There was a heartbeat of static.
“Copy,” Albert said, his voice clipped and controlled.
“Understood,” Nina answered.
I could hear the low roar of passengers behind her.
I switched over to the PA.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Carol, your lead flight attendant. If there is a medical professional on board—a doctor, nurse, paramedic—or anyone with pilot experience, please press your call button immediately.”
We’re trained to sound calm even when a fire alarm is going off inside our own skulls. I have never heard myself sound so measured while my heart pounded that hard.
Lights blinked along the ceiling in a stuttering pattern—one mid‑cabin, two farther back.
Nina’s voice came through the crew line a moment later.
“I’ve got three call buttons, two saying medical background. Sending the closest up front now.”
I was still holding the handset when a woman in her fifties appeared at the front of the cabin. Short gray hair, glasses on a chain, the kind of expression that told you she was used to walking into chaos and fixing it.
“I’m Dr.
Lauren Fitz,” she said, slipping past the curtain. “What’s going on?”
“Both pilots are showing signs of severe gastrointestinal distress, possible food poisoning,” I said. “Nausea, dizziness, trouble focusing.”
Her eyes widened.
“Both?”
“Same entrée,” I said. “The pasta.”
She didn’t say what we were all thinking. She just nodded once.
“Take me to them.”
The cockpit felt even smaller with three of us wedged inside.
Dr. Fitz went straight to their vitals with the efficiency of someone who has done this in ER hallways and parking lots.
“Pulse is rapid,” she murmured, checking the captain’s wrist, then Josh’s. “Skin is clammy, pupils a little dilated.”
“Can they continue to fly?” I asked, clinging to the possibility like a handhold.
She gave me the look I’ve seen doctors give families in hospital waiting rooms.
The one that says, I wish I had better news.
“In ten minutes, maybe less, they’re both going to be almost completely incapacitated,” she said quietly. “I can start fluids, give them anti‑nausea medication, but they need a hospital, not altitude. And no, they cannot safely operate this aircraft.”
The plane hummed obliviously around us—air rushing over the fuselage, engines churning like distant thunder.
“Jim,” I said, turning to the captain.
“Be honest with me. Can you fly?”
He looked up at me with the effort of someone lifting a weight much too heavy for them.
“I can’t even keep my eyes on the horizon indicator,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, Carol.
I can’t.”
“Josh?”
He let out a short, miserable laugh that ended in a groan. “I’m worse than he is. I can barely sit upright.”
For a split second, I wanted to sit down on the cockpit floor and cry.
Instead, I did the only thing that made sense.
I went looking for someone else to fly the plane.
Back in the cabin, the atmosphere had shifted.
You can feel it in your bones when a plane gets nervous, the same way you can feel a school hallway tighten before a fight breaks out.
A man in row twelve stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Is everything okay up there?” he asked. “We heard the announcement.”
“We have a medical situation,” I said, keeping my voice neutral.
“We’re addressing it. Everything is under control.”
“Is someone flying the plane?” he pressed.
“Yes,” I said. It was, technically, true.
The autopilot was doing exactly what it had been told to do.
But autopilots don’t land airplanes. People do.
A chime sounded overhead as a call button lit in row nineteen. A man in a navy suit, mid‑forties, raised his hand.
“You asked about pilots?” he said when I reached him.
“I have a private license. I fly single‑engine Cessnas on weekends.”
Relief flashed through me so quickly it almost made me dizzy.
“Sir, I’m Carol, the lead flight attendant,” I said. “Our pilots are experiencing a medical emergency.
Would you be willing to come forward and speak with them, see what you can do?”
He swallowed, glanced at the woman next to him, who squeezed his hand.
“My name’s Tom Richardson,” he said. “I’ll come.”
He followed me down the aisle, shoulders squared in the way of someone who has decided they don’t have the luxury of fear.
Inside the cockpit, though, I watched the confidence leak out of him the second his eyes hit the instrument panel.
“Whoa,” he breathed. “This is… a lot.”
Rows of gauges, digital screens, switches overhead, a bank of radios and knobs.
It looks like an alien spaceship the first time you really stand right behind the seats.
“I fly small planes,” he said, more to himself than to us. “Cessna 172s, 182s. Round dials, simple autopilot.
This is like walking into the cockpit of the space shuttle.”
“Can you fly it at all?” I asked. “Even just to keep us straight and level?”
He licked his lips, stepped forward, and wrapped his hand around the yoke like he was testing the weight of a foreign object.
“The principles are the same,” he said slowly. “Thrust, lift, drag, weight.
But the systems… I don’t know this airplane. I don’t know its quirks. I don’t know what happens if I touch the wrong switch.”
A bead of sweat slid down his temple.
“I don’t think I can land it,” he admitted finally.
“I’m sorry. I know that’s not the answer you want, but it’s the truth.”
In training, they talk about “startle effect,” the way your body locks up the first time something truly unexpected happens.
This was worse than startle.
This was looking down the length of an invisible runway you couldn’t yet see and realizing you might never find it.
Behind us, the interphone buzzed. Albert’s voice came through, tight.
“Carol, we’ve got passengers asking questions.
Word is spreading. What do I tell them?”
For a second, I closed my eyes.
You’re the crew member, I reminded myself. You are the calm in the middle of the storm.
“Tell them we have someone in the cockpit with pilot training,” I said.
“Tell them we’re in contact with air traffic control and that we’re doing everything we can to get them safely on the ground.”
“Who is it?” he asked.
I looked at Tom, then at the captain, who was now leaning back with his eyes closed as Dr. Fitz hung a blood‑pressure cuff on his arm.
“I don’t know yet,” I answered.
That was the most honest thing I’d said all day.
“Excuse me,” a small voice said from the doorway.
We all turned.
Flora stood just inside the cockpit, one hand braced on the frame, the blue unaccompanied‑minor badge swinging slightly on her chest with the motion of the plane.
Up close, she somehow looked both younger and older than she had in row fourteen. Her chin trembled, but her eyes were steady.
“You’re not supposed to be up here,” I started automatically.
“Sweetie, you need to go back to your seat.”
“I heard the announcement,” she said. “You said both pilots are sick.”
I glanced back at the captain and first officer. Both were pale, miserable, now half‑reclined as Dr.
Fitz worked.
“That’s right,” I said carefully. “We’re taking care of them.”
“And you asked if anyone could fly the plane.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “But that’s a grown‑up job, Flora.
We need someone with—”
“I can fly it,” she said.
Tom let out an incredulous half‑laugh, more from shock than sarcasm.
“Kiddo, this is a seven‑thirty‑seven,” he said gently. “It’s not a video game. You can’t just—”
“I know it’s a seven‑thirty‑seven‑eight hundred,” Flora said, pronouncing the numbers like she’d been saying them her whole life.
“The max takeoff weight is about a hundred seventy‑four thousand pounds. We’re probably around a hundred forty‑five right now, depending on fuel burn.”
Tom blinked.
She stepped closer to the captain’s seat and pointed at one of the instruments on the main panel, a gauge with a moving needle and numbers around the edge.
“That’s the engine pressure ratio gauge,” she said. “EPR.
It tells you how much thrust the engines are making. These two here are your N1 indicators—fan speed. That’s the vertical speed indicator.
It’s showing we’re level right now. And that—” she pointed at the round display in the center “—is the attitude indicator. It shows if we’re banking or climbing or descending.
Right now we’re wings‑level at thirty‑five thousand feet.”
She touched a small panel of buttons and dials between the two primary screens.
“And this is the mode control panel,” she said. “Autopilot’s on. Heading mode is set to two‑eight‑five.
Altitude hold at thirty‑five thousand. Indicated airspeed is four hundred twenty knots.”
Tom’s mouth actually fell open.
“How do you know that?” I asked, my voice barely more than a whisper.
“My dad is Captain Rob Daniels,” she said. “He flies for Alaska.
He teaches
