innovate-issue-005

On board United American Flight 817 by Jim SmithNovember 29 2011For the crew and passengers of Flight 817 thought this was going to be a simple flight from Dulles Internationalto Los Angeles International. They had no idea how wrong they were, and how they would totally change historyin ways they wouldn’t understand or even believe if you told to them at the moment.For Captain Steve Kelly and his co-pilot Taylor Reagan this flight was just like any others they had been on thepast few months. Then Steve looked out at his 10 o'clock and saw something. It looked like a blue sphere ofenergy and then it started to move at the Boeing 777 at a fast rate of speed, faster than anything he had everseen before. Steve spoke up, "What the fuck is that?" Then seconds later the blue sphere hit United AmericanFlight 817.Date UnknownEverybody on the flight saw the blight blue flash and they were beginning to wonder what had just happened totheir airplane they were on. Then seconds later they notice that it was quiet, too quiet. Then someone had thatlight bulb moment, and started to scream. The other passengers within a split second joined who ever startedthe scream of outright horror.On the flight deck, Captain Kelly was trying to get the engines to restart. He began to yell into his head set, "Thisis United American Flight 817, I’m declaring an in-flight emergency. I have lost all power to both engines; I'mgoing for a windmill restart." A windmill restart is where you trade altitude for speed. Steve was too busy gettingready to perform the windmill restart that he didn't notice there was no answer to his calls on the head set.He looked over to Taylor and saw she was totally out of it. "Fuck!" Then Steve pointed the nose of the 777downward and watching the compressor speed. At the 45 degree angle one of the flight attendants, who hadfailed to get to her seat in time, fell forward and smacked into the flight deck door. She could feel the pain fromthe impact within seconds of landing.Steve started calling out compressor speeds, as he had been trained to do in his time in the air force, "N240...50...60...restarting!" With the press of the button the big GE90 turbo fan engine roared back to life. Then theSteve started watching N1 as power started to return to the aircraft, "35...50.... 60...restarting!" Again the engineroared back to life.At that Steve started to pull the aircraft level. He got back on the radio, "This is United American 817, I need avector steer to the nearest airport."Silence; total silence on the radio not even static on the radio net. For Steve, in his 25 years of flying thewindmill restart was one of the scariest thing he had even been though, but this was even scarier. Someoneshould have answered, but all he had was total silence. Steve then got on the intercom, "Ladies and Gentlemen,I'm sorry about what had just happened back there. But the good news is we have power back in both enginesagain. I'm currently working on getting us down to Mother Earth."In the first class area Dr. Victoria Stone didn't wait for the captain to turn off the fasten seat belt sign. She sawthe flight attendant crash into the door, and she was going to help her. It took Victoria only a few seconds toreach the flight attendant, and she could see that she was in pain. Her left leg was snapped judging by the 45degree angle. "Ma'am I'm a doctor, tell me where it hurts."The flight attendant turned her head to see Victoria, "It hurts to breathe."Victoria knew she had to have at least one rib that was at least cracked if not outright broken. It could bepossibly more. She yelled out, "Does anyone have an ACE bandage?"A tall well-built man, well dressed to boot in what looked like a 3,000 dollar suit, stood up and got something outof his bag and walked over to Victoria. It was then Victoria noticed something about this man, he had aprosthesis leg, from her guess it was one given to a combat veteran who had lost limbs in combat. The manhanded her the ACE bandage and spoke up, "Ma'am here you go.""Help me move her." said Victoria. Victoria knew she needed help to move the flight attendant, because Victoriastood at just over 5’2” and 100 pounds dripping wet she knew she could not do it by herself. The man picked upthe flight attendant and carried her to the area where the flight attendants get the food ready. Victoria cleared off