coast for a hundred miles in both directions. But Rubin had somehow

missed them and miraculously manhandled the descending Boeing into the

middle of Ardencaple Fjord, He was flying up the narrow inlet to the sea

below and between the summits of steep sloping cliffs. Luck also

conjured up a headwilld, which gave the aircraft added lift.

The ice seemed close enough for him to reach out and drag his hand over

it. The lights reflected a kaleidoscope of shivering colors. A dark

mass loomed ahead. He gently pushed the right rudder pedal and the mass

slid away to his port side.

"Lower the landing gear!" Rubin shouted.

Ybarra wordlessly complied. Under normal emergency landing procedures

it was the worst possible action to take, but in their ignorance they

unwittingly made the correct decision for the terrain. The landing gear

dropped from their wheel wells and the plane quickly lost speed due to

the added wind resistance.

Rubin gripped the control wheel until his knuckles turned ivory, and he

glanced down directly at the ice flashing past. The blazing crystals

seemed to be rising up to meet him, spreading as they came.

Rubin closed his eyes, praying they would come down in soft snow instead

of striking unyielding ice. There was nothing more he and Ybarra could

do. The end was approaching with horrifying speed.

Mercifully, he did not know, could not know, the ice was only one meter

thick, far too thin to support the weight of a Boeing 720-B.

The maze of instrument lights had gone crazy, and the lights were

flashing red. The ice rushed out of the darkness. Rubin had the

sensation of bursting through a black curtain into a white void. He

pulled back on the control column and the speed of the Boeing fell away

as the nose rose up for the last time in a feeble attempt to cling to

the sky.

Ybarra sat terrified. Oblivious to the 320-kilometer-an-hour airspeed,

frozen in shock, he made no attempt to yank back the throttles. Nor did

his dazed mind think to cut the electrical switches.

Then the impact.

On reflex, Rubin and Ybarra flung up their hands and closed their eyes.

The tires touched, slid, and gouged twill trails through the ice. The

port inboard engine buckled and was torn from its mounts, madly gyrating

into the darkness. Both starboard engines dug in at the same time,

caught and twisted the wing away in a shrieking, mangled mass. Then all

power was lost and the lights went dark.

The Boeing careened across the fjord's ice sheet, shedding pieces of

protesting metal like particles behind a comet. It smashed into a

pressure ridge that had been thrust up when the pack ice collided. The

nose gear was crushed back against the forward belly, tearing into the

hell hole. The bow dropped and plowed through the ice, crushing the

thin aluminum plates inward against the cockpit. At last the momentum

fell off, and the crumpled plane, distorted and dismembered, came to the