NARAYAN GADAGKAR Poet Free verse

Valour in the sky

A plane climbing into the evening sky
Over the Arabian desert
Passengers settled into their seats
Flight cruising at thirty thousand feet                                                                                                                Relaxed passengers watching movies                                                                                                              Some are sleeping, some chatting.

Inside the cockpit, the captain in his action
Sudden chaos, scene cuts rapidly
Warning alarm, violent movements
Control yokes moved, altitude dropped
Aircraft plunges fourteen thousand feet

Passengers scream, drink carts rattle
Oxygen masks dropped, started swinging
Cabin lights flickered
What's happening?
"Hold on!" We're falling! Many believed 
Their final moments they witnessed
A jetliner with one hundred seventy-four souls
 is plunging toward the desert below, that minute 
might have been the longest in their lives.


Something was amiss; the cockpit was tense
Co-pilot unleashes terror and attacks
the Captain in the cockpit to bump him off
The co-pilot plotted an act of massacre
To make   the plane hit and kill all passengers


The captain was brave, a valiant 
Injured, bleeding, still reined in the attacker
And fought his way to the cockpit door.
Men run toward the cockpit.
Fear turned into determination.
A violent struggle follows
Hands pulling, bodies colliding.

A few brave passengers subdued the attacker
Off-duty pilots travelling as passengers
Stepped forward to regain control of the aircraft
Headed for landing and the wheels touch down.
Against all bizarre odds, the aircraft lands safely.
Then came the sighs, tears and prayers of gratitude 
Passengers who looked into the face of death 
now live to tell the tale.
 
                           …………  Narayan Gadagkar

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Arthur Vaso October 8, 2026 at 8:39 PM I see you like writing about fairy tales, this was a false flag op by Israel. First the plane never lost that altitude, the air masks did not drop and the people were filmed celebrating with nothing disturbed in the plane. The story has been debunked by real pilots not plumbers. Now just a little note for you, I have friends in Tel Aviv, when this city was being bombed, foreign Indian workers were not allowed in bomb shelters, food for thought.