2050:15 [Public-address microphone is switched ON.]

CAPT. PETER J. MOLDES: “Flight attendants, prepare for landing.”

2050:18 [Public-address microphone is switched OFF.]

FIRST OFFICER RONALD W. NASH IV: “Landing gear clear.”

CAPT. PETER J. MOLDES: “Always nice coming home…”

2050:41 [Banging noise. Static. High-pitched noise.]

END OF TRANSMISSION

THE LANDING

JFK International Control Tower

The dish, they called it. Glowing green monochrome (JFK had been waiting for new color screens for more than two years now), like a bowl of pea soup supplemented with clusters of alphabet letters tagged to coded blips. Each blip represented hundreds of human lives, or, in the old nautical parlance that endured in air travel to this day, souls.

Hundreds of souls.

Perhaps that was why all the other air-traffic controllers called Jimmy Mendes “Jimmy the Bishop.” The Bishop was the only ATC who spent his entire eight-hour shift standing rather than sitting, wielding a number 2 pencil in his hand and pacing back and forth, talking commercial jets into New York from the busy tower cab 321 feet above John F. Kennedy International Airport like a shepherd tending his flock. He used the pink pencil eraser to visualize the aircraft under his command, their positions relative to one another, rather than relying exclusively upon his two-dimensional radar screen.

Where hundreds of souls beeped every second.

“United 6-4-2, turn right heading 1-0-0, climb to five thousand.”

But you couldn’t think like that when you were on the dish. You couldn’t dwell on all those souls whose fates rested under your command: human beings packed inside winged missiles rocketing miles above the earth. You couldn’t big-picture it: all the planes on your dish, and then all the other controllers muttering coded headset conversations around you, and then all of the planes on their dishes, and then the ATC tower over at neighboring LaGuardia…and then all the ATC towers of every airport in every city in the United States…and then all across the world…

Calvin Buss, the air-traffic-control area manager and Jimmy the Bishop’s immediate supervisor, appeared at his shoulder. He was back early from a break, in fact, still chewing his food. “Where are you with Regis 7-5-3?”

“Regis 7-5-3 is home.” Jimmy the Bishop took a quick, hot look at his dish to confirm. “Proceeding to gate.” He scrolled back his gate-assignment roster, looking for 7-5-3. “Why?”

“Ground radar says we have an aircraft stalled on Foxtrot.”

“The taxiway?” Jimmy checked his dish again, making sure all his bugs were good, then reopened his channel to DL753. “Regis 7-5-3, this is JFK tower, over.”

Nothing. He tried again.

“Regis 7-5-3, this is JFK tower, come in, over.”

He waited. Nothing, not even a radio click.

“Regis 7-5-3, this is JFK tower, are you reading me, over.”

A traffic assistant materialized behind Calvin Buss’s shoulder. “Comm problem?” he suggested.

Calvin Buss said, “Gross mechanical failure, more likely. Somebody said the plane’s gone dark.”

“Dark?” said Jimmy the Bishop, marveling at what a near miss that would be, the aircraft’s gross mechanicals shitting the bed just minutes after landing. He made a mental note to stop off on the way home and play 753 for tomorrow’s numbers.