“Skyhawk Four Charlie Lima, wind two-five-zero at five, cleared for takeoff, runway 2–8 right, right downwind departure approved.”

“Four Charlie Lima, cleared for takeoff, 2–8 right, right downwind departure.”

I eased the throttle forward, just enough to get the Ruptured Duck rolling, and slowly taxied out, steering with rudder pedals and toe brakes until we were facing straight down the runway. I set the directional gyro to 280 degrees, aligned with the runway’s magnetic heading, and checked the orange windsock to confirm that the wind was still more or less out of the west.

“Any final requests?”

“Not funny,” Lawless said.

“Definitely not funny,” Rosario said.

She made the sign of the cross as I advanced the throttle and we began rolling, picking up speed. I checked my engine instruments — all were showing proper indications — and rotated as we accelerated past sixty-five knots, pulling back gently on the yoke. The Duck’s nose rose into the air, sniffing the sky, tentatively at first, and just like that, we were climbing.

And then we weren’t.

Things went from “A-OK” to “Uh-oh” in about two seconds. The engine revved out-of-control and began screaming like a jilted lover. Oil splattered the windscreen.

“Is it supposed to do that?” Rosario said. Her eyes were as big as Kennedy half-dollars.

There’s an adage in flying: “You don’t have to take off, but you do have to land.” We definitely had to land. We were 200 feet above the ground with substantially less than 1,000 feet of runway remaining below us. Past the end of the runway, running perpendicular to it, was busy Highway 163. I had a decision to make: either put down on what little runway I had left and try to stop before slamming into freeway traffic; or turn right, keep flying, and hope the Ruptured Duck’s engine held out long enough to get us to the much longer runways at Miramar, former home of the Navy’s famed “Top Gun” fighter weapons school, about three miles to the north. The decision was made for me.

The engine seized.

The propeller froze. The airspeed indicator swung down instantly to zero. I instinctively pushed the Ruptured Duck’s nose hard over, avoiding the imminent stall, and dove. I probably should’ve said something classically pilot-like and reassuring to my passengers along the lines of, “This one might be cutting it a little close.” Instead, don’t ask me why, I blurted out, “Whoa, Nelly.”

Any landing you can walk away from, as the old saw goes, is a good landing; any landing after which you can reuse the airplane is a great landing. I had a bad feeling this landing was going to be neither.

“C’mon, Duck. Don’t do this to me now.”

I wondered how many people on the ground were taking cell phone videos of us at that minute. Nothing beats an air crash when it comes to entertainment value. Ships sinking are like watching paint dry compared to planes going down. Likewise train derailments. Unless you’re one of those creepy old dudes who wear Casey Jones caps and get turned on by miniature choo-choos chugging around and around through some fake little countryside they’ve constructed in their basement, does anybody truly care when real trains upend real grain silos out in the hinterlands?

I would’ve charged admission, but it all happened too fast.

I disengaged the master switch and flipped the fuel selector lever to “off” to minimize the chances of fire, then hauled back on the elevator at the last possible second, as far as it would go, raising the nose to something approaching a landing flair. The maneuver arrested our descent, but not by much. The Ruptured Duck belly-flopped, bounced limply back into the air like a corpse on a trampoline, then back down again. We quickly ran out of runway and skidded onto unpaved ground, heading for the freeway. I stood on the toe brakes. The Cessna careened sideways, ground looped, then pitched onto its back and slid in a groaning, grinding blizzard of dirt clods and dust.

And then, no more than twenty feet from the freeway frontage road, abruptly, mercifully, we stopped.

All was silent inside the airplane. I could smell gas fumes, but there was no fire. I made a quick inventory of my parts. Everything still seemed to be working. I looked over at Rosario, then back at Lawless as the three of us hung upside down in our seat belts. Except for a small cut on Lawless’s forehead, both detectives appeared unhurt.

“Everybody OK?”

“What kind of stupid-ass question is that?” Lawless shouted. “No, I am not OK! You nearly got us killed!”

“Well, that’s certainly one way to spin it. I prefer to look at it from the sunny side. Think how long you would’ve had to stand in line at Disneyland to get on a ride as thrilling as that.”

“You think this is some kind of joke? Go fuck yourself, asshole. Now, get me the hell out of here!”

Yet another satisfied customer. Thanks for flying Logan Airways.

I could hear sirens approaching. I told Lawless to relax and that I’d help him and Rosario out of the plane.

Escaping the wreckage required nothing more than unlatching my door. I unbuckled my seat belt, sort of half-rolled out of the upturned airplane, then hustled around to the other side to give Rosario an assist as she crawled out on her hands and knees. Lawless was right behind her. I offered him my hand. He pushed it aside.

“I don’t want your goddamn help,” he said.

With my passengers safe, I surveyed the damage:

The Ruptured Duck’s right wing was crumpled from strut to wingtip. The tailfin and right side of the horizontal stabilizer were crushed. The prop was bent at one end like a pipe cleaner, and the nose wheel twisted at a grotesque angle that reminded me of Joe Theismann’s leg after that sack by Lawrence Taylor. I tried to get mad at my airplane for having failed me, but I couldn’t. The Duck had absorbed the force of the crash and saved our lives.

“Nice job, old buddy,” I whispered, patting his scraped and dented fuselage.

“Now that was a rush,” Rosario said, smiling and trembling at the same time. “Not that I’d want to do it every day.”

There was no ready explanation as to why the Duck’s engine had abruptly failed. I’d been meticulous in its maintenance. Never once had anything that would be considered a major problem. I knew that federal aviation officials would investigate to determine the cause of the crash. They would invariably blame it on me, if only to reassure other pilots who fly Cessna 172’s, the most popular airplane ever built, that the same type of accident couldn’t possibly happen to them because of mechanical malfunction. But there was no time to concern myself with that now.

A red San Diego fire engine pulled up, lights flashing. Three firefighters garbed head-to-toe in silver, Area 51-style hazmat suits climbed down from the truck. Two of them, armed with handheld extinguishers, began spraying down the plane even though there were no flames to fight. The third carried a medical kit and asked us if we required treatment.

“This man is a menace!” Lawless said, pointing at me as the firefighter tried to examine the cut on his forehead. “I’m placing him under arrest for attempted murder.” Lawless pushed the fireman aside, reached for his handcuffs and ordered me to turn around.

“Kurt, it was an accident,” Rosario said. “Be happy you’re alive. I am. I’m ecstatic, in fact. Now, why don’t you let the nice firefighter have a look at that cut?”

“He told us it was safe. Is that not what he said?” Lawless was breathing hard. “Well, it’s definitely not safe! We could’ve died, Rosario. And he knew it.”

Lawless grabbed my wrist to cuff me. I spun out of his hold.

“Listen to your partner, Detective. It was an accident.”

“Resisting arrest and attempted murder. That’s it!”