The man sitting beside him leaned away slightly. “Lady, this is insane.”
Laura knew it sounded insane too. But behind her, through the reinforced cockpit door, the warning alarm continued to pulse like a heartbeat growing weaker by the minute.
She had already tried contacting medical personnel among the passengers when the captain collapsed. None had aviation experience. The co-pilot was conscious but struggling to stabilize a cascade of failing systems.
Time was slipping away.
Laura exhaled slowly.
“Come with me,” she said.
The boy followed her down the aisle while whispers rippled through the cabin. Some passengers recorded the moment on their phones. Others simply watched with expressions that balanced between disbelief and desperate hope.
Inside the cockpit the atmosphere felt nothing like the calm professionalism passengers imagined during a flight.
Red warning lights flickered across the instrument panel.
The co-pilot, a young aviator named Michael Torres, struggled to keep the aircraft level while speaking rapidly into the radio headset.
