Final Approach by John J. Nance

from the flammable wreckage.
    â€œYou can’t use torches or saws, right?”
    â€œYou’ve got it. We light a cutting torch or create sparks with a saw, we’ll lose all of them in there. We have to be damn careful using Jaws, too, foaming the area we’re working in.”
    â€œHow are they doing in there?”
    The big man looked at Joe, a look of great sadness and empathy. “God, it’s been hard. There are six of them. One was dead by the time they were discovered. At least he’s not moving, but we haven’t been able to get a stethoscope in yet. The one who kept yelling and finally got herself heard is a young college girl, I think in her twenties, who’s got a … a … metal rod literally through her leg, impaling her. She’s unbelievable. She’s been guiding us in calmly. One of the doctors managed to get several hypos of morphine in, and she’s worked on her seatmates, a seven-year-old boy and his four-year-old sister, who’re both in bad shape. We may lose them.”
    â€œHow about the others?” Susan asked.
    â€œA husband and wife. She’s unconscious; he’s been hysterical and in pain, trying to get to his kids, and afraid he’s going to lose his wife. He’s not cooperating at all. The two little kids are his. We think his wife may be close to death, but until a doctor gets in there, we can’t tell.”
    Joe turned away and nearly fell over a tall man in a business suit who had appeared unannounced behind them. The fellow extended his hand, identifying himself as an FBI agent assigned to investigate the accident.
    â€œWhere do you want to talk, Agent … was it Jamison?”
    â€œYes sir. Chet Jamison. I’ll ride back with you.”
    The startlingly loud report of brittle metal reaching the breaking point filled the air suddenly, and all eyes whirled back toward the wreckage in apprehension.
    Deep within the aerospace prison which held her, Linda Ellis heard the noise as a distant sound which forced her mind back toward reality as she opened her eyes and stared at the gray daylight filtering in, a bit more of it now, she thought, than before. The morphine had made her head feel fuzzy as it dulled the pain, and she had to struggle to think as she watched the outlines of worried rescuers laboring behind the jungle of metal, so close yet still out of reach. There had been a noise … one of them was saying something, and she strained to pay attention.
    â€œHang in there, Linda. We’ve got another major piece out of the way. We’ll be able to get a doctor in there in a few minutes.”
    Linda looked to her left at the contorted face of the little girl in the middle seat. Linda had been in an aisle seat, the little girl … what was her name? Jill. That was it. Jill was four, and her brother was seven. Jill had been in the middle seat. Their parents were across the aisle … somewhere. Too much debris separated them. Linda had tried to reach the father, who kept yelling. She had tried to give him the hypodermic needle with the painkiller, but she couldn’t get her arm through.
    Jill was unconscious again. With a start Linda felt for her wrist and found a pulse. The brother—she had forgotten his name again—was holding his sister’s shoulder and crying softly. Jill closed her eyes and repeated the same phrase she had clung to for so long. “I will survive this. We will survive this. We will survive this!”
    It was so cold. So very cold. The men trying to reach them had a machine blowing warm air into the area, but it wasn’t enough. She had tried to think of fires and fireplaces, imagine herself in front of the family fireplace in Austin or on a sunny beach, but it didn’t work. She was freezing, and Jill’s father kept yelling that they were all going to die of hypothermia.
    At least she had found the milk. Her eyes had hurt so badly from the fuel that covered