I Let My Wife’s Plane Crash Without Me

When my wife called the control tower for emergency assistance, I took off my headset, put on my earbuds and started listening to music. In my previous life, when her aircraft suffered a critical malfunction, I did everything I could to save her. I walked her through the emergency procedures, coordinated the landing, and brought more than one hundred passengers safely back to the ground. But when I ran to meet her with tears in my eyes, she pointed at me and screamed, "Why did you deliberately give me the wrong instructions? You almost killed everyone on the plane!" As the crowd turned on me, my best friend, the first officer, pretended to defend me. "Everyone, calm down. Don't go too far." I saved every life on that flight only to be trampled to death by the very people I had rescued. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the morning their flight took off. Chapter 1 "Flight TK6587, you are cleared for takeoff." From the control tower, I calmly issued the clearance to my wife, Captain Olivia Carter. Her clear voice crackled through the radio, carrying a playful smile. "No 'fly safe' today?" Every time she took off, I always ended the transmission the same way. "Fly safe. Bring everyone home." Half a blessing. Half a prayer. This time, I forced down my disgust and hatred before replying evenly. "Fly safe." As an air traffic controller at Riverside International Airport, my job was simple. Guide every aircraft safely home. Protect every crew member and passenger. In my previous life, fifteen minutes after takeoff, Olivia radioed the tower with an emergency. The moment I heard the panic in her voice, every nerve in my body locked tight. I immediately began troubleshooting with her while monitoring weather conditions, surrounding traffic, and emergency routing. Working with the entire tower, I coordinated her return. Against all odds, Flight TK6587 made it back. More than one hundred people survived because the aircraft landed safely. My eyes were red when I rushed to the arrivals gate. I couldn't wait to see my wife again. I saw Olivia and First Officer Ryan Brooks surrounded by cheering passengers. "They saved our lives!" "Captain Carter was incredible!" "Officer Brooks stayed calm the entire time!" "If it weren't for you two, none of us would be standing here!" Watching my wife and my best friend receive the gratitude they deserved, I actually felt proud. Then I walked toward them. Olivia looked at me. Instead of running into my arms, Olivia recoiled as if I were something filthy. Smack! Her palm crashed across my face. The sound echoed through the entire terminal. My head snapped to the side. She pointed at me, her eyes filled with rage and disgust. "You have no idea what you've done, do you?" "You put over one hundred lives at risk!" "The weather changed, and you never gave us proper updates. I could have forgiven a mistake." "But you didn't make a mistake." Her voice grew louder. "You deliberately sent us the wrong instructions!" "Do you understand that people could have died because of you?" "You almost turned that plane into a graveyard!" My mind went blank. I stared at her in disbelief. "Olivia, what are you talking about?" "I followed every procedure." "I coordinated your emergency return." "The only reason your aircraft landed safely was because I—" "Stop pretending!" Ryan Brooks cut me off. 我知道你债台高筑，为了骗取高额保险金不惜传达错误命令准备害死女主，你怎么这么自私？ 你有考虑过其他乘客吗 The terminal erupted. The passengers who had been thanking Olivia and Ryan moments ago turned toward me. The gratitude disappeared. Only disgust remained. "Someone like him shouldn't be allowed anywhere near an airport!" "How many people were you planning to kill, you psychopath?" "You almost got us all killed for money!" Then they rushed at me. 最终我死在乘客们愤怒的拳头下 The memory ripped through me like a nightmare. Just like before, exactly fifteen minutes after takeoff, Olivia's voice burst across the emergency frequency. "Riverside Tower, this is TK6587!" "We've got warning lights across the instrument panel!" "There may be a system malfunction!" Exactly the same panic I'd heard in my previous life. I slowly removed my headset and slipped on my earbuds instead. I closed my eyes and pressed play on my music. Forty minutes later, I looked up at the radar screen. Just like before, Flight TK6587 had turned around and landed safely. Only this time, I never lifted a finger. Instead, I walked down to the apron and waited beside the parked aircraft. The cabin door opened. Olivia stormed down the stairs, her face twisted with fury. She marched straight toward me. "Ethan Carter! What exactly is your responsibility as an air traffic controller?" I met her furious gaze without flinching. "To respect every life." "To fulfill my duty." "And to bring every flight home safely." "The hell you did!" she screamed. "You lied about the weather." "You gave me false instructions." "You almost killed us!" Before I could answer, Smack! She slapped me again. Chapter 2 In front of the entire flight crew and the passengers, Olivia pointed at me with pure hatred in her eyes. "He's the air traffic controller who gave us false weather information!" "Because of him, I had to take everyone back into the sky and risk our lives all over again!" The passengers who had been hugging each other moments ago, grateful to be alive, suddenly turned toward me. Their gratitude turned into anger. "What the hell? This guy is an air traffic controller?" "Does anyone even check these people before letting them into the tower?" "How does someone this incompetent get trusted with hundreds of lives?" "He almost killed everyone on that plane!" "He must have gotten this job through connections. People like him don't belong anywhere near aviation!" "We need to report him immediately!" "Someone like this is a danger to the public!" "We can't let him work another day!" Amid the storm of accusations, I looked across the crowd. Every face was filled with anger. And then I saw Olivia. Standing there. Watching me become the villain she created. "After six years working as an air traffic controller, I know exactly what my responsibilities are." "I could never make a mistake as careless as the one you're accusing me of." Ryan immediately stepped forward. He looked like he was forcing himself to say something painful. "Ethan, we've been friends for twelve years." "We were college roommates." "I never wanted to believe you were capable of something like this." "But as aviation professionals, I cannot defend what you did." His voice grew heavier. "Because nobody can guarantee the next flight will survive a mistake like this." "Your selfish decision could cost hundreds of innocent people their lives." "Every person on that aircraft had someone waiting for them." "People who would never see them again because of you." A passenger's face changed. "What are you saying?" "Are you saying he did this on purpose?" Ryan lowered his eyes as if he didn't want to say it. "Ethan's family is facing serious financial problems." "He needed a large amount of money." "And Olivia's life insurance policy, along with the compensation from the airline and government." "It's worth a fortune." He paused. "And as her husband, he would be the primary beneficiary." Ryan covered his mouth, pretending he was horrified by the thought. "If Captain Olivia hadn't been experienced enough, if we hadn't worked together perfectly, maybe we really wouldn't be standing here today." More than one hundred passengers erupted in fury. "You sick bastard!" "You tried to kill us for money!" "You're a murderer!" "You almost turned that plane into a graveyard!" "Arrest him!" "Someone like you shouldn't be allowed anywhere near an airport!" The crowd surged toward me like a wave. With their arms folded across their chests, they stood back and watched me drown in hatred and accusations. With the cold satisfaction of people watching someone else pay the price for their lies. At that exact moment, the fire trucks, ambulances, and police vehicles I had called in for Flight TK6587 roared onto the apron. "The police are here!" "Perfect timing!" A well-dressed woman who looked like a professional hurried over to one of the officers and pointed straight at me. "That man abused his authority and tried to murder us." "Arrest him immediately." "There are more than one hundred witnesses here." "We were all seconds away from dying because of him." Watching Olivia and Ryan's faces instantly darken with panic, I couldn't help laughing. "What are you laughing at?" The officer looked at me in confusion. "They're accusing you of attempted murder." "Do you have anything to say?" Faced with the law and due process, my expression turned serious. "Officer, anyone can make accusations." "But criminal charges require evidence." After listening to the woman's account of what had happened, the officer took out a notebook and began writing. Then he looked at Olivia. "When exactly did Ethan Carter give you false weather information?" Olivia hesitated, visibly uneasy as she fabricated her story. "Last night." "At home." "I asked him to check today's weather forecast." "He told me the weather would be perfectly fine." Chapter 3 She thought that as long as there was no direct evidence against her, I would have no way to refute her accusations. So she didn’t even bother making her story believable. The officer immediately caught the inconsistency."If you encountered severe weather, couldn't you have delayed the flight or even canceled it?" "Besides, your route from Riverside to Langford only had light rain turning into moderate rain. There were no extreme weather conditions." Faced with the officer's serious questioning, Olivia became even more flustered. "Don't blame the weather for what happened!" "Mechanical failures happen. Bad conditions happen." "But what shouldn't happen is an air traffic controller giving a pilot the wrong instructions during an emergency!" "Because of Ethan, we were seconds away from disaster!" "I had to risk my own life and the lives of everyone on board because he failed to do his job!" In my previous life, Olivia refused to follow my instructions. She was too afraid of dying, yet too confident in her own abilities. That was why the situation nearly turned into a disaster. But in the end, I was the one who saved everyone. And I was also the one who took the blame for her. Not this time. This time, I would no longer cover for her. I calmly stated the facts. "Someone ignored the tower's instructions." "When the instrument panel malfunctioned, they decided to attempt a blind landing in the rain, believing they could handle it themselves." "That's why the aircraft went off course and was forced to abort the landing and climb again." Ryan immediately twisted my words, making me sound like the villain. "I was in that cockpit. I know exactly what happened." "Ethan's reckless instructions put every person on that plane in danger." "Because of him, we lost our landing path during the emergency descent and had no choice but to climb back into the sky." "We were seconds away from a disaster." He glared at me with disgust. "This wasn't just a mistake. This man nearly got hundreds of innocent people killed." The passengers immediately backed him up. "It was terrifying! We thought we were going to die!" "That guy is dangerous!" "Someone like him shouldn't be allowed to work at an airport!" Standing there alone, surrounded by hatred and accusations, I looked exactly like the monster they had already decided I was. Then, the chairman of Riverside International Airport arrived with a group of executives from the airline. They rushed toward us. "Everyone, please rest assured." "Today, Riverside International Airport will give everyone a proper explanation for what happened." Originally, Olivia and Ryan only wanted to frame me. They wanted to manipulate the crowd into turning against me. As for the truth, apart from the person who had been falsely accused, nobody cared. But they never expected things to escalate this far. Their faces turned pale. Cold sweat covered their foreheads. But now, other than proving me guilty, Olivia and Ryan had no way out. The airport chairman narrowed his eyes at Olivia. "You just said that when you requested an emergency landing, the tower deliberately misled you and caused you to go off course?" Olivia clenched her teeth. "Yes.” Ryan also forced himself to speak. "Members of the board, as the first officer, I swear on my reputation that I can testify for Captain Olivia." They kept talking to themselves. All they cared about was throwing more dirt onto me. They completely failed to notice the strange and disgusted expressions on the chairman's face and the others around him. Especially the young man standing beside the chairman. His face had turned dark with anger. His jaw tightened as he glared at them. I let out a cold laugh. Then quietly watched Olivia continue digging her own grave. Originally, Riverside International Airport only had one air traffic controller. But the chairman planned to expand the airport's operations and ensure the control tower had staff around the clock. So he arranged for me to train alongside his son, Logan Whitmore. In my previous life, I planned to let Logan officially take over his position after another week of training. But today, I called him in early. After I cleared Flight TK6587 for takeoff, I handed over tower operations to Logan.