still it probably beats Hell in its worst versions

TREVOR: How long is forever? A million years? A billion years? No. It is longer than you can ever imagine. Claustrophobia forever. Think of a number and add any number of zeroes behind it and it still doesn’t do justice to the time period involed because it will always fall short of infinity.

CAPTAIN HAYES: Who would have thought that eternal infinity would be had in such an enclosed small space?

23 September 2087 on board Flight 296

GLENDA: Most of the people we know may well have deceased by now. Would be good if we could know or contact them in some way. I was always expecting over all these years that some angel or spiritual guide to fill us in or take us to God or our loved ones. I guess we will never be reunited with loved ones.

3 December 2114 on board Flight 296

TREVOR: Our centenary of the crush today and the first of an infinite number of centuries.

MARYANNE: I feel as though I have been betrayed. The afterlife is just this in this small tube forever. Nothing can be operated, the external doors included.

CLEM: I thought I’d like to just jump out into the whatever but we can’t.

RUSS: Cheer up. This is the first century of many more. All our friends and family have probably deceased and who knows where or what is their reality. But what can we do except look out of the windows? 

GLENDA: Again.