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Scott's sitting on the threshold of 36 Right as Pilot Flying, waiting for Tower to clear them, when Samir, his captain for the flight says, "Uh, is that a guy sprinting across the field over there?"
Scott looks over where Samir is pointing. There is indeed a guy running between Charlie and 36 Left, and he's not an airport employee, judging by the apparent lack of pants. "What the fuck?"
The dude is fast, Scott will give him that. He's cutting a straight track through the field, unfortunately running towards the action, not away from it.
"I'm calling it in," Samir says.
"Yeah," Scott agrees, except: "You're going to want me to do that."
"Why?"
"Trust me." Scott keys his mic. "Hey, Tower? American 909 Heavy. We've got a pedestrian sprinting across the grass out here. He's about to cross 36 Left, coming from the west."
There's a moment's pause, and then Scott's favorite voice says, "You always know how to brighten my day, American 909. Air Canada 7527, go around."
"Going around, Air Canada 7527," says a deep voice, sounding stressed. Scott can't blame him; it's only seconds later that the whine of engines flipped into TO/GA mode blasts past them. Scott watches the little Embraer climb away from the runway, just to their left and only a few hundred feet up.
Scott's not sure if Running Dude, now smack in the middle of the Embraer's target runway, realizes he's just had a near-death experience. How anyone could miss it, Scott isn't sure, but Dude just keeps going, stumbling a bit as he transitions from the runway back onto grass, but recovering quickly.
"He's crossed 36 Left and is heading for 36 Right," Scott says on freq.
"Thank you. Any ops vehicles on the channel?" Mitch asks, but no one responds. Scott assumes Mitch is conferring with Ground and the shift supervisor to get security out there in droves.
Running Dude continues running. He's got good endurance, Scott thinks, and decent form.
"Who the hell is this guy?" Samir asks.
Scott shrugs and they keep watching, because what else are they going to do right now.
"36 Left is closed," Mitch says a moment later. "Lufthansa 438 Heavy, landing clearance cancelled. Fly missed approach heading."
"Missed approach, Lufthansa 438 Heavy."
"Air Canada 7527, continue climbing to 4000. Contact Departure 118.55."
"4000 and switching to 118.55, Air Canada 7527," says the deep voice, still sounding unsteady. "He, uh, he was right in the middle of the runway."
Yeah, Scott gets why Air Canada's having a tough time fully processing that. Fucking terrifying from their perspective.
"I'm sorry about that," Mitch says, voice softening despite the mood Scott knows he has to be settling into. "See you back in a few when we've figured this out. American 909 Heavy, what can you see?"
Ha. Voice not softened now that he's back to addressing Scott.
"He's still running, almost to 36 Right now. Looks like he's heading straight across, about 300 yards ahead of us." Except no, even as Scott says it, Running Dude starts to turn so he's coming straight towards them. "Uh, scratch that. He's heading our way now."
"Must be your irresistible charm," Mitch says, in a tone that tells Scott he's not in fact being found charming in the slightest right now. "Ops 3, you up yet?"
"Ops 3, we're on Bravo heading for 36 Left. ETA two minutes."
"Ops 3, our visitor is now heading for the planes on the south end of 36 Right. Wanna hurry it up a little?"
"On our way to 36 Right, Ops 3 and 4."
Not fast enough. Scott really thinks Running Dude is going to stop or veer off right until the last minute, when it suddenly becomes clear he doesn't give a fuck about general vehicle safety, self preservation, or the hazard zones around jet planes.
"He's going under us!" Scott says on freq, and then yells, "Shut down, shut down!" to Samir.
Samir complies, of course, moving quickly with what Scott knows is muscle memory, setting the parking brake, cutting off the fuel supply. It doesn't stop him from muttering, "Someone this reckless almost deserves getting sucked through an engine."
Scott shudders at memories of things that almost happened, even as he flips on their APU and shuts down their non-essential systems to save power. "Hard disagree. But if it makes you feel better, think of it more as us saving American like $40 million on a replacement."
"Good point," Samir says, and then flips to the PA. "Cabin crew, contact the flight deck."
Good idea. The flight attendants and passengers might be able to see what's happening back there, while Scott and Samir can't.
Samir picks up the interphone as soon as it sounds.
There's been chatter on the radio while they've been busy, but Scott missed whatever was said. "This is American 909. We've shut down our engines," he updates Mitch while Samir talks to the cabin. "But we've lost sight of him for now. We think he ran under us, but we don't know what happened next."
That fact isn't stopping Scott from trying to peer as far under the fuselage as his window will let him see. Which is, sadly, not very.
"Uh, this is Delta 1021," says a woman's voice. Scott guesses she's one of the pilots in the A320 who'd been next in line when takeoffs were a thing that was about to happen for them. "He's...I think he's trying to climb onto your nose gear?"
"Wonderful," is all Scott can say. "Tower?"
"I'm on it."
On the plus side, Scott can now see the flashing lights of what presumably are Ops 3 and 4 barreling along Bravo.
"Tower, Ops 3." Speak of the devil. "Show 36 Right as closed."
Well, no shit.
"36 Right is closed," Mitch confirms. "He's apparently under the American 787 at the threshold."
"Copy, Ops 3."
"Delta, can you see what he's doing?" Scott asks.
"Not really," the woman responds. "He's kind of behind the-- oh, wait. He's jumped off the gear and is now moving back and towards your right side."
It's indescribably off-putting to have some untrained stranger crawling all over the underside of Scott's plane in a way he can't see or predict. Judging from Samir's facial expression as he listens to whatever the cabin crew is telling him, he's also feeling weirdly violated.
"I always thought those noise abatement chevrons on a Dreamliner's engines looked cool," Delta adds a moment later. "But it turns out they make pretty good handholds, too."
Oh, hell no. "He's climbing our engine? How??"
"He's nimble!" she says. "And he's made it up on your wing."
"They don't pay me enough for this," Scott can't help but say. "Seriously."
"I hear you!" Delta replies.
"While I'm getting out my tiniest violin to empathize with the insufficiencies of your top tier pilot salaries," Mitch says. "Can I get an actual situation report?"
"Tess says he's dancing on the wing," Samir says, interphone to his ear. "The macarena, if you're curious. Twenty bucks says he's a drunk off his ass Gen Xer who decided it was a nice day to go flying."
"No bet," Scott replies before getting back on freq. "Our flight attendants report he's dancing on our right wing, American 909."
"Of course he is." Mitch agrees. "Ops 3, status?"
"We're approaching the situation aircraft. Suspect is indeed up on the wing. More personnel and equipment are on the way."
Scott had really hoped to go the rest of his career without ever being the 'situation aircraft' again, although he has to admit this is far less stressful than last time.
"This is Delta 1021," the same woman as before says. "American, he's, um. He's gotten on his belly and shimmied out as far as he can get. Looks like he's...well, stroking your wingtip."
He's what now? "...Excuse me?"
"I think he owes your plane dinner and a movie."
Scott undoes his harness and twists around in his chair, pressing his face to the window. It allows him to just see the raked wingtip, and Running Dude is indeed laying on his belly, legs spread wide for balance, with his hands stretched out to fondle it. "That is disturbing."
"Can they just tranq him?" Samir asks, thankfully off frequency. "Like with a blow gun?"
Scott's only known Samir for about an hour, but he's one of the few captains Scott's had in the last year and a half who didn't immediately recognize either his name or his face, which was a surprisingly pleasant relief as they prepped for the flight.
Scott should have enjoyed the return to normalcy while it lasted. "He's like 20 feet off the ground."
Samir blinks at him. "Your point?"
Scott sighs and turns forward again, unable to maintain the uncomfortable position for long. "I don't really have one."
"Two more response vehicles as well as a fire truck and a set of stairs are 90 seconds out, American 909," Mitch says. "Try to hold onto your virtue just a couple more minutes."
That asshole. "Wow."
"I had no idea this flight came with a show," Delta's voice says. "I should have packed popcorn."
Unfortunately for Delta's show, but fortunately for Scott's nerves, things progress quickly after that. In between watching the various vehicles buzzing around them, Samir relaying Tess's reports from the cabin, and Mitch and the Delta pilot keeping them informed as well, they learn that Running Dude spends a few more minutes assaulting the wing of Scott's plane before being gently coaxed onto a set of portable stairs, and then not-so-gently coaxed into a squad car.
"Okay folks," Mitch says as the operations vehicles start to disperse. "We're going to sweep the runways and any taxiways he crossed and then hopefully get everyone moving again in just a few minutes. American 909 Heavy, you're heading back to the gate, right?"
Scott snorts at the tone and phrasing. Technically, it's the pilots' decision on what to do from here, although no one Scott knows would risk taking off after something like this without checking for damage first. But that was Mitch not so subtly letting him know exactly what decision he expects Scott's flight team to make.
Scott cocks an eyebrow at Samir. "You feel comfortable taxiing?"
Samir shakes his head. "He could have done anything under there. He was on the engine. I don't want to even fire it up until we get everything thoroughly checked out."
Scott nods agreement and keys the radio. "Tower, American 909 Heavy. We're going to request a tow back to the gate so we can have a full inspection done."
"Good call," Delta's voice says.
And it is, although Scott's already mourning the fresh ceviche he'd planned on having tonight. There's no way they're going to land before his favorite restaurant in Lima closes now.
"Okay," Mitch says. "Let me know when your company's got your tug on the way. Ground will expedite them out to you."
"That's sweet of you," Scott replies, knowing full well that now that all signs of danger have passed, Mitch's entire reasoning behind hurrying the tug along is to get Scott off his damn runway that much sooner so he can start cleaning up the mess that's been made to the flight schedule.
Scott's going to be mocked about this for years, though. He can already tell.
"Do you know the Tower controller personally?" Samir finally asks, as their tug is being hooked up and there's little left for them to actively do. "I know he's informal by reputation, but that seemed a little extreme, even for him."
Scott smirks. "I may or may not be married to him."
Samir blinks and then laughs, sitting back in his chair. "That explains a lot."
Scott bets it does, which is when another thought occurs to him. A situation like this is going to make it onto mainstream media, not just aviation enthusiast circles. There are no doubt already a bunch of phone vids being uploaded of Running Dude assaulting Scott's plane, and the ATC recordings are going to be edited and up on YouTube by tomorrow at the latest.
But because it's Mitch, all it's going to take is one aviation nerd recognizing Scott's voice or Mitch's attitude towards him, and then a reporter catching wind that he's Scott Hoying of American Flight 6226, and it'll cause another media sensation and disrupt Scott's peaceful life all over again for the foreseeable future.
He groans and keys the radio. "Hey, Tower? American 909."
There's a slight pause as Mitch no doubt registers his change in tone. "Go ahead."
"You're going to owe me a really fancy dinner for this when I get back."
"...Copy that."
:)