First Activation

“I can only tell you what I know, but it’s not much more than you’ve already seen. We’re going against procedure by even landing here, but I had to make a decision before we ran out of fuel,” he said.

A chorus of questions all came at once and the captain raised his arms.

“Please, let me tell you what I know. I have no other information beyond that.” This brought silence, “Just after the turbulence, we appeared to lose all communication with the ground. We have heard nothing since. We also lost communication with the planes that landed shortly afterwards, although contact is still possible with other planes in the air. All of this is understandable if the traffic control systems and communications are down. The procedure in these situations is to sit tight and try not to panic.”

“Are the planes being diverted to other airports? In that case, why did we land here?” A passenger shouted.

“No other airports are responding. I honestly don’t know what’s happening.”

Passengers continued to fire questions.

“Why did you stop?”

“How are we supposed to get off?”

“What do we do now?”

“I have already said, I’ve only seen what you’ve seen. I am not going to pull up to a gate with a body hanging off it. Without ground crew, any docking procedure would be risky anyway. We’ll wait for one hour. If no help comes, then we can use the emergency slide to disembark.”

“Then what?” Bernie shouted.

“Emergency services on the ground are not responding. We wait for contact before making any decisions. I’ll keep trying all channels of communication and update you all when I have further information.”

The passengers erupted with shouts and arguments. The captain threw his hands in the air and then disappeared back into the cockpit. Feeling a mix of frustration and disappointment, I hopped back into the aisle and slowly followed the procession of passengers back to my seat, a group stayed to labour the conversation at the front of the cabin. Bernie could be heard shouting about terrorism. Perhaps he was right, after all. The amount of coordination for such an attack was mind-blowing, but what else could it be?

Jack was looking at me as I approached our seats. I shook my head, “The communication problem seems to be widespread. There’s no sign of help at the moment, so the suggestion is that we wait.”

“The captain doesn’t know shit, but we’ve got no other choice,” he replied toying with his mobile.

“For now, yes.”

I started to think about how we could get off the plane. If it was a terrorist attack, then why wait for them to come and capture us? We could escape through the perimeter fence and win our freedom. The alternative might involve being on my knees reading out a forced statement to a video camera before being brutally beheaded by men in balaclavas. I had no intention of waiting around for that to happen.

“I’ve managed to connect to a network,” Jack said as he scrolled through Twitter.

“Are there any updates about JFK?”

“Nothing that I can see, I’ll try calling Andy and Dave, then I’ve got something to show you.”

Jack pressed the screen of his iPhone a few times and twice held the speaker to his ear.

“I got voicemail for both of them, but have a look at this,” he thrust the phone towards me, “a tweet I sent in Manchester about flying here, has had quite a few replies.”

@cfieldhouse Welcome to New York, Jack! Please come and help me, I am in a wheelchair and need assistance at the following address…

@atitlow Jack, want to meet up so I can show you some of the best sites in the state? Come to my farm…

@saggyhr Our friend said you were coming over; please visit me at the following hospital…

The tweets continued, but I’d seen enough. Why did all of these strangers want to meet up with Jack? I decided to update my location quickly on Facebook to JFK airport, in case Andy or Dave checked to see if we had arrived, and then switched my phone off. If we were going to spend hours on the tarmac, one of us should at least conserve our battery.

We waited for another half an hour, debating our next moves with a few other passengers in the seats around us. Bernie and I wanted to mount an escape, and Jack was coming around to our way of thinking. We didn’t want to be sitting ducks, whatever was happening outside. Others viewed this as irresponsible behaviour, saying it would only cause more trouble and confusion for Homeland Security when liberating us. The problem was that we had no idea what they might be liberating us from. There wasn’t a soul in sight, at least not one who was alive.