I reported for a duty last week, clean shaven, my skin was smoother than the leading edge of an F22 Raptor. It was also raw and the cold weather wasn’t helping it. Nonetheless I pride myself on turning up to work prepared to, at the very least, look the part. The captain I was flying with had a different approach entirely. He was not using a belt for his trousers, don’t ask me how I noticed, and he wasn’t clean shaven. I’m not perfect and I’ve no issue with a bit of designer stubble, but he looked kinda like he was dragged out of a bar at the Galway races.

As we settled into the briefing he was coming across a little edgy. He seemed tired and putting it mildly, angry. He was banging on about all sorts and none of it was operational. He went off on one about flying cargo and how dangerous it is, and I just switched off. I was staring out the window at a gorgeous sunset thinking of flying into it in a Cessna with no one beside me telling me how the mob killed Kennedy, or whatever he was now broadcasting. The sunset was gorgeous, to be fair, and I was reminded why the flight deck is such a great place to work. The sky was mixing between pinks, oranges and greens as the sun was being progressively hidden by the earths crust. It was stunning. A ball of fire going to sleep for a few hours and bringing life elsewhere. I was roused from the sunset by a tap on the arm, ‘Logan, are you with me there?’ he says. 

‘Still here, chief’ I respond, no hint of boredom in my tone adding ‘what were you saying there?’ knowing it’s going to piss him off.

‘Are you’re happy we’ve got all those batteries on board today?’

‘If it’s legal I’m happy’ I reply aware that I’m lying and unaware of what he’s talking about. And this is his fault. His attitude, general demeanour and lack of CRM laid a brickwork wall down the middle of the flight deck. ‘The company wants you to review and decide you’re happy with the load’ I say. ‘As a first officer I’ve never even been consulted on this before, I literally just do what I’m told.’

‘But I’m including you right now, Logan. Are you not concerned with that load?’

‘Listen, you’re the commander. If you’re not happy I’ll support you and if you’re happy I’ll support you. It’s your ship.’ I’m aware I’m poking the bear here. I can’t help myself. He sighs loudly and says nothing else for around two minutes. An engineer appears at the door and he asks him about the batteries, ‘are you happy with the packing for the DG?’

‘Absolutely, all per the guide captain’ he says with a confidence that seems to further upset him. 

‘Okay, thanks’ he replies through gritted teeth, his stubbly jaw jutting out as he seethes. He turns to me, eye contact that would scare Mike Tyson, ‘the company are happy with the risk, I’ve no choice. Let’s get on with it. Doors closing, let’s get the checks done.’ 

‘Before start checklist’ I announce clearly. 

Despite a rocky start once we got going it was a generally nice flight. He was PF so I was essentially looking out the window and enjoying the view. I should add that despite the way he looked he seemed like he knew what he was doing. 

So I’m half asleep staring out the window when I get a sense there’s something wrong. I don’t really react to it, but I know there’s something off. I haven’t really put it all together when I’m woken up fully by a shout from beside me. ‘Those god damn batteries, I knew it’ he exclaims, a sense of triumph despite what I’ve realised is a smell of burning and an impending fire. I turn and look at him and say ‘that’s why you’re the captain.’

‘Is that smoke, or fumes?’ he asks me.

‘It doesn’t smell normal to me but honestly I don’t know. What does a battery fire smell like?’

‘It smells like this I reckon, but there’s no smoke. Ehhhhhhh, let’s action the non normal checklist for smoke and fumes’ his throat tightening and the pitch of his voice getting higher. 

I reach for the QRH to commence the Smoke, Fire or Fumes non normal checklist and just as I’m about to announce the checklist he interrupts me, ‘shit there’s smoke, shit, shit, shit.’ I see smoke over my left shoulder and, as much as I don’t like writing this, I almost shit my pants. The oh shit moment, almost became exactly that. I feel the adrenalin drop in my stomach, as though the school yard bully is approaching me at lunch. ‘Mask on, mask on’ he yells. I remove my headset, put my mask on, flip my mic to mask, switch off the hot mic, for pilot to pilot, and put my headset back on. I’ve practiced it in the sim, but it is a much more sloppy act in real life. 

I’ve got my mask on, smoke now starting to immerse our feet and I look over at him struggling to get the mask positioned and put the headset back on. He finally gets it on and he’s trying to talk but he hasn’t switched over to mask for his mic and he’s starting to panic. I reach over and flick the switch his eyes widening when he realises how loudly he’s been shouting. He fails to switch off the hot mic and the sound of his heavy breathing in between chopped sentences is over powering. 

I’ve often thought about how hard it must have been for Tom Hardy to talk when he played Bane in those Batman movies. He sounded like he was gargling a protein shake inside the mask. I’m not sure Batman ever really understood him, not just metaphorically. 

Well here I am now, Batman to the captains Bane and I’ve got to be honest he’s making no sense. He’s saying words and cursing repeatedly and he’s not really asking for my input. ‘Daaaaaave!’ I shout as loudly as I can. He looks across at me, he’s stopped talking, ‘can you hear me okay there? Do you want me to continue the checklist?’ 

‘Jesus, why did you stop doing it?’ he responds. 

‘Because, we are supposed to confirm the condition statement before I continue.’

A rasp occurs, something akin to how Jabba the Hut communicated, and I think he says ‘yes, conditioning, now. Go.’

I read the condition statement followed by the first line, ‘Diversion may be needed.’

‘Damnit, we haven’t started descending. My radios, continue the checklist I am going to start descending’ he shouts. 

I start to read through the checklist actioning the various items, very slowly, while monitoring his communications. He is correctly actioning the emergency descent procedure, and he has made a Mayday call. I switch the transponder to 7700 in line with the Mayday. Thankfully we are in UK airspace and the responses are professional and correct – supporting our flight profile and needs. I am not part of the decision to divert to Gatwick, the nearest airport according the captain, but I am doing the checklist and making sure he doesn’t fly us into the channel at high speed. 

‘Dave I am down to the point where I think we need to consider smoke and fumes removal checklist as the most important action’ I say looking for guidance. The response is once again a garbled mess as his frustration and panic fill his mouth. I go to the checklist, simultaneously observing our altitude, passing through flight level one five zero, and commence actions to remove smoke and fumes. We have not detected an actual fire at this point, as we have not entered the cabin, but fire can’t be ruled out and time is of the essence. 

‘Logan, I have set the courses, minima and frequencies for an ILS approach runway two six left in Gatwick. The runway is over two and half thousand metres, at this weight we can use max auto brakes and be assured of stopping. The runway is dry.’ 

‘Sounds good to me. Are we under radar vectors? Is there anything that I can do?’ I respond as clearly as the mask allows me. 

‘Keep doing the checklist, I am going to use flaps thirty for landing.’

‘Understood, I am almost finished the checklist and there doesn’t seem to be any change to the smoke, in fact I think it’s getting worse. We need to land as soon as possible’ I inform him. 

‘Agreed’ he responds. 

The London controller sends us to a frequency we can use without other aircraft listening. The captain is freaking out his breathing now totally out of control on the hot mic. 

‘Checklist complete’ I announce as the airplane passes through six thousand feet. 

‘Good’ he replies, ‘your radios, I am going to start slowing us down.’

‘My radios’

‘I’ve told them we’ll be stopping on the runway, so when we land we need to come to a stop and shut the engines down.  We will have to blow the slide on the L one door.’

‘Okay, I’ll make sure I take that manifest with me’ I reply. 

ATC interrupts us ‘Freight One Four Mayday, turn left heading two three zero degrees to intercept, clear approach two six left. Advise established.’

‘Left heading two three zero, wilco’ I reply, the mask fogging up now making it hard to see the instruments. 

‘Flap one’ he says, even though we are above the one speed. 

‘You need to slow down below the placard speed’ I reply.

‘Shit’ heavy breathing, ‘just give them to me,’ heavy breathing, ‘I need the drag’ his voice trembling between the clipped sentences. I’m starting to worry he’ll have a heart attack. I give him flaps one. We manage to slow the aircraft adequately on the approach and get to five hundred feet, ‘landing checks complete’ I say, very loudly. ‘Land’ he roars into the sweat and fear filled mask. 

To be fair to him, despite the mask, the smoke and the absolute terror we are both experiencing he absolutely greases it onto the runway. ‘Speed brakes up,’ I say, ‘thrust reversers deployed.’ The aircraft is decelerating aggressively with the maximum braking. I see the auto brake disarm light illuminate as he mashes the brake pedals to the floor. I hear a bang and the airplane veers left, he puts in max right rudder to counteract and keeps us on the runway, though I suspect we’ve lost at least one tyre. The aircraft comes to a stop and he cuts the start levers. He undoes his buckle and I say ‘evacuation checklist?’ It’s not a rhetorical question. 

‘What no, we don’t have time’ he replies. I start reading the checklist as he stares at me in disbelief, the temerity to follow procedures. 

‘Checklist complete’ I say as he rips the mask off, standing out of his seat, essentially pushing me out of the way. I’m pretty sure he would have found the nearest dress on the Titanic to wriggle onto a women and children lifeboat. I move quickly as I exit the flight deck only to be assaulted by thick heavy smoke, no indication of fire present. I turn right and see the slide has been inflated and see Dave flailing like a toddler running from the aircraft. I carefully egress using the slide to avoid injury as fire engines scream up to the aircraft. The flashing lights make me laugh for some reason, I really don’t know why. Before I know it they are dousing the aircraft in foam, the left main gear has blown two tyres and the aircraft is listing over to the left. The flashing blue lights are bouncing off the foam making it hard to look at the aircraft without my eyes stinging. The smoke can’t have helped my eyes, but I’m intent on staring at their work in the hope a fire does not start. It feels like ten seconds, but it’s been two minutes when the fire crew stops spraying the aircraft. The smoke has dissipated as foam runs heavily down the slide. 

The captain is being attended to by a paramedic crew, who have him on oxygen which seems odd given he’s spent half the evening on oxygen. A mobile steps is brought to the aircraft, and the fire crew very carefully enter through the L two door. They emerge shortly after and approach me. ‘Evening, sir you’re one of the pilots, right?’ he asks.

‘Yeah, I’m the first officer, the captain is over there’ I say gesturing behind me.

‘Looks like an oven fire caused the smoke’ he informs me. 

‘An oven fire, are you serious?’

‘Yeah, hard to tell what’s in there now but it we are pretty sure the oven was the source.’

I hear heavy breathing behind me with the thump of uncoordinated footsteps. ‘Was it those god damn batteries?’ Dave asks as he approaches. 

’No captain. Looks like it was a fire in the oven. Were you cooking something in there by any chance?’

I turn around just as he approaches my left shoulder. I see it in slow motion, his face changing and his heart being ripped in two like Ralph Wiggum when he realised Lisa Simpson didn’t love him. He looks at the airplane, he looks at me and back at the fire fighter, ‘I, eh, I…’ his breathing has slowed as if he’s not breathing at all. ‘I, I, I had a pizza in there, I think’ he says confused. ‘Well it looks as though the pizza caused the fire, either due to the wrapping or being left in there too long’ he says with a commanding certainty. Dave is lost for words, he’s panicking and he looks at me again. Truth be told I’m lost for words myself, for about two seconds, and then I say ‘I knew I recognised the smell. Burning pizza, sure I’ve done that at home before.’ He’s incredulous, seething, there’s a vein in his head pumping so hard it might actually explode and cover us in his own pizza sauce. 

‘Confirmation bias’ he mutters. Confirmation bias…’ his trailing words cut off by a bird scaring cartridge being fired at the perimeter fence. Burnt pizza is hard to get out of any oven.

Thanks for reading, feel free to share your favourite movies in the comments below or when sharing.

Share me!

If you enjoyed and think your aviation colleagues or friends will enjoy please share by any means you feel appropriate!