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rule forgotten, straining to see, watching as the lights of the oncoming Airbus seemed to stabilize behind the trees in the distance, hanging there for seconds which ticked by with the unhurried, torturous pace of passing hours. Pete’s mind rebelled at the idea he could be watching a crash in progress. That simply couldn’t happen, although he knew intellectually it could—and had in other places at other times when technologically sophisticated aircraft had tangled with windshear in thunderstorms. It looked for all the world, Pete thought, like Timson had flown into a microburst. But surely he could fly out of it. Those lights had to climb … had to rise!
    Just when it seemed the surrealism of what they were watching had gone too far to believe, Flight 255 rose above the tree line, the Airbus’s screaming engines pushing it back to a safe altitude, the aircraft finally crossing the approach lights of Runway 19 as it climbed steeply, the powerful twin beams from the landing lights cutting upward into the misty skies like something out of a Steven Spielberg movie.
    â€œI was afraid he was going to get in trouble out there. Dick’s a good pilot—he knows better than to fly into stuff like that.” Pete said the words quietly, his voice drowned out suddenly by the approaching engine noise, his eyes following the huge machine as it passed in front of them, the sound of both turbojets at full power literally shaking the smaller Boeing 737.
    â€œGood Lord, Pete, he was below the tree line!” Jean’s eyes were glued to the Airbus as it flew overhead. A stiff wind from the northwest replaced the vibration of the passing Airbus, shaking the 737 gently as thunderstorm-generated gusts moved their airspeed needles slightly, then died down.
    â€œTwo-fifty-five’s going around. Severe microburst on final.” The strained voice from the cockpit of the North America Airbus echoed in the ears of the 737 pilots and the control tower simultaneously.
    â€œNorth America 255, what are your intentions?” Tower controller Carl Sellers acknowledged the go-around call from the Airbus with a logical question. Now the airplane was over the middle of the airport, apparently leveling off at about 1,500 feet. Obviously they had experienced a close encounter with windshear, and they’d probably want to go out and enter a holding pattern somewhere, letting the storm blow through. That was what Carl expected, so what he heard next made no sense.
    â€œTower, North America 255 would like a closed pattern. We’ll come right back around for another visual approach to Runway one-nine.”
    A closed pattern meant they wanted to make a U-turn, fly back parallel to the runway, and immediately turn back to land on the same runway. That was unbelievable. They had flown through what they themselves called a severe microburst. Now they wanted to do it again?
    â€œWhat’s he up to, Pete?” Jean asked in the cockpit of North America 170.
    â€œBe damned if I know, but I’d bet that microburst is still out there. Did you feel it a moment ago?”
    â€œYeah.”
    The white taillights of the 320 could be seen banking to the right as Timson or his copilot turned the big jet. The two of them watched in silence as the Airbus made its way back toward the north.
    â€œThe wind’s died down. Maybe he knows what he’s doing.” Jean Simonson had pushed her face almost over the forward glare shield, cupping her left hand to block the instrument lights as she tried to figure out what the pilots of Flight 255 were thinking. She watched as the Airbus reached a point approximately a mile north of the runway and began a steep right turn back in their direction. Their 737 sat on the hammerhead just to the left of the approach end of Runway 19, the right side of the cabin visible to the approaching flight crew.
    â€œJeez, that’s going to be tight.” Jean seemed stunned, and Pete