on my own, had to get Rowan out of the flight deck.
“Hey, it’s over. It’s all okay now.”
After I left training school, I’d continued to look at their website, continued to google for snippets of news from the small private airport from which they operated. It was how I learned that a pilot had lost control of their light aircraft. A member of the public saw the plane come down, but by the time the emergency services were on scene, the fire had taken hold. There were no survivors.
The instructor was Vic Myerbridge. His student was a new female pilot. Cass Williams.
When recordings of the plane’s transmissions were played at the inquest, it became evident that there had been some kind of a struggle, and although the coroner recorded death by misadventure, it was enough for the school to quietly remove the glowing obituary they had posted on their website.
In the months that followed, I was haunted by the knowledge that by doing nothing, I had at once saved my own life and caused Cass to lose hers. I had been spared, but I had none of the euphoria that should accompany a near miss: instead, I was held hostage by the weight of my guilt. Even without fighting back—without putting my own life on the line—I could have told someone. There would have been an investigation, Myerbridge would have been suspended; Cass would never even have been in that plane with him.
Instead, I allowed him to put his arm around me, to walk me off the airfield as if I were an invalid. I allowed him to talk over my head, to tell people I’d had some kind of panic attack. I allowed him to make me doubt my own memory.
I never told Adam. I couldn’t bear to see the judgment in his eyes. My own was more than enough to bear.
“Mina,” Charlie calls up. “We’re ready to start our approach.”
I think of the passengers back there in the cabin—the pregnant woman FaceTiming her husband; Lachlan and his parents; Lady Barrow; poor Ginny and her reluctant fiancé. My finger hovers above the controls for the PA, knowing I need to tell the passengers something but not trusting myself to give them the reassurance they need.
I press the button and fight to keep my voice steady. “This is your pilot speaking.” Let the passengers think I have everything under control; let them at least believe we’ll get down safely. “We will shortly be starting our final descent to Sydney, so please return your seats to the upright position and fasten your seat belts.” The familiarity of the patter calms me, and when I replace the handset, I look out at the vast sky ahead of me. I can do this. I think of the desperate phone calls I heard in the cabin—of the promises, the confessions, the declarations—and I know that I owe it to them to get us safely down. I owe it to Sophia, who I promised would never again be without a mother. I owe it to Cass Williams, who wouldn’t have died if I’d only had the strength to fight back.
I owe it to myself. I have to prove to myself that I can fly.
Charlie’s upward inflection fills my headset. “Mina, can you take us down to five thousand feet?”
My mind is momentarily blank, then I remember the ALT button, and I drop our altitude and then our speed. “Okay—done.”
“Look for a knob marked HDG. We’re going to use that to turn.”
I see it before he’s finished speaking—below the glare shield, left of the autopilot button—and I turn it a hundred and eighty degrees before pressing the button, as instructed. Almost immediately, the plane begins to turn.
“Good job, Mina. Remember I told you where the flap lever was?” I reach across for it. “Lift it up, then move it down one slot.” There’s a grinding noise and a thud as the flaps find their place, noises I would normally find reassuring. I picture where I’d be, had this flight gone to plan: walking through the cabin, checking seat positions, tray tables. Looking forward to my hotel room, to a walk around Sydney. Now all I want is to be safely on the ground.
“Four thousand feet.”
I do as Charlie says, repeating the instructions in confirmation. Heading zero-seven-zero. Three thousand feet. Flaps. Heading zero-three-zero. With each new heading, the plane makes a farther turn, until I can see the airport ahead of us.
“Look for a button marked APP,”