Boarding wrapped at 9:45.
The gate agent stepped on, gave us the passenger count, and handed me the manifest. One hundred forty‑seven passengers. Two pilots.
Three cabin crew.
One hundred fifty‑two humans in a metal tube about to go tearing across the sky.
I shut the forward door, made the crosscheck with Nina in the back, and took the interphone.
“Cabin crew, prepare for departure.”
Seat belt checks, overhead bin latches, armrests down. The cabin buzz quieted to a low murmur.
From the cockpit, Captain Wright’s voice came over the PA, smooth as ever.
“Good morning, folks. This is your captain speaking.
Welcome aboard Alaska Flight 227, nonstop service from Boston to Seattle. We’ve been cleared for departure in just a few minutes, and we’re looking at a flight time of about five hours and fifteen minutes today. Weather’s clear along most of our route.
We’ll be cruising at thirty‑five thousand feet. Sit back, relax, and we’ll have you on the ground in Seattle right around 1:15 Pacific.”
As he spoke, I did what I always do—I braced my hand on the galley wall as the engines spooled up, feeling the vibration rise through my bones like a second pulse.
The runway rolled beneath us, centerline lights flashing by in a staccato rhythm. The nose lifted, that sweet moment when the wheels leave the earth, and we were airborne.
Boston shrank to a patchwork of highways and rooftops.
The Atlantic slid out of view. We pointed the nose west.
That was the last moment of the day that felt ordinary.
Once the seat belt sign pinged off, the cabin shifted instantly into its mid‑flight life. Passengers unbuckled, bathrooms filled, laptops opened, babies started up their uncertain wails.
In the forward galley, Albert was already positioning the beverage cart.
“Coffee first or juice first?” he asked, one hand on the drawer of tiny creamer pods.
Albert had been with Alaska about two years.
Mid‑forties, calm eyes, a talent for talking nervous flyers into ordering ginger ale instead of white‑knuckling the armrest.
“Let’s start with first class,” I said, reaching for the service checklist. “I’ll grab the meal trays for the cockpit on my way. Nina, you good for mid‑cabin?”
“Got it,” Nina called from the aft galley.
She’d been flying for six years and could probably secure a service cart with one hand while breaking up a fight over the armrest with the other.
She poked her head around the corner. “Our little solo flyer okay?”
“Row fourteen,” I said. “Name’s Flora.
Polite, not scared. Knows the safety demo by heart, apparently.”
Nina snorted. “Maybe we should let her do it next time.”
We moved into our routine—the kind of routine that, over time, lulled even seasoned crew into believing that the manual in the galley had all the answers.
About ninety minutes after takeoff, the scent of reheated airline food started to drift through the cabin—the tragic perfume of tomato sauce and overworked chicken.
I collected the cockpit meals from the oven, balancing the trays on my arm like I was back waiting tables in college.
One labeled CHICKEN. One PASTA.
We’re not supposed to feed the pilots the same entrée. It’s one of those quiet rules everyone in aviation knows about—spread the risk.
If one tray is bad, the other pilot is still upright.
That day, when I opened the oven, there was one tiny problem.
Two pastas.
“Seriously?” I muttered under my breath. The catering sticker on the side of the cart confirmed it. Someone, somewhere between the commissary and our galley, had misread the count.
I hesitated for a second with the oven door open, heat soaking into my stockings, the hum of the cabin pressing at my back.
We’d all eaten the pasta before.
It wasn’t exactly gourmet, but it hadn’t killed anyone I knew yet.
“Guess it’s a carb kind of day,” I said to myself, picking up both trays.
If I had known what those two identical dishes meant, I would have thrown them in the trash right then and there.
I knocked on the cockpit door.
“It’s Carol,” I called.
The lock buzzed, and I stepped inside.
The cockpit always feels smaller when both pilots are in there, shoulders nearly touching, dark panels stretching overhead in an arc of switches. Outside, the sky was bright and steady.
“Lunch time,” I said, forcing my voice into its usual sing‑song.
“Music to my ears,” Captain Wright answered, loosening his harness a bit. “What did we get?”
“Two pastas,” I admitted, setting the trays on the jump seat between them.
“Catering forgot the chicken.”
Josh made a face. “Guess we’re sharing fate today, Captain.”
“Could be worse,” Wright said, peeling back the foil. “I’ve flown flights where the only thing left was that mysterious curry.”
He speared a bite with his plastic fork, then paused, looking at me a little more closely than usual.
“You okay, Carol?
You look tired.”
“Daughter’s science project,” I said. “Stayed up late making sure a papier‑mâché volcano didn’t collapse before homeroom.”
He chuckled, then winced, one hand going briefly to his temple.
“Long morning?” I asked.
“Didn’t sleep great,” he admitted. “Four a.m.
wake‑up. I’ll survive once we’re on the ground.”
He took a bite. Josh did the same, eyes already drifting back to the navigation display.
“Need anything else?” I asked.
“We’re good,” Wright said, mouth already full.
“Thanks, Carol.”
I stepped out, closed the cockpit door behind me, and went back to pouring Diet Coke over ice.
That small oversight—the duplicate sticker on the catering slip, the two identical trays—was our first piece of evidence.
We just didn’t know it yet.
It started about half an hour later.
I was midway down the aisle with the cart when the interphone at the front of the cabin buzzed. Albert, up near first class, glanced back at me.
“I’ve got it,” I mouthed, pushing the cart into the galley alcove so I could reach the handset.
“Forward galley,” I said.
“Carol.” It was the captain, but his voice sounded wrong—hoarse and tight. “I need you in the cockpit.
Now.”
My stomach did a slow, cold flip.
There’s a special register pilots use when it’s time to panic quietly. He was in it.
“I’ll be there in ten seconds,” I said, already moving.
The aisle suddenly felt too long, the carpet too soft under my shoes. I knocked on the reinforced door, my knuckles louder than I meant them to be.
“It’s Carol,” I said.
The lock clicked.
I pulled the door open and stepped into a room that looked exactly the same as it had thirty minutes earlier.
The only difference was the men.
Captain Wright’s skin had taken on a greenish tinge, like the color had drained out of him and pooled somewhere else. Sweat beaded along his hairline. One hand was pressed to his stomach; the other gripped the armrest.
Josh looked worse.
His eyes were unfocused, his cheeks slick. He had the kind of posture you see on passengers right before they lunge for the airsick bag.
“My God,” I said. “What’s happening?”
Wright swallowed hard.
“Nausea. Stomach cramps. Dizzy as hell.
Josh?”
“Same,” the first officer said, his voice thin. “Feels like the room’s spinning.”
The instruments in front of them were calm. Altitude thirty‑five thousand.
Airspeed a steady four‑hundred‑plus knots. Autopilot engaged.
“What about your vision?” I asked, because I could already hear my instructor from initial training in my head: ask about vision. Ask about consciousness.
“Blurry,” Wright admitted.
“I keep trying to focus, but… everything swims.”
Josh kept his eyes on the horizon indicator like it was the only thing anchoring him to earth. “I’m trying,” he whispered. “But I don’t know how long I’ve got before I—”
He broke off, reaching for the airsick bag with a hand that shook.
“Okay,” I said, my voice coming out much calmer than I felt.
“Okay. Did you both eat the same thing?”
“The pasta,” Wright said, squeezing his eyes shut. “Carol, I don’t think this is just nerves.”
Food poisoning.
At thirty‑five thousand feet. Affecting both men whose signatures were on the logbook.
I’d sat through hours of training videos. I’d memorized emergency protocols for smoke, fire, cardiac arrest, choking, childbirth at altitude.
There is no little laminated card in the galley for “both pilots fall violently ill at the same time while over the middle of the country.”
“Stay with me,” I said, more to myself than to them.
“I’m going to get a doctor and I’m going to see who on this plane has ever flown anything bigger than a kite.”
I backed out of the cockpit, pulling the door closed gently, as if not to startle the instruments.
My hands didn’t start shaking until I picked up the interphone.
“Albert, Nina,” I said on the crew channel. “Code red. Both pilots are sick.
I’m calling for medical and anyone with pilot training. Keep the
