Free Into the Abyss by Carol Shaben Page A

trailer of the Shell refuelling depot. He vaguely knew the attendant who worked there, and walked toward the trailer. The attendant was just closing up when Erik reached the door.
    “I’m grounded for the night,” Erik told him. “I need a place to sleep.” The attendant nodded in the direction of a battered old couch pushed up against the wall. It wasn’t much, he said, but Erik was welcome to it.
    Erik shifted his weight on the sagging couch. He’d curled into a C on the matted upholstery, long legs accordioned into his torso, and had lain awake shivering through the night. Outside, snow fell hard and steady, laying a white carpet over the airport. Snowplows had grumbled non-stop and now one was clearing the parking lot behind the trailer. Erik could feel the vibrations from its massive blade shuddering through the thin wall. He checked his watch—4:00 a.m.—then closed his eyes and, wrapping his arms around his torso, drifted into an uneasy sleep. The sound of a key turning in the lock woke him forty-five minutes later.
    The attendant brought a blast of cold air in with him. He urged Erik not to get up, saying that he’d wake him after he fuelled the early morning flights. The man returned an hour later and Erik ventured out into the frosty morning to call his boss. Dale’s directions were typically curt: the company was flying down a starter on the 8:40 flight. Erik was to offload the parts, get the plane to a hangar, arrange for the repair, and fly the plane back that day.
    After he’d unloaded the parts and found a mechanic to fix the plane, Erik settled in at the terminal to wait. Jim Powell, one of Wapiti’s veteran pilots, came across him in the early afternoon.
    “Isn’t this your day off?” he asked. Erik explained what hadhappened and that he was waiting for the fix on the starter. Jim seized the opportunity.
    “I’ve got a flight to McMurray and I really could use a co-pilot,” he said.
    Fort McMurray was a booming northern city servicing the Canadian oil sands. Its population of 35,000 had more than quadrupled in the past dozen years, and a year ago Wapiti had started daily flights from Edmonton.
    Erik didn’t think twice. It beat hanging around the terminal, and the return flight would have him back before the work on the starter was finished.
    On the flight to Fort McMurray, Erik and Jim had time to catch up. The two men discussed the situation at Wapiti. Jim had been concerned enough about the airline’s safety standards that two days earlier he’d called Transport Canada. He’d informed an aviation safety inspector that Wapiti pilots sometimes had to “bust the minimums” on their approaches into uncontrolled airfields along the company’s northern Alberta routes.
Minimums
are the minimum altitudes to which pilots may safely descend to see if visual conditions exist that allow the aircraft to land. When flying on instruments—required at night or in bad weather—minimums are sacred ground for pilots, who are taught never to bust them. Period.
    Jim had asked the Transport Canada official whether the pilot or the carrier would be held responsible if a pilot was pressured to bust the minimums and was caught. The inspector told him that it was the carrier’s responsibility to ensure its pilots knew the regulations. However, he also cautioned thatpilots who broke the rules, either knowingly or unknowingly, wouldn’t be completely absolved of blame.
    Jim also warned Erik that even though a functioning autopilot was required for single-pilot IFR flights, the autopilots on some Wapitiaircraft couldn’t be trusted. To prove his point, Jimengaged the autopilot on his plane and it responded erratically.
    Despite these weighty issues and the weather, Erik enjoyed his flight with Jim. The sky was overcast as they descended through snow and heavy fog, and the plane was only a few hundred feet off the ground before the runway appeared. Once on the tarmac, Erik helped unload luggage while Jim