Gimli Glider

A show on TV the other night was about an Air Canada Boeing 767 which, in 1982, ran out of fuel long before it had reached its destination. How this happened is still a little suspect to me, however during the investigation it was discovered that the re-fueller had made a mis-calculation and instead of putting fuel onboard in kilos he had calculated the weight in pounds. This gave the aircraft around half the required amount of fuel.

Subsequently they ran out of fuel during flight and the pilot managed to glide the aircraft into a landing. This was a fantastic effort on behalf of the crew and one which allowed for no error. An aircraft such as this (see photo top left) weighing around 170,000 kg and with no power only descends, as it cannot climb without stalling.

They managed to land on a disused runway at Gimli and the aircraft suffered only minor damage. It was flow out only two days later and has only just retired from service. The clip below is the last fly past of this aircraft.