Hi Charlie here imagine you're flying through the air at 41 000 feet that's when the pilot makes a
shocking announcement the airplane has ran out of fuel and one of the engines has stopped working
please stay in your seat and remain calm it sounds like a nightmare but this actually happened on
july 3rd 1983. air canada flight 143 was between montreal and edmonton a few hours before the plane
took off the crew got onto the plane to check everything was okay this included captain robert
pearson pearson was one of air canada's top pilots he'd had over 15 000 hours of flight experience
joining him in the cockpit was first officer maurice quintel maurice had over 7 000 hours of
flight experience now during this time canada was switching from the imperial system to the
metric system but air canada had only been using the metric system for some planes they were only
using them on the new 767 planes and air canada flight 143 was one of those planes every other
air canada plane was using the imperial system but the 767s were using the new metric system you may
think this is inconsequential but when it comes to an airplane math is crucial the refuelling team
were told to put 22 kilograms of fuel into the plane but they filled the plane up with 22 300
pounds of fuel that was about half of the fuel the plane actually needed now the flight crew
can check this so you may think they would have noticed and flagged it up but nope the flight crew
didn't even notice they didn't even look at the fuel gauge and realized the tank was half empty
that was until they were halfway through the flight that's right they noticed they were running
low on fuel halfway through the flight that is the worst time to notice that's because you don't have
enough fuel to turn around and fly back and you also don't have enough fuel to complete the flight
so pilot robert pearson had to think on his feet they decided to divert to a nearby airport in
winnipeg and make an emergency landing but they soon realized that would not be a possibility
that's because both the left and right engine both failed at the same time they were now 41 000 feet
up in the sky they did not have enough fuel and both engines were not working and things only
got worse when this caused the electricity on the plane to go out by this time it was pretty dark
so the 61 passengers and eight crews sat in the darkness also many of these screens in the pilot's
cockpit were shut off this meant captain pearson and first officer quintal could only use the very
basic analog instruments they knew that they did not have much time they quickly checked the boeing
767 operation manual they tried to find a page that explained what to do if both engines failed
but to their horror there wasn't one boeing just assumed this would simply never happen
but thankfully captain pearson was also an experienced glider pilot so he had a very
crazy idea he decided to use the boeing 767 as a glider plane the downside is pearson did not
have access to a vertical speedometer this meant he did not know how fast the plane was descending
so pearson basically had to eyeball it not ideal when you're operating a boeing 767 with
61 passengers he decided to try and glide the plane to winnipeg but eventually air traffic
control told him he was falling way too fast the plane was dropping 5 000 feet for every 10 miles
they traveled this meant the plane would crash long before they got anywhere near winnipeg so
pearson had to change his plans yet again that was when first officer maurice quintal had a bright
idea he suggested they land at an abandoned air force base in gimli quintal only knew this space
existed because he used to be in the air force so captain pearson quintel and air traffic control
agreed they would land at gimli but what none of them knew was that gimli had not been abandoned
instead it had been converted into a race car track and unluckily a race was going on right
at that moment but the crew did not know this so they began preparing to land captain pierson
dropped the plane down very forcefully this was to force the landing gear down without any power
the pilots then realized something very bad they were coming in too high and too fast but
they decided they had no other choice but their problems weren't done yet they soon realized a
race was going on the problem was because their engines weren't working the plane was making very
little noise this meant no one on the ground at the racetrack would be able to hear a plane about
to crash into them and also their front wheel did not lock into place and also their plane
had automatically deployed a wind turbine on the side of the plane wind was blowing and causing the
turbine to rotate very fast and this meant the plane was very shaky and even harder to steer
captain pearson realized the plane would probably crash and explode but that was when one of their
accidents actually saved them from disaster this was the front wheel which did not lock into place
as soon as the wheels hit the ground captain pierce and hit the brakes really hard
this caused the nose of the airplane to hit the ground various times and then eventually scraped
its way down the runway this added friction slowed the plane down a lot and this was a good
thing as they came in much too fast this also allowed them to steer the plane a lot easier
and it made the plane go in what was pretty much a straight line it went right down the runway this
was a good thing because on either side there were spectators who were watching the car race
eventually air canada flight 143 came to a stop and amazingly nobody on the plane nor the ground
was seriously injured so what happened to the pilot on one hand captain robert pearson is a hero
his quick thinking saved 61 passengers and eight crew but at the same time him not checking the
fuel in the first place caused the incident because of this air canada demoted him for six
months and first officer quintal was suspended for two weeks but they later appealed and were instead
given an award they were given a diploma for outstanding airmanship by the fai and it turns out
the awards were deserved both pearson and quintel continued to work as pilots and they had no
incidents like this for the rest of their careers but what about the 767 they scrapped it right well
no it actually continued to be used by air canada all the way until 2008. that's right they simply
repaired it and it was used for another 25 years although the pilots did make a massive mistake
not realizing the fuel tank was half empty they definitely did save the day they both contributed
knowledge and ideas that saved 61 passengers and although it must have been a terrifying flight for
everyone on board everyone survived and that's the main thing the incident has since gone down
as the gimli glider that's because it's the only case of a boeing 767 being used as a glider plane
the moral of the story is the imperial system is really confusing good thing no one still uses it
but now it's time for you to make your voice heard are you afraid of flying if you are then leave me
a comment down below if you want some more amazing facts then check out my instagram page but as
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