Golf Echo Bravo

by part time pony

Chapter 1 | Mayday

Toulouse-Blagnac Airport, France

11:47 AM

It was a hot Tuesday Afternoon, the weather today had exceeded all expectations. The sun was hitting the ground and providing perhaps too much heat to the city of Toulouse in Southern France, the city where the famous European multinational corporation that designs, builds and sells popular aircraft. Such as the double-deck Airbus A380, or the small yet comfortable Airbus A318. One of these smaller Airbuses was currently on Runway 14R. The Aircraft had recently been built and was flying on its maiden voyage. Not that it was the first A318 ever built, but the more recent one. The Aircraft had been ordered by a British Airline but had however cancelled the order. Now the Aircraft was instead going to become the aircraft to represent the A318 aeroplane and the A320 Family.

Onboard the plane were two pilots, Captain Antoine Pardieu and First Officer Timothy Coburn. Antoine was French while his friend, Timothy was British. Both are highly experienced pilots, having flown for over 12 years and knew every little detail that came with the cockpit of an Airbus. Today their destination was Keflavik Airport, the biggest Airport in Iceland and the hub for Icelandair and WOW! Air. It also served as the airport for Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland.

The Aircraft would have the callsign of Golf Echo Bravo for the flight because this wasn't a commercial flight, so, therefore, there'd be no digits or anything else that commercial flights had.
"Golf Echo Bravo, the wind is heading from the east at 4 knots. Cleared for takeoff Runway 14R." ATC said.

"Cleared for takeoff Runway 14R, Golf Echo Bravo," Antoine responded.

Timothy began to increase thrust. Slowly, the plane began to move on the runway. Upon reaching higher speeds, it began to shake a little but nothing too big to abort take off.
"V1," Timothy said.

"Rotate," he said again.

Upon hearing 'Rotate', Antoine began to pull on the control stick to the left of him. The Airbus A318 began to leave the runway and fly. The landing gear would then also no longer be on the ground. The plane was now flying and slowly pulling away from Toulouse-Blagnac Airport.

"Gear up," Antoine said.

Timothy located the Landing Gear level and pulled it upwards, following this the sound of the gear being brought up could be heard. The plane began to climb in altitude. Once they reached Positive Climb, Timothy retracted the flaps so that the Airbus could fly at max speed during cruising, also because it was much safer so.

1:27 PM

The Airbus A318 had been cruising for the past two hours. It was now in Icelandic Airspace and was about 120 Kilometers from Keflavik Airport. The plane was flying above the Westmann Islands. Timothy was on his laptop that he carried on medium-range flights to entertain himself while the plane was on Auto-pilot. Antoine, on the other hand, was measuring fuel consumption.

However, unbeknownst to the two pilots, a Volcanic Eruption had just occurred 20 kilometres from their location. ATC would detect it quickly but, they'd fail to warn Golf Echo Bravo. Somehow, the controller responsible for warning all aircraft had failed to reach the Airbus A318, the plane was an emergency about to happen. Unless the pilots were to spot the eruption themselves they would need to hope that they could find a suitable road for landing or hope they can reach Keflavik Airport by gliding the plane.

The plane, flying at 380 km/h was approaching fast the ash. It didn't take long before the aircraft passed right through it and alerted the two pilots. Both their engines were gone. They were now experiencing a similar situation, if not the same to what happened to British Airways Flight 9, a Boeing 747-200 on the 24th June 1982 flew into Volcanic Ash that had erupted from Mount Galunggung south-east of Jakarta. As of result of this, all four engines failed. Luckily for them, three of the engines managed to restart and the plane safely landed in Jakarta.

"We've got both engines rolling back!" Timothy warned Antoine of the problem occurring.

The speed of the plane began to drop. Antoine put away the notebook which he was previously writing on all essential in-flight details. He quickly disabled Auto-pilot and began to steer the aircraft.

"Contact Keflavik Airport, tell them we have an emergency," Antoine said to Timothy.

While Antoine was flying the plane, Timothy would contact Keflavik Tower.
"Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Keflavik Tower, Golf Echo Bravo we've lost both engines to Volcanic Ash, requesting assistance."

"Golf Echo Bravo, Roger. Turn Right Heading 170, align with ILS for ILS Approach." Keflavik Tower would instruct the crew.

Antoine would do as he heard, he would turn the plane right, 170. There he would attempt to align with the ILS for the approach. When all of the sudden. Electric sparks appeared out of nowhere in front of the aircraft. Antoine did not know what it was, nor did Timothy. But both knew it wasn't good. They attempted to switch directions but the electric sparks followed. Eventually, the sparks became a hole. A purple one that looked like a portal to another dimension. Antoine reacted quickly and pulled up, however it was to no avail. The plane entered the portal and then appeared on the other sides.

The land in front was beautiful, but it didn't look like the one on Earth. Something wasn't right they thought. It was too colourful for it to be Earth. The engines, which were previously rendered useless were now working again somehow. The crew did not know that the portal they just passed through, took them to Equestria. Home of the Pony and other species.

Elsewhere

Rainbow Dash was flying, flying like she always did. However, instead of flying near her home she decided to take it one step further and fly at the Smokey Mountains. She was mostly practising flying close to the ground without hitting the ground and getting hurt. After flying for about two hours and starting to get exhausted, she decided to return to her home. A homemade out of clouds. Though, what she would see on her return was to surprise her.

She began to hear loud noises, they sounded unnatural, it'd be impossible for a creature to create that sound. When the noises got louder she decided to look backwards from where they were coming from. Suddenly, a white object appeared and was about to collide with her. Having quick reflexes she flew upwards to dodge the collision. She saw how the giant object with wings flew away. Being a curious pony, she decided to follow the object. The fast pegasus mare managed to catch up. The object was huge for her. Though the object was probably flying much faster than she could, the mare still managed to follow it and spectate as the object was flying through the sky. It was also headed for Ponyville.

Onboard the Airbus A318

The plane was low on fuel. Antoine and Timothy would need to land the aircraft, but there was only a problem. They were unable to contact Air Traffic Control or locate an Airport on the radar. The plane would be forced to make an emergency landing. Timothy pulled down the landing gear and the flaps. The Radio Altimeter had also been activated now.

"Five Hundred." The Radio Altimeter said.

The plane was now visible to anyone who was looking the sky. It was approaching the ground fast and not far from where the plane was going to land was a town. It didn't look big and Timothy estimated it housed 500-1000.
The plane was also now approaching to stall. They knew they couldn't risk a stall but at the same time, they couldn't waste fuel. It wasn't until an alarm began to ring that they had to apply thrust to save themselves.

"Sink rate, Sink rate."

"Pull up! Pull up!"

The plane was now flying lower than a hundred meters above the ground. Below the aircraft was the Everfree forest, if the plane was to go down now, it wouldn't be very good as the forest was a dangerous one. Therefore a new alarm began ringing in the cockpit.
"Terrain, Terrain, Pull up!"

"Fifty."
"Fourty."
"Thirty."
"Twenty."
"Ten."
"Retard, Retard."

The plane's landing gear located in the middle would touch the ground. The Airbus would flare slightly before the front landing gear made contact with the ground. Antoine applied the reverse thrusters and the spoilers came on as well to aid in the braking. The plane barely came to a stop before it advanced into a forest not far away.
When the Airbus A318 came to a stop, so did the engines and all the lights that had been activated. The crew of the Airbus had just done something that is rarely successfully done.

Rainbow Dash who had followed the plane the whole time landed right beside it. She was the first pony to witness such a large object that looked like it came from another world. It was impossible for this to come from Equestria.
Shortly after, Rainbow Dash's 5 best friends came.

"Rainbow Dash, what is that?" Twilight Sparkle asked.

"I dunno! You're an egg head so you should know!" Rainbow Dash responded.

Suddenly, a noise coming from the plane could be heard. One of the doors was opening on the other side of where the ponies were. Then, a grey slide appeared out of the door.

"Oh! A Slide! I can have so much fun with it!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed and began to run towards the slide before being stopped by Applejack who had grabbed her tail using the teeth. She pulled the pink mare back.

"Careful Pinkie, it can be dangerous!" Applejack said.

Antoine and Timothy were now outside of the Aircraft. The ponies could only see the legs of the two humans as the Aircraft was blocking the rest. Twilight Sparkle began to approach the Aircraft. She went under it and could see the two humans fully.

"Um, hello?" The lavender unicorn said quietly.

Both pilots turned around quickly, being slightly scared as it was unexpected. They examined the creature that resembled a horse, but it wasn't a horse. It was a pony, a unicorn. And an intelligent one.

"H-hello?" Timothy said, still being quite shocked.

First Contact, had just been made.

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading Chapter 1 of my new fanfiction Golf Echo Bravo. I hope you all enjoyed it!

25/02/2018 - Minor edits have been made, mostly correcting spelling errors and grammar.

09/04/2018 - One minor edit has been made.

Comments

[Sir Budginton]

The sight of a giant (relatively speaking) commercial airliner flying must be crazy for the ponies. Seeing such a huge machine in the air without any kind of balloon to hold it up must really be a sight to behold for someone who has never seen such a thing before.

[chikunbot]

i just needed to read the first chapter to get hook now shut and take my money encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQbAoNi-2jLwvqaAiqIbR9NpXlFvTCqR_N4wCXpc_31KqvtXZL03w

[Georg]

Don't worry. CNN will be right there.

[Mr_13]

Isn't there already a story like that? With an A380

[part time pony]

8645355
I don't know if there is, but if there is then I had no idea it existed.

[giganticcats]

8645398
There is, but this is already better

[DGJabberwocky]

Is this a cargo plane or are there passengers?

[paladinwolf]

everything happened too fast. there was so many opportunities for our pilots to work together and for us to get to know who they are and how they work together that were passed over. nothing horrible, but the whole lead up to and shut down of the engines should have been described in full... common man, that's a pants change moment for any pilot I'm sure! instead it was glazed over with barely a thought, same as the engine reignition and regaining control, glazed over. eh, just my 2 cents...

media1.tenor.com/images/ee0cd4b74b16c0661e2e8891ae0c28cc/tenor.gif?itemid=8304599

[part time pony]

10460325
Thank you for the feedback.

I recognize the part in which everything went too fast, I'm actually inclined to agree with you. Unfortunately, younger me from 17/18 does not. Whether I will rewrite the early chapters or not is a question for another time, however, your opinion is noted.

Also, your username sounds familiar.. can't put my finger on it though.

[Average_NZ_Bronie]

thank you for being one of the few people who knows what airbuses say when the gpws is activated against what boeings say