“And your airspeed is drifting,” Zawati continued. “You’re watching altitude, but airspeed matters more right now. If you get too slow, you lose maneuvering margin.”
She pointed to the readout.
The co-pilot stared at her.
“How do you know that?”
“I read a lot.”
Another hard jolt rocked the plane. Zawati grabbed the back of the captain’s seat to stay upright.
Co-pilot Kim’s face became a battlefield—skepticism against fear, protocol against survival.
“Do you understand what happens if we crash?” Kim demanded. “Do you understand what happens to me if I let a child into this cockpit and something goes wrong? My career will be over. My life will be over.”
Zawati looked at her.
“Only the living can get fired.”
The words landed hard.
Kim flinched.
“If we crash,” Zawati said quietly, “nobody will care about rules. Or who was supposed to be in this seat. They will only care that we are dead.” She paused. “My father is Park Junho. The Park Junho. The one whose training systems you probably studied. He’s been teaching me since before I could read.”
Recognition moved across Kim’s expression.
That name meant something.
Park Junho was not merely rich.
He was aviation royalty.
Finally Kim asked, “What do you need me to do?”
Relief moved so sharply through Zawati her knees almost gave way.
“Call ground control,” she said. “Tell them what’s happening. Tell them to contact my father.”
Kim nodded and reached for the radio.
Zawati looked once more across the cockpit: the unconscious captain, the storm beyond the glass, the screens flashing data and warning lights, the closed door separating them from a cabin full of people who did not know their lives had been narrowed down to this room.
She was terrified.
Absolutely terrified.
But for the first time in her life she was not watching aviation through glass.
She was inside it.
The radio crackled.
Then a voice came through.
Familiar.
Broken by fear.
“Zawati?”
Her breath caught.
“Abeoji?”
It was her father.
His voice sounded wrong to her—not because she had never heard him afraid, but because she had. Only never like this. Never with his fear wrapped around her name.
“What are you doing?” he asked, and then immediately, “Are you okay? Is the co-pilot with you?”
“Yes. She’s here. The pilot—he’s unconscious.”
“I know. We know. Tell me what is happening right now.”
Co-pilot Kim looked at Zawati and gave a tight nod.
So Zawati described everything—the storm, the pilot’s condition, the handling issues, the warnings, the feel of the aircraft.
Her father’s tone stayed calm, but beneath it she could hear something raw.
“You’re doing well,” he said. “Now read me the numbers. Altitude, airspeed, heading.”
Her voice trembled, but she read them.
“Good. Tell the co-pilot to reduce throttle slowly. Not too fast. We want descent, but controlled descent.”
Zawati relayed the instruction.
Kim complied.
The plane’s nose dipped.
“That’s good,” Junho said. “Now adjust pitch slightly. Not hard. Just enough to keep the sink rate manageable.”
Zawati passed it on.
Kim obeyed.
For the next several minutes, Zawati became the human link between two minds separated by distance and fear—her father on the ground, the co-pilot in the seat, and Zawati in the middle carrying instructions from one world to the other.
Her fear did not disappear.
It simply found a job.
She listened.
Repeated.
Watched.
Spoke carefully.
“We’re losing altitude too fast,” her father said suddenly. “Tell her to level slightly. Push the nose down just a little less. Stabilize first.”
She did.
Kim adjusted.
“Good. Now heading—you’re drifting east. Correct five degrees left.”
Zawati relayed again.
The plane turned.
It was working.
It was actually working.
“You are doing well, Zawati,” her father said.
Those words hit somewhere deep inside her. She had been waiting her whole life to hear him say that about anything connected to flying.
“We are approaching the edge of the storm,” he continued. “Turbulence should ease soon. Can you see the ground?”
Zawati peered ahead. The gray was thinning.
“I see land. A little. It’s getting clearer.”
“Good. Now we think about landing. The nearest suitable field is Gimhae. About twenty minutes if you hold the descent.”
“Gimhae,” Zawati repeated.
“Tell her to start the landing checklist. Slowly. No rushing.”
Kim began calling out the items.
Flaps.
Landing gear.
Fuel pumps.
Configuration.
Zawati read. Kim confirmed. The system that had nearly collapsed began to take shape again.
“We’re going to make it,” Zawati whispered, almost to herself.
“We are going to make it,” her father echoed.
Then the radio spat a burst of static so loud it made her flinch.
His voice cut off mid-instruction.
And then there was only noise.
“Abeoji?”
Nothing.
She pressed the transmit button.
“Father? Can you hear me?”
Static.
Then less than static.
Then silence.
The co-pilot turned sharply.
“What happened?”
“We lost him.”
Kim switched frequencies, tried again, her voice rising with panic.
“Gimhae Approach, this is Korean Air—can anyone hear me?”
Nothing came back.
Just empty hiss.
“The storm must have damaged something,” Kim said. “Antenna, relay—we’re cut off.”
Zawati stared at the dead radio.
The calm in her father’s voice had become a lifeline without her realizing it.
Now it was gone.
They were alone.
Kim looked at her with new fear.
“What do we do? We cannot land blind. We don’t know runway status. We don’t know wind. We don’t know traffic.”
“We do not crash,” Zawati said.
The firmness in her own voice surprised her. It sounded like her father’s voice. The one he used when panic was a luxury nobody could afford.
“You don’t understand,” Kim said. “Without ground control, we are guessing.”
“He told us enough.”
Zawati’s mind raced backward through the last clear instructions.
“Before the line died, he said runway three-two left.”
Kim stared at her.
“Are you sure?”
Zawati wasn’t.
Not completely.
But the moment did not allow room for that kind of honesty.
