Lost and Found
Contributed by: Captain Cargo
We were on one of the Spanish runs, enroute from Brussels to
Vittoria and then on to Valencia, where we stayed near the beach and
got a free breakfast. We were at flight level 280, the stars clear in
the moonless sky, on an easy run with only one more night before going
home. The flight engineer, Fred, had just brought us coffee, always a
good method of inducing turbulence. Paris gave us a radar heading, and
I placed my coffee on the footrest at the bottom of the instrument
panel , then reached down to turn the heading bug on the CDI. My hand
caught the coffee, knocking the cup over. The coffee spread across the
GPS, running between the buttons, and the screen started blinking. An
error message appeared, then the screen went blank, flickered, went
blank again.
"Damn", said Trevor, the first officer. I couldn't have put it
better myself. I switched the GPS off before it started smoking or
popping circuit breakers.
"Better get the charts out", I said. Paris enquired whether we were
on the heading, and I turned the heading bug. Trevor pulled out the
High Altitude chart. We hardly used them anymore, relying, perhaps too
much, on the magic of satellite navigation. I probably hadn't looked
at one for at least three months. I drank the drop of coffee remaining
at the bottom of the plastic cup.
"Want another?", Fred asked.
"No thanks. I'd probably spill it on the radar." Trevor was
fighting with the map. They'd changed them recently, and the VOR and
reporting points were now in print so small that they were almost
impossible to find. The charts were also not necessarily aligned to
Magnetic North, making it difficult to work out which direction you
were going, let alone where you were.
".........2434, direct Belen" Paris said.
"Direct Belen, ..........2434", Trevor read back. I turned right
slightly, guessing which way it must be from here. It was more than
two hundred miles away, and not even on the same chart. Normally I'd
just punch it into the GPS.
"Give me a heading", I said to Trevor.
"It's not on this chart", he said, and reached for the chart folder.
"Give me the map." He passed the chart over, and I spread it out
over the control column. I searched in vain for the Spanish border.
"...........2434, confirm routing direct Belen?"
"Uh,...can you give us a heading?", Trevor asked. In the
sky around us a thousand pilots laughed.
"Turn right ten degrees", the French voice replied, curt, not
friendly like before. He gave us a frequency change, glad to be rid of
us. Ten minutes later we 'd found where we were on the chart, though
we stayed on a radar heading until we picked up Bilbao VOR.
Forty minutes later we were overhead the VTA, doing the ILS
procedure from the hold. I'd have to call the company when we landed
and tell them the GPS was unseviceable. We were supposed to inform Air
Traffic Control. We slid down the glideslope on 04 and touched down
gently. I pulled the speedbrake just as we hit the bumpy patch, and
held the nose up as our fillings shook loose. I selected idle reverse,
stayed off the brakes and cleared at the end of the runway.
Sitting in the crew room twenty minutes later, we were told we
weren't going to Valencia, after all. They wanted us to go back to
Brussels. We'd be arriving at the start of the morning rush-hour. Ah,
well. At least we knew the way.
Back to Stories Index
| 
