Blowback

Based on the reconnaissance photos, they had all known that the landing would be extremely treacherous. The only way it would work was if each pilot began putting a lot of pressure on the brakes the moment they touched down. With all the extra weight they were carrying it would be dicey, and even then, their best projections were that they would stop with just feet to spare.

With a landing strip that only allowed for one aircraft at a time, the idea had been for the team members to unload while each pilot opened the nose of his aircraft and extended the prop back outside so he could taxi back up the meadow, turn around, and come rushing back toward the edge of the cliff for takeoff.

Harvath leaned forward over the seat in front of him and tried to aid Schroeder’s commando, Gösser, in peeling the pilot off the aircraft’s yoke. It was too late for the brakes. Their only hope was to steer the glider away from the cliff, which they were racing closer and closer toward.

Getting his hands underneath the pilot’s arms, Harvath wrenched backward with all his might. As the pilot came free, Gösser grabbed hold of the yoke and yanked hard to the right toward the balance of the meadow and the château.

The remaining tires groaned against the ground in protest as they bounced over several large rocks. The cliff face was less than twenty meters away. Harvath thought about opening what remained of the shattered canopy and bailing out, but he knew that at their rate of speed, all it would take was for his head to hit one rock and he’d be killed instantly. Even if he was able to avoid the rocks, he’d hit the ground so fast, he wouldn’t stop rolling until after he had gone over the edge. There was only one way out-they had to turn that aircraft, and that meant not only using the yoke, but the rudders as well.

“To the left!” yelled Harvath as he unbuckled the pilot and struggled to pull him over the seatback and into the second row, where he was sitting. “Turn the yoke the other way as hard as you can and pin the left pedal to the floor!”

“But we’ll crash into the side of the mountain!” screamed Gösser.

“Do it!” shouted Schroeder, who understood what Harvath was trying to accomplish. In its current condition, there was no way the Icarus was going to give one inch in turning to the right toward the little expanse of meadow alongside the château. Their only hope was in steering into the damage. Better to hit the side of the mountain than to go over the cliff.

Gösser strained with his whole body and pulled the yoke to the left as hard as he could, but the aircraft refused to respond. Harvath glanced forward, calculated the distance until the drop-off, and prepared for the worst. They were going over the edge.

Then slowly, ever so slowly, the clipped glider started to nose in the direction they wanted it to go. It was almost imperceptible at first, but then the craft made a marked shift to the left. Harvath was about to breathe a sigh of relief when he saw a pile of granite rubble directly in the center of their path.

With no other choice, he braced for impact, using the pilot’s body as a makeshift airbag.

The jagged pile of rocks met the plane and acted like a ramp, tearing away half the glider’s nose as it was catapulted right at the face of the mountain. Harvath’s stomach caught in his throat, and he knew that they were airborne. The mountain stood poised to meet the tiny aircraft head-on, but just as they were closing in on impact, something happened.

They had cut almost a ninety-degree turn. Everything they had going for them was on the right-hand side of the aircraft, which included the remaining wing and the thermals rising up from the floor of the valley. It was one of those thermals that caught beneath the wing and pitched the glider into a barrel roll.

After one complete revolution, the remaining portion of wingspan dug into the rocky ground and completely snapped off, sending the fuselage rolling back up the meadow until it finally came to rest on its side. The smell of cordite in the cockpit from the discharge of Harvath’s MP7 was quickly replaced by another, much more terrifying scent-jet fuel.

Harvath lowered the pilot to the leeward portion of the Icarus, then planted his feet on the seat supports and unbuckled his seat belt. “Let’s get the hell out of here. Can everybody move?” he asked as he unlocked the canopy.

Schroeder responded first, followed by a grunt from Rayburn. Even Gösser, who hadn’t had time to fully buckle in, was alive and literally kicking. The canopy was pinched shut by a large rock, but after several thrusts from the man’s heavy boots, it sprang open, and they were able to flee the aircraft and get the pilot to safety before the relatively small fuel tank of the Icarus exploded in a significant fireball.

Safely away from the wreckage, Harvath asked if everyone was okay. There was a chorus of yeses, capped off with the motorglider’s groggy pilot coming to and saying, “So much for all-terrain tires.”