Investigators later surmised that the Avianca pilots must have assumed that ATC was jumping them to the head of the queue, in front of the dozens of other planes circling Kenedy.

过后调查人员曾猜想，阿维安卡的飞行员一定认为，ATC将优先考虑让他们着陆，将他们排在肯尼迪机场长龙般候降队伍的最前面。

In fact, they weren't. They were just being added to the end of the line.

但实际上，他们没有被优先考虑，他们只是被排到队伍的后面。

It was a crucial misunderstanding upon which the fate of the plane would ultimately rest.

这是个多么严重的误解，这会导致飞机机毁人亡。

But did the pilots raise the issue again, looking for clarification?

但飞行员有没有再次提起并进行求证呢？

No. Nor did they bring up the issue of fuel again for another thirty-eight minutes.

没有，在后来的38分钟内他们没有再提起没有燃油这件事。

To Ratwatte, the silence in the cockpit made no sense.

对于怀特瓦特来讲，驾驶舱内的沉默简直不可思议。

And as a way of explaining why, Ratwatte began to talk about what had happened to him that morning on the way over from Dubai.

为了表明他的想法，他谈起早上从迪拜出发的飞行。

"We had this lady in the back," he said. "We reckon she was having a stroke. Seizing. Vomiting. In bad Shape.

他说：“机舱内有一位女士，我们猜她中风了，边抽搐，边呕吐，情况非常糟糕。

She was an Indian lady whose daughter lives in the States. Her husband spoke no English, no Hindi, only Punjabi. No one could communicate with him.

她是位印度人，女儿住在美国，丈夫不会讲英语，也不会讲印度语，只会说旁遮普语，没人可以与他交流，

He looked like he had just walked off a village of Punjab and they had absolutely no money.

他看起来好像是刚从旁遮普的乡村出来，他们看上去很穷。

I was actually over Moscow when it happened, but I knew we couldn't go to Moscow.

这时候，我们正在莫斯科的上空，但是我知道我们不能去莫斯科。

I didn't know what would happen to these people if we did.

我无法预料如果我们去莫斯科会发生怎样的事情。

I said to the first official, 'You fly the plane. We had to go to Helsinki.'"

我对我的副驾说，我们必须飞往赫尔辛基，你来驾驶飞机。”

The immediate problem Ratwatte faced is that there were less than halfway through a very long flight,

怀特瓦特面临的首要问题是，他们的长途飞行才飞了不到一半的路程，

which meant they had far more fuel in the tanks than they usually do when it comes time to land.

这样他们着陆的时候，油箱里的燃料重量会超出正常着陆的标准。

"We were sixty tons over maximum landing weight," he said.

他说：“比起最大着陆重量我们仍超重60吨。

"So now we had to make a choice. I could dump the fuel, but countries hated it when you dump fuel.

因此我不得不作出决定，我可以把燃料抛掉，但很多国家痛恨抛油。

It's messy stuff and they would have routed me somewhere over the Baltic Sea, and it would have taken me forty minutes and the lady probably have died.

因为会污染环境。此外我还需要飞到波罗的海，而这需要40分钟的路程，但到那时那位女士很可能已经去世。

So I decided to land anyway. My choice."

我决定无论如何都要着陆，这是我的选择。

They couldn't use the automated landing system because it wasn't set up to handle a plane with that much weight.

那意味着飞机要“超重着陆”。而在这种超重的情况下着陆，飞机就无法使用自动着陆系统。

"At that stage, I took over the controls," Ratwatte went on.

“在这种情形下，我必须全权控制。”他继续说道，

"I had to ensure that the airplane touched down very softly; otherwise, there would have been the risk of structure damage.

“我必须保证飞机在着陆时触地轻柔，这样才可避免飞机的结构损伤。