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Across the aisle a middle-aged man’s face had turned blue, white froth bubbling from purple lips. Joe stretched over and tried to pull an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, but his arm felt heavy, like it was strapped with weights. It took him several attempts to get the mask on. Every time he almost managed to secure the cup over the man’s face, the aircraft’s pitching jolted his hands, spoiling the attempt.

Joe could see people screaming, but he couldn’t hear the sounds they made. He wondered whether he was experiencing some kind of sensory overload, then realised it was because the roar coming from somewhere inside the aircraft was deafening, obliterating everything else.

Some people weren’t yelling, having retreated into a semiconscious, almost primal state. They cried or whimpered, rocking in their seats. Some were just clutching each other, even people who had been complete strangers only minutes before.

The aisles were blocked by the contents of the overhead lockers that had burst open. Two rows in front of Joe, a heavy briefcase fell from an overhead locker and clubbed a woman senseless.

Unidentifiable lumps were tumbling down the aisles. It dawned on Joe’s slow, oxygen-starved brain that the objects were people whose seatbelts probably hadn’t been buckled. The bodies accumulated at the forward bulkhead. Joe noted that most of the faces he could see in the growing pile of rags were blue. He stared at them as an observer removed from reality, in shock, disbelieving. Perhaps they’re dead, he thought, and then he realised that they were.

The thin air provided little in the way of resistance and the 747’s descent rate built frighteningly. ‘Two-zero-zero!’ shouted Granger. ‘One-five-zero!’ The aircraft shook and trembled. The speed increased. The air protested as the monster tore a hole through it. The cockpit filled with the shriek. The numbers winding backwards on the altimeter transfixed the three pilots. The 747 nudged its speed of maximum operation, 0.92 Mach. And then its rate of descent began to slow as the air thickened, just as the manual said it would.

Flemming pulled back on the control wheel and the aircraft’s nose began to rise slowly.

‘Three thousand feet to altitude.’ Granger continued the countdown.

The g-forces built, driving the pilots and passengers into their seats.

‘Two thousand feet to altitude.’

The aircraft rumbled and shook, angrily protesting against the loads acting on it.

‘One thousand feet to altitude.’

The captain eased the control forward to the neutral position as the jumbo levelled out.

‘At altitude!’ announced Granger, sweating profusely.

The 747 sat on 10 000 feet, just above a blanket of stratus cloud.

‘The Lowest Safe Altitude in these parts is around eight thousand feet!’ Rivers said, yelling the information as she juggled a bunch of maps and charts. ‘We’ve got Mount Kambuno with a spot height of around eight thousand nine hundred feet, but I think it’s to the north of our position!’ She checked the aircraft’s FMC. She noticed for the first time that both the flight navigation and directional instrumentation were dead. Shit! There was no way of knowing for certain exactly where they were. Nevertheless, she was still reasonably sure of their position.

‘LSA, eight thousand,’ confirmed Granger. He checked the altimeter. They were at 10 000 feet. That meant just 2000 feet of air between them and the end of Qantas’s perfect fatality-free record.

The hydraulics pressure warning light flashed. Granger and Flemming checked the pressure gauge. It was falling. Hydraulics — oil — was the aircraft’s blood. The 747 had four redundant hydraulics systems. Something had taken them all out of operation. The aircraft only needed one of those systems to operate the flaps, ailerons, elevator and undercarriage. Without those control surfaces, the plane was not flyable. Or landable.

Flemming took his foot off the left rudder pedal. The 747 yawed to the right with the asymmetrical thrust provided by the two good engines on the left wing. The effect on the dropping hydraulics pressure was slight but significant. Mercifully, it decreased.

The 747 was capable of maintaining altitude on two engines, even climbing slowly, but with falling hydraulics pressure they were merely forestalling the inevitable.

The three pilots on the flight deck knew that their lives hung by the barest of threads. If they turned the plane around using the ailerons, elevator and rudder, the drain on the hydraulics system could mean there wouldn’t be enough pressure left to lower the flaps or undercarriage for landing. And with both engines on one side of the plane inoperable, attempting to steer it with the throttles wasn’t an option.

‘The news gets worse,’ said Rivers, ripping off her oxygen mask along with Granger and Flemming. They were now in a breathable atmosphere.