Eruption

By Nelson Ancalmo

Air Force One is flying the President of the United States to a meeting in Australia, when a massive volcanic eruption catapults the plane into a low earth orbit. While the world closely watches, NASA has the impossible task of bringing the President and his entourage safely back to earth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nelson Ancalmo
• Release date: Oct 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301521142

Nelson Ancalmo

Nelson Ancalmo M.D. was born in San Salvador, El Salvador, Central America. After finishing his Medical School, he traveled to the United States to complete his training in Cardio-Vascular Surgery.Presently he is retired and lives in Austin, Texas where he devotes his free time to writing, graphic design, astronomy and music.e-mail:[e-mail]

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Flores Sea, Indonesia, April 10, 1815, near Mount Tambora.

The magnificent 98-gun, three decker ship HMS Impregnable, was fluttering like a hand painted toy in a tub of water. Five miles northwest off the coast of Flores Island, in the Lesser Sundas of the Indonesian Archipelago, the sleek brigantine had been sent to intercept any and all pirates that were disrupting the commercial sea-ways in this part of the world, but her crew had been looking over their shoulders for the last twenty-four hours. Above them, the sky was boiling, and below the sea was a red brown broth. All hands on deck, the entire crew was agitated even more by the presence of Captain Hobbes, who was pacing up on the bridge, almost certain that a catastrophic event was about to happen, the salt-beaten face of the old sailor, was crossed with unmistakable lines of fear.

But it was already too late when the crew began reefing sails and the HMS Impregnable stalled between high swells. Under a drone of seabirds escaping to nowhere, the waves curled over the hull and picked off the luckiest with sudden fingers. Captain Malcolm Hobbes cried out as he tried to hold his ground, shaking his head, hair in his eyes, though he did not know that it was the planet that was shaking in disbelief. The English flag flapped its Union Jack colors furiously, and behind it all the morning clouds were suddenly shoving against the eye of the sky. Like an oil drum spilling on a tea party, a blackness shot through the ceiling, followed by a million trumpets of hot air, shaking the nails loose from the tar and wood shell of the brig. And then, it was as if the whole affair was lifted fifty feet in the air and dropped on its side, contents spilling everywhere. The boiling sea swallowed the brig and its crew leaving no trace of them behind.

Weeks later, in his official report on the desk of Governor Raffles, an impassive lieutenant noted the calamity that befell that part of the world on that morning and throughout the day. He wrote of a volcanic eruption that had devastated an entire coastline for hundreds of miles. He wrote of wholesale destructions, and included the scientific notes on wind speeds and fluvial temperature rises and animal and vegetal suffocations by ash as thick as paste. A shipment of crates of evidence, eventually made its way to an armory in Singapore to be studied by an early breed of vulcanologists and zoologists. World historians would one day assimilate it along with the official and oral versions into a memorable footnote in the study of the greatest concentration of active and dormant volcanoes in the world, the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Arranged in a horseshoe shape of some twenty-five thousand miles in length, extending from the southern tip of South America along the pacific coast of the American Continent, crossing over the Bering Strait to the eastern coast of Russia, Japan, the Philippine Islands and Indonesia, down to the most south eastern part of Australia. This impressive display of volcanic activity is the product of some 452 volcanoes, which are the result of subduction of the multiple tectonic plates that constantly battle in the Pacific basin.

These massive tectonic plates have been pushing against each other for millions of years, and the result of this struggle has been the shaping and reshaping of the geography of the continents.

For eons, the huge volcanic chamber continued to enlarge, and the boiling and powerful magma filled an enormous cavern just waiting for an opening to discharge the tremendous amount of energy stored, finally there was a vent.

When that happened, the colossal explosion had the equivalent of eight hundred megatons of TNT, or sixteen thousand Hiroshima atomic bombs, and it sent thirty-eight cubic miles of ash and debris up into the sky to an altitude of about twenty-five miles. The cataclysm was so powerful that almost instantly killed over twelve thousand people, and another sixty-thousand died of starvation when their crops and means of sustentation were also destroyed. The volcanic ash expelled into the atmosphere spread to a great portion of the earth, causing what was called the year without a summer along the eastern portions of Canada and the United States, and some areas of Western Europe.

The eruption of Mount Tambora was the largest and deadliest recorded explosion in history. And then, the great volcano went silent for a couple of centuries.

The gigantic magma chamber slowly began to fill up again and became restless, and one day, without much previous warning, the sleeping volcano woke up and once again showed all of its might.

Chapter 2

Air Force One, 41,000 feet above the Indian Ocean. Present Day, Sunday.

General Henry D. Sullivan gazed through the window of the brand new plane. All he could see were clouds, but he had been told by the captain that, due to a very unstable weather system, they had to climb to this altitude to avoid the turbulence. In reality, he didn’t care. Between 35 or 41 thousand feet, there was no difference. Anyway down below it was all water, nothing to see.

He stretched out in his plush chair and called the steward,

"James, can you get me something to drink, maybe a cup of coffee?

Yes, Sir, Mr. President, would you like also some apple pie? It just came out of the oven and smells delicious.

No thank you, just the coffee please.

General Sullivan looked around. He was in his private office aboard Air Force One, his personal airplane for the next couple of years, unless he was reelected. He chuckled at the thought,

"Yeah! It would be really wonderful."

He always thought that a one-term president just barely had the time to correct the mistakes of his predecessor, but a second term, would give him the opportunity to make real changes, to introduce his own ideas and take this great nation to a better future.

"Hell, I have been giving too many speeches. I am beginning to preach to myself. I need some rest."

By the time James came back with the coffee, the General was sound asleep. James turned the lights down, very carefully placed the cup on his desk and walked out of the room without making a sound. He checked his watch. It was six in the evening Washington time, but here in the middle of the Indian Ocean, it was five in the morning. He felt tired and hungry, so he went to the kitchen thinking about that piece of apple pie. It would be a real crime to waste it.

Air Force One continued its voyage in route to Sydney, Australia. The President of the United States of America was completing the last leg of a World Tour searching for support for his new proposal about the control and possible elimination of nuclear weapons, which he announced just a few weeks before at the last meeting of the United Nations. This exhausting trip had already lasted for over two weeks, and after visiting countries like Spain, France, Italy, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, and India, their final destination was finally in sight.

On board the magnificent airplane were also the Secretary of State, Mrs. Judy Hollman, Senator Raymond Wheeler, from Virginia, Senator Robert Walters from California, Representative Rudy Mallory from North Carolina and Representative Arthur Carlisle from Texas.

The usual complement of White House personnel, the security detail, reporters, invited guests and crew, completed a total of fifty-three passengers, all of them tired and looking forward for their return home to America.

Chapter 3

The White House, one month ago, in the Oval Office.

Mr. President, I just received word that the new Air Force One will be ready in another couple of weeks.

The President’s personal Secretary was cheerful. He looked like a kid who was about to receive a present.

Thank you, Martin, lets hope that we can use the new plane for our coming trip abroad. Are you sure that all the security measures have been tested? How about the communication equipment? Remember that during the September 11 crisis there was no way to address the Nation from the old airplane, and that was a major flaw.

General Sullivan was referring to an incident the morning of the Twin Towers attack, when on board Air Force One, President George W. Bush, the Commander in Chief, couldn’t relay an important message to a grieving nation from the air, and had to land before he could deliver his speech. That was not what this plane was designed for. This was a flying Oval Office, and in cases of national disaster, the President of the United States of America was supposed to have the capabilities to run the country from forty-thousand feet above the Earth.

This was a brand new plane, the new 787-8, the most advanced aircraft in the world, made by the Boeing Company and nicknamed The Dream Liner. It was the symbol of a new era in the airline industry, a fuel-efficient airplane made out of composite materials, much lighter and sturdier than previous aircraft, with a length of 186 feet and a wingspan of 197 feet. Two General Electric GEnx turbofan engines, capable of producing 64.000 pounds of thrust each, could carry more than two hundred passengers at a cruising speed of 560 miles per hour with a range of 9,000 miles at an altitude of 43.000 feet.

Because this airplane was built to become the Flying Oval Office, the entire structure had been modified to accommodate the living quarters for the President his family and invited guests. The layout of this aircraft was also different from previous models. In previous Air Force One planes, the President quarters were located at the front in the middle level. This airplane had only one level for the passengers. The Presidential quarters were moved to the back of the plane, and the guests were seated at the front end. The other sections, the kitchen, galley, conference room, and communications, were in the center of the structure. It was also equipped with security measures only present in fighter planes, and the Communication Center provided the latest technology capable of radio and television broadcasting from the air. There was also the possibility of traveling beyond the stipulated range, so this aircraft could be refueled in mid air, and there was always a supertanker following nearby.

The previous Air Force One fleet consisted of a pair of Boeing-747, without any question one of the most reliable airplanes ever built, and it served several Presidents for over twenty years. However, an unfortunate accident caused one of the planes to burst into flames at the Joint Base Andrews Naval Air Facility in Washington. This accident was carefully investigated, and after an exhaustive review of all personnel involved and all the evidence available, the final verdict was that no criminal or terrorist act was demonstrated, so it was labeled as an unfortunate accident. It was a miracle that no lives were lost, but the plane was destroyed, so Congress had no choice but to approve the purchase of the new Air Force One. The selection of the 787-8 was one easy choice to make, since no other aircraft came close to this marvel of the modern air industry.

As before, two planes were ordered at a base cost of one hundred and sixty-million dollars each. Added to this was the cost of the other equipment that would transform this aircraft into the flying marvel that carried the most powerful man in the world safely to any place around the globe.

For reasons of national security, two airplanes were necessary. In case of a mechanical failure in one of them, there was another ready to take over, and on rare occasions, one could be used as a decoy. The idea was always to protect the integrity of the Presidency of the United States of America.

Chapter 4

Colonel Joseph Andrews woke up at exactly 6.59 am. He stretched out in bed and turned to his side to see the alarm clock on his nightstand. Without thinking he pressed the button and disconnected the alarm, just a few seconds before it went off.

"I don’t know why I use these things, I must have my own alarm clock somewhere inside of me."

He got up, took a shower and went to the kitchen to fix himself a cup of coffee. At 52 years of age, divorced and with no children, he had a very simple life. One hundred per cent of his time was devoted to his job as the Senior Pilot of Air Force One. Having no family obligations gave him the freedom to go anywhere, anytime at a moment’s notice, and this was the usual schedule in his job. Most of the President’s trips were kept secret up to the very last minute to prevent acts of sabotage or terrorism, and he was notified only hours before departure. To him it made no difference. He was a pilot and his only function was to fly the plane safely and timely to any destination he was instructed to do so. After 35 years and close to twenty-thousand hours of flying time, he knew the world like the palm of his own hand. He had a mental image of the main airports in all the major cities, as well as those used by the military, and he could take off or land anywhere in this planet. Of that he was absolutely sure.

This was a special day for him. The new airplanes were ready, and he was in charge of the new Air Force One Fleet. In just a few hours he was to take command of the aircraft and to welcome all the men and women under his leadership. The initial ceremony would be followed by long hours of practice and training, so that everyone would know exactly what this plane was capable of and how to respond in case of an emergency.

He had been training in a flight simulator for the past several weeks, and this aircraft, that he was about to fly for the first time in real life, was no stranger to him. He admired the new technology, the advanced avionics, the incredible defense systems installed and above all, the power of the engines and the sturdiness of the new composite materials used in the construction of the plane.

When he arrived at the hangar of the Joint Base Andrews Naval Air Facility, his entire staff was already lined up and waiting for him.