Korean Haze

37°19.77′ E126°33.93’N

1010 ZULU

Muffled light, filtered by the hazy air we are flying through, bathes the cockpit in a uniform glow. After hours of chasing the slowly setting sun westward, I feel my skin relax in the dimmed light and I watch as each switch and protrusion on the instrument panel seems to soften, their shadows fading into nothingness. Aided by the light headwinds of summer, the crossing has been relatively quick—something I know we will pay for tomorrow night when we track eastward through the night sky, towards the promise of the sunrise, and home. But for now, as the muted form of the rugged hills of central South Korea slide by below us, that thought is nothing more than a bill that hasn’t yet been sent out for collection.

This is my first trip after nearly four months of medical leave, and despite my position on this flight as a relief pilot with no actual flying duties during takeoff and landing, the fatigue of almost nine hours of flight has started to take its toll on my not quite yet flight-acclimated body. As relief officer, I get to choose my rest break last—choose being an optimistic way of looking at it. I spent the first 150 minutes of the flight watching movies in the back before heading up to the office, first to cover for the captain, and then, about 300 miles east of Tokyo, for the first officer while they took their breaks. Now, just 100 miles from Incheon, I am back in the jumpseat, watching the FO set us up for landing.

We descend lower, the light thickening as we go, while off the right wing, the masses of high-rise apartments nestled between green-gray hills that define the outskirts of Seoul slide by. This is the first time I’ve flown in from this direction during daylight, and I try to match the faded view I see now with the confusing swirl of ground lighting that normally paints the other side of the cockpit windows at this point. But from this altitude one cluster of buildings looks much like the next. The approach controller clears us directly to the final approach fix, and I bring my attention back inside.

The Korean Air cargo jet we’ve been following for the past three hours—never more than a target on the traffic display, or the trail end of a fading contrail drifting below our nose—gets cleared for the approach and passed over to Incheon Tower. From three feet away, I can see the gears turning in the FO’s head as he plots airspeed, distance, and altitude. He settles on an equation he likes and sets the speed bug to 220 knots. The autothrust system dutifully winds the engines down, and the airspeed rolls back.

Somewhere above the haze, on the other side of the Yellow Sea, which is just starting to materialize off our nose, the sun is gliding towards the horizon. By the time we land and navigate the labyrinth of health checks, immigration, and customs it will be dusk. Our first breaths of unfiltered foreign air will be taken while walking through the darkness from the airport doors to our crew bus. I glance down at the latest weather printout that is sitting on the center pedestal, discarded by both the Captain and FO after their approach briefing several thousand feet of altitude ago. The temperature is 29 Celsius—almost 85 degrees in American units—and with almost 100 percent humidity, those first breaths, when we finally take them, are going to be hot and sticky.

The FO slows us further as we too are cleared for the approach. The plane rolls to the right, dipping a wing towards the causeway to Daebudo Island. When we are once again level, for the first time on this trip, our nose is pointed north. Off our right wing tip is the western coast of Songdo City, with its angular landscape of rising residential towers and gridded streets. In front of us, Incheon Airport forms a rectangular block that covers most of the island it sits on. Beyond the distant edge of the airport multiple rows of hills disappear into the haze, each one darker and less defined than the last. Somewhere out beyond the hills is one of the most heavily demilitarized zones in the world—and all the remaining vestiges of a war that froze nearly 70 years ago. Our charts and manuals all have extensive avoidance warnings for the airspace out there. Additionally, the missed approach procedure for the runway we are heading towards, has a hard turn back to the south and safety.

The FO calls for the landing gear and the last of the flaps. We are paralleling the Incheon Bridge—the 10th longest suspension bridge in the world and our auto route to the hotel—as we descend towards the runway. Ahead, for the first time we actually see the Korean Air version of our plane—the one that we’ve been following a digital representation of for the last several hours—as it clears the runway and starts its taxi towards the gate. With the runway now ours, the FO clicks off the autopilot and I watch his jaw tighten slightly as he narrows his focus towards the rapidly approaching pavement. With the imminent touchdown—and its resultant earth-bound views at hand—I take one last look out into the distance, where the hazy bands of rolling hills are fading away like the last few minutes of the day’s light.