Page 43 of Air Force One (Miranda Chase #16)
The nose of Air Force One had created significant adhesion with the muddy ocean floor by the simple expedient of hitting it hard.
The nose’s initial impact had occurred with sufficient force to compact the soil.
Underwater, this was achieved by driving the water out of the sediments.
At sixty meters depth, the six tons per square foot pressure actually compressed the ocean floor and resisted water reentering the soils.
With the lightening of the plane, it began to work back and forth. This created a pumping action within the mud, making it expand and compress, rebalancing the degree of water saturation. The water forcing its way in began acting as a lubricant, allowing a tiny amount more motion with each shift.
The wave that broke Air Force One free from the bottom wasn’t notable in any way.
First, its leading trough washed across the tail at a sixty-degree angle to the wide flat planes of the twenty-meter-wide horizontal stabilizer.
Air Force One swung steeply toward lying belly up.
But it didn’t release from the bottom. Next the wave caught the stabilizer and swung the plane in the opposite direction.
At depth, the plane finally ripped free from the ocean bed.
It shot to the surface tail first. The tail and forty meters of the fuselage broke clear of the waves before slamming down to plant the tail much as General Owen had first intended to attempt his landing—with a hard smack and a huge cloud of spray.
The three US Coast Guard cutters had been holding station at the points of their kilometer-a-side triangle. This placed them each five hundred and seventy meters from the plane.
When Air Force One shot to the surface, it accelerated rapidly until it was traveling backward at thirty knots atop the waves moving at twenty themselves. It now had sufficient buoyancy that it didn’t wallow in the waves but rather skidded over the wave crests as if hydroplaning along a highway.
The Bear’s chosen station lay directly downwind from Air Force One.
Commander Randy Davidson had trained his entire career to act quickly when something threatened his ship.
“All back full! All back full!” In hindsight, he should have had the stern facing the airplane. Fat lot of good that did him now. A Famous-class cutter was not an RHIB speed boat, especially not backward.
They’d been half a kilometer from the sinking site. Forty meters of plane had shot out above the surface and finally impacted the water a hundred and fifty meters from the sinking site—a third of the way to his ship and closing fast.
“Sound general alarm!” He had to wait out the seven short ringing tones and one long one before he could continue. “Evacuate bow and all compartments forward of Frame Three. Seal all hatches throughout the ship.”
Bear began crawling backward away from the fast-approaching plane.
“It will not impact us, Commander.”
He spared a glance at Miranda.
“As it slows, the water we were unable to evacuate will slosh toward the forward end—that would be the forward end of motion, which is the stern of the aircraft. This will cause the tail section to dig in. That would imply a different course for best action than the one you have chosen at this momen—”
“Get to the point, woman.”
“Stop engines and reel in on your tow line as quickly as possible. Otherwise the tail will dig into the waves and the plane will likely sink, this time to the bottom of the sea.”
That felt even worse than being rammed by Air Force One.
“Winch full,” he commanded, though he wasn’t about to stop his retreat. He prayed to God that she was right. That tail section was as tall as the top of his ship’s mast. It was a damn big piece of metal to watch coming his way.