Determination

When twelve-year-old Yasmin Juffail had kissed her Aunt Suhaila goodbye at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport, and walked away holding the hand of the smiling, blonde lady who had introduced herself as Candy, she had never imagined her journey would end here.

Candy had reassured Aunt Suhaila, who Yasmin thought was being a bit over-anxious, that unaccompanied minors on Trucial Air were accompanied from gate to gate, until handed over to the adult collecting them at destination. Yasmin had rolled her eyes at the oxymoron but said nothing. She hadn’t wanted Candy to think her a smartass when they had only just met.

Now, the serious-looking, grey-haired man, sitting in the important chair at the bench, was about to speak. To deliver his judgment. His judgment on her. She had been told she must be on her best behaviour. She must not speak nor argue until the formalities were complete. It had been made clear to Yasmin that the grey-haired man’s words would be final, and that she must not interrupt. Yasmin swallowed. Her companion gripped her hand.

“Yasmin Ahmed Badr Juffail,” the grey-haired man began.

Two months previously, Yasmin had been homeward bound.

“Please don’t concern yourself, ma’am,” Candy said, still smiling, to the anxious-looking, perfectly coiffured lady who had just handed the child into her care. “Yasmin will be with me until she reaches her seat on the airplane. At that point, I will hand over her care to a designated female cabin crew member. Now, say goodbye to your aunt, Yasmin, and we will go get you checked in and through security.”

Yasmin only looked back over her shoulder once. Aunt Suhaila was waving and mopping her eye. It had been a wonderful two weeks. Together they had been everywhere in New York. Yasmin reckoned she had liked Macy’s best. So many clothes, in such bright colours, not like back home. Home for Yasmin was Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, where she lived under the guardianship of her other aunt, Aunt Nourah. Yasmin loved both her aunts and she knew she was lucky to be able to travel back and forth between their spacious homes. Mostly, Yasmin missed her mum, but on days like this she missed her dad more. Airports were where her father had belonged. He had been an airline captain with Trucial Air. Now, every time she saw a uniformed pilot in an airport, she wondered for a moment if it was him. If perhaps there had been a mistake, and it hadn’t been him in the car accident after all. That both her parents were alive and well, and busy somewhere, that one day they’d pick her up from one aunt or the other, and say sorry for being away so long, and life would go back to normal.

Candy steered Yasmin through check-in and the passport desk, then helped her put her carry-on through the machine. After the metal detector, Candy picked up Yasmin’s bag and took her to McDonald’s for some food, then to the departure gate. The ground staff, seeing Yasmin’s business class boarding card, ushered the girl and her escort ahead of the other passengers, over the air bridge and onto the Trucial Air A380, a four-engined, double-decker behemoth that only the Middle Eastern airlines, with their unlimited supply of subsidised fuel, could afford to keep in the air these days. Candy settled Yasmin into seat 7A, a window seat with a good view of the airplane’s massive wing and giant engines. Yasmin knew they were Rolls Royce Trent 900s, each capable of producing over 80,000 pounds of thrust. Her most precious memories of her father were the times they had talked about airplanes. She loved facts and figures and found she had no problems remembering them.

One extra special day, her father had taken her with him into a Level-D Airbus A380 simulator at Dubai Airport. She had been fascinated as he had walked her through the checklists and procedures to prepare the aircraft for flight. Together, they had calculated the fuel load and take-off weight, then used the electronic flight bag (which was actually an iPad mounted next to each pilot’s seat) to work out the power settings and speeds for the take-off roll. Her father had explained that the usual flap setting for an A380 was flaps 2, which meant that the shape of the wing changed, with trailing-edge flaps and leading-edge slats deployed. That meant, he had told her, that the wing had a bigger surface area and a more curved shape, so it produced more lift, which it had to do for take-off.

From her seat, Yasmin had a good view of the plane’s huge left wing. She could see the jetway still connecting the giant fuselage to the terminal building. The top of the wing looked like a football field, with the two engine pylons supporting the puissant Rolls-Royce turbofans.

A flight attendant asked Yasmin if there was anything she wanted. She asked for a Sprite, which duly appeared. The sky chef came by to ask what she wanted for dinner. She opted for macaroni cheese and steamed vegetables.

“Boarding completed,” said the voice of the cabin service director over the PA. “This aircraft is bound for Dubai. All ground staff, please leave the aircraft. Closing doors for departure.”

The jetway slid back. A few moments later, the huge A380 began to move as the powerful tow tug pushed it off the stand, toward the taxiway. There was a low rumble as each engine started, and then they were taxiing along, heading for the departure runway.

Yasmin frowned as she looked again at the massive wing. Something was not right. Twisting her neck around to the left, she could see the trailing-edge flaps had been deployed to the take-off position. It was an awkward angle but she could just manage to observe the tell-tale curve where the extended flaps dropped away. Looking forward again, she realised what the problem was. The leading-edge slats were still stowed. They had not been extended. On a modern airliner, it should be impossible for the trailing-edge flaps to be out, with the leading-edge slats still in. Yasmin’s father had explained to her that, following a tragic crash near London in 1972, airliners now had a single lever to extend both leading and trailing edge high-lift devices, to avoid premature retraction of the leading-edge slats, whose extra lift was critical for take-off and the first part of the climb.

He had told her of an air crash that had happened in Nairobi, in the 1970s, when an electrical fault had prevented the leading edge slats from being deployed on a Boeing 747. The wings had failed to generate enough lift to get the aircraft safely airborne, and it had crashed down to the ground on takeoff, with a number of fatalities. One of the passengers, a 747 pilot himself, had sensed something was wrong during the takeoff, looked out of the window and seen the slats in the retracted position, but had not been able to do anything about it before the crash happened. That same thing would be much less likely to occur on an Airbus, Yasmin’s father had pointed out, because there was an excellent crew-alerting system that would bring the problem to the pilots’ attention before they started the take-off roll.

Yasmin’s thoughts mixed into a blur. She was conscious of her heart beating faster, and strongly. Surely the pilots would notice the problem with the slats and either extend them, if they could, or return to the departure gate if they could not. There would be a master caution alarm, with a message displayed on the crew alerting system, telling the pilots what the fault was. Yet, the aircraft continue to taxi as though nothing was wrong.

Yasmin pressed the call button. The flight attendant who had asked her before if she was OK - her name badge said Bushra - was at her side in an instant. “Please, something’s wrong,” Yasmin blurted. “The wing. The slats. They are not extended. The plane can’t take off like that.”

Bushra smiled. “Don’t worry, sweetie. What you’re seeing is just the flaps. Sometimes it looks like there’s a gap in the wing. It’s supposed to be that way. The captain knows what he’s doing.”

Yasmin shook her head. “No, ma’am, Bushra, you don’t understand. I know about flaps and slats. My father was a pilot. There is a problem. You have to tell the captain. Please tell him now. The slats are not extended. The plane cannot fly like that. There will be a crash.”

Through the window, Yasmin saw the red runway stop bar and the flashing orange wigwag indicators, then the bright runway centreline lights as the enormous aircraft lined up for take-off. Bushra’s voice sounded far away, as she repeated her hollow reassurances that everything was all right. They had just seconds. The engines were starting to spool up. In less than a minute, one of the worst air disasters in North America would take place, and many of those aboard would surely be dead. There was only one thing she could think of to do.

Yasmin released her seat belt and sprang out of her seat, pushing Bushra off balance, so the poor woman sat down hard in the aisle. “I wanna get off,” Yasmin screamed, as loudly as she could. “I don’t wanna fly. I wanna get OFF! Get me out of here! GET ME OUT!”

Flight attendants appeared from every direction. Like a whirling dervish, Yasmin pushed, kicked, hit out and shrieked. She pulled one lady’s hair, punched a man in the throat, butted another when his face came too close to hers. After what seemed an age, she heard someone say, “Cabin insecure for takeoff,” and the aircraft slowed rapidly to a stop.

On the way back to the terminal, which seemed to take forever, the captain announced over the PA that they would be returning to the terminal building because of an issue with a passenger refusing to sit in their seat. He apologised for the delay and the inconvenience. Several flight attendants had moved Yasmin back to her seat, where Bushra had fastened a plastic cable tie onto her wrists. No-one was speaking to her no. No-one wanted to make eye contact. Yasmin knew what they were all thinking. Spoiled, entitled brat throws a tantrum, and a whole flight gets delayed.

The police boarded the aircraft and took Yasmin off first. She had to walk down the inside stairs to the jetway. The other passengers’ glares were like daggers in her back. The police lady had told her, “We are arresting you on suspicion of conduct likely to compromise the safety of a passenger airplane. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions. You have the right to have a lawyer with you during questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish. If you decide to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you have the right to stop answering at any time.”

Yasmin had said nothing. The hardest part had been the waiting, in a bare room with just a chair and table, and two police ladies, for Aunt Suhaila to get back to the airport. There had been no sign of the lady named Candy. Perhaps she had gone off duty, or maybe no-one at the airport cared about Yasmin any more, after they’d handed her off to the airline staff.

Her aunt had arrived, rushing into the room like a whirlwind, and hugged her. Then the questions had begun. From her aunt, and the police ladies. Why had she done it? Did she realise how serious it was, to interfere with the safe operation of a passenger airplane? Yasmin had wanted to retort that it was a very unsafe airplane, because the slats were not configured for take-off. But she had kept her mouth shut.

The police ladies had explained everything to Aunt Suhaila, and they had introduced another lady, who was a solicitor for Yasmin. The police ladies had left the room. The solicitor, whose name was Mary, pointed out that Yasmin was being charged with a very serious misdemeanour, and that there would be a court hearing. Mary had advised Yasmin and Aunt Suhaila that Yasmin should enter a guilty plea, in view of the strong evidence against her. She could expect a caution and a light sentence, probably a compulsory course of education in appropriate behaviour on public transport. There would also be the costs incurred by delaying a passenger flight, additional airport charges, and the like. Yasmin imagined the scene to come. It would be a large room, she thought, with an important-looking man behind a big table, just like the courtroom scenes in movies. He would sentence her to whatever punishment she was going to get.

They all looked toward the door as the handle went down, interrupting Mary’s legal monologue. Yasmin assumed it must be the police ladies coming back.

Back in the present, Yasmin swallowed as the grey-haired man continued.

“Young lady, the American people, and Trucial Airlines, and everyone who was on board that Airbus A380 two months ago, owe you a great deal. As you know, we have invited you here this afternoon to honour you and to recognise your bravery and determination. There is no doubt that you saved a great many lives that day. I do believe God placed you on that airplane to carry out his good work. On behalf of the American people, I must apologise to you, Yasmin Ahmed Badr Juffail, for the manner in which you were restrained, arrested, detained and questioned, and for the failure of the airline cabin crew to take seriously the vital information you were attempting in all good faith to give them, leaving you no option but to feign a tantrum to force the airplane to abort take-off. My only consolation is that your ordeal was cut short at the police interview stage, when airport manager Victor Gerhardt ably persuaded the investigating officers to drop all intended charges, in light of the information he had gleaned from the flight crew. The technical fault on the aircraft, which had gone unnoticed by both pilots and which only you were aware of, is a first in the history of the Airbus family of airplanes. Had that airplane attempted to take off, it would have immediately rolled hard to the left, and would probably have been completely unflyable. The consequences would have been disastrous to say the least and are hard to imagine without a sense of utter horror. Not only would everyone aboard the airplane have perished; there could also have been many other casualties on the ground. The issue appears to have arisen from a bizarre sequence of coincidences, comprising sloppy maintenance procedures, unauthorised computer software modification and manufacturing defects, all of which aligned not only to prevent deployment of the leading edge slats on the port wing when commanded by the flight crew, but also to prevent the proper function of the electronic crew alerting system to draw the pilots’ attention to the fault. That left only a visual inspection as the sole means of detecting the problem, and the only one who carried out such an inspection was you, a most remarkable, if I may say so, twelve-year-old child. Yasmin Ahmed Badr Juffail, please approach the bench, and please accept this commemorative medal as a small but heartfelt token of this nation’s sincere appreciation and everlasting gratitude.”