Chapter 16 — Between Two Runways

The radar screen flickered, froze for exactly two seconds, then returned to normal — a small phenomenon, almost unnoticeable, if not for the fact that at that moment three targets simultaneously appeared within a radius of ten nautical miles around the station.

It's been ten days since Boi Thu's first shift after returning, and today is an unusually busy morning for a regional airport: two commercial flights arriving almost at the same time due to flight schedule adjustments from the airline's headquarters, plus a routine technical check by the flight management unit itself, flying around the area to recalibrate the ground navigation stations.

Those ten days passed in a rhythm that Boi Thu gradually became familiar with: waking up early, checking the duty schedule, going to the station before the shift started, and every night, before going to sleep, writing a few short lines in an old notebook - no longer heavy lines about the past, but simple notes about the day's shift, things she did well, things she wanted to improve. Khoat still sits and supervises each shift, but his presence gradually becomes gentler, less like an evaluator and more like a normal colleague.

"Miss Thu, the radar just froze," Bach said, her voice much calmer than a few weeks ago, without the familiar signs of hesitation. "Two seconds, now it's back to normal, but I'm not sure if the data displayed now reflects the actual position."

Boi Thu quickly looked at the three targets on the screen, compared it with the last update time, mentally calculating the distance that could have moved in the two seconds of freeze plus the system's normal delay.

"You're right, you shouldn't absolutely trust the position displayed right now," she said, her voice calm but decisive. "Switch to time separation for these three targets for the next thirty seconds, until I reconfirm the system's accuracy."

She picked up the microphone, her voice even, without any trace of the panic that she knew, eight years ago, would have frozen her in a similar situation. "All stations in the Tra Son area approach, confirm current location and altitude, execute in order."

The three pilots responded in turn, providing manual confirmation, a standard fallback procedure when there is doubt about the reliability of the radar data. Boi Thu compared each number with what was displayed on the screen, finding a small deviation in the second target - the technical inspection - the displayed position was about half a nautical mile away from the pilot's reported position.

"Just as I worried," she said to Bach, not taking her eyes off the screen. "The system is showing slight deviations after the last freeze. Record the exact time, I will notify the technical department to check right after the shift."

She adjusted the separation distance based on the manual confirmation data, remaining cautious until all three flights had cleared the potential conflict area, a process that took about four minutes, nothing dramatic, no breathtaking moments like those fateful ninety seconds two months ago.

But precisely because there was no drama, Boi Thu realized, this was the truly important test for herself — not the ability to react quickly in a crisis, which she had long proven, but the ability to maintain caution, alertness, neither panic nor complacency, in a situation that was only a warning, not a real danger.

"You made it so easy," Bach said, when everything had stabilized again. "Before you even had time to worry, I already took care of it."

"It's not easy," Boi Thu said, smiling slightly, turning to look at him. "I just don't let it turn into panic. There's a difference between caution and panic, and that line, it took me a long time to learn to clearly distinguish."

At the end of the shift, she called to report the incident to the technical department, and while waiting for the call, she saw Co Dac Thinh passing through the hallway, stopping when she vaguely heard the content of the call.

"Is the radar frozen again?" he asked, when she hung up.

"Yes, two seconds, with a slight display error afterward," Boi Thu said. "It's not serious, it can be handled with preventive procedures, but I think it should be fully recorded."

"Thank you for your detailed report." Thinh scribbled in the small notebook he always carried. "This is exactly the type of evidence I need for my next investment committee filing. Not the type of evidence everyone wants, but it shows the problem hasn't gone away just because we've been lucky to not have had another major incident in the past two months."

"I understand," Boi Thu said. "I will continue to fully document every anomaly, no matter how small."

"That's what I appreciate most about the operations team," Thinh said, his face showing a hint of fatigue that he often tried to hide from his staff. "Many people, after a major incident, tend to over-report for the first few weeks and then gradually slack off when nothing more happens. She remains meticulous, even after ten days of returning."

"Have I submitted my documents to the investment committee this period?" Boi Thu asked, curious about the progress she knew Thinh was still secretly pursuing.

“Next week,” he said. "This time I have attached the full package: near-miss report, cost analysis, and now this latest evidence. I don't dare to promise the results, but I think this is the strongest document I have submitted in the past two years."

"I have no choice but to be meticulous," Boi Thu said, half joking and half serious. "I learned that lesson the hardest way possible."

Thinh nodded, without asking further questions, but his eyes showed that he understood that statement had a much deeper meaning than the context of the current conversation — perhaps he had heard vaguely from Vong about what had happened, even though no one on the station had told him the full details.

That afternoon, when Boi Thu left the station, she stopped by the technical room, where the engineer on duty was opening the radar cabinet to check again according to her request. He showed her an old circuit board, the metal paths slightly discolored over time, explaining that the freezing phenomenon recently tended to occur more frequently when the computer room temperature rose at midday, a sign of aging components.

"How much longer will it last?" she asked.

"It's hard to say exactly," the engineer replied. "Maybe a year, maybe just a few months if this summer is hotter than expected. We still do regular maintenance, but maintenance only prolongs its life, it can't prevent it from completely breaking down." He lightly tapped on the machine's case, a metallic sound rang out softly. "It's like an old person who's still lucid, but his reflexes slow down over the years. We can only help him stay lucid a little longer, but we can't make him young again."

Boi Thu stood there for a moment, looking at the row of flashing signal lights on the old control panel, then left the technical room, carrying with her a new feeling, different from the vague fear she had before the incident - now, it was a clear, well-founded vigilance, not obsession, but a realistic awareness of a risk that still existed, waiting to be resolved properly, at the right time, before it resolved itself in the worst way.

On the way to the parking lot, she met Bach waiting for the employee pick-up bus, still holding a personal notebook that had grown many pages thicker than when she first saw it.

"Miss Thu, I recorded this morning's frozen radar incident in my notebook," he said, holding up the notebook. "I want to remember exactly how you switched to separation over time, step by step."

"Good," Boi Thu said. "But don't just remember the steps. Remember the feeling at that moment — the feeling of needing to stay calm, not panic but not subjective. Every technical step has documents, but that feeling can only be gained through practical experience, and I hope you can accumulate it much sooner than me."

Bach nodded, put his notebook in his pocket when the bus arrived, and before getting on the bus, he turned back and added, his voice gentle but sincere. "I think you're completely ready, Ms. Thu. Not just according to the paperwork."

Boi Thu stood and watched the bus leave, Bach's words echoed in her head all the way home, a simple sentence that carried more weight than any official affirmation from the evaluation board, enough to make her smile to herself all the way along the airport fence, where the navigation lights began to turn on as dusk fell.