NZFF

The Gimli goes into retirement this month. In 1983 a Canadian Air 767 flying at 41,000 feet (12,500 m) runs out of fuel.

Captain Bob Pearson and First officer Maurice Quintal manage to bring her down with 60 people on board safely. A great story and actually made into a tv movie called 'Falling from the sky: Flight 174

Below is an aftermath video, love the 80's styles!! A must know story for all flight enthusiasts like ourselves!

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-69-240-1155-2...ty/gimli_glider

Below is the Wikipedia link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_glider


Gimli Glider

Metric/Imperial snafu...didn't NASA lose a Mars Explorer for the same reason?
Some metric bolt that was supposed to be in inches...
Dunno why any country would choose not to bite the metrication bullet.

There was an A330 that also did The Big Glide, into the Azores in 2001.
Can't think of any others, not something you'd want to do every day.

Cool thanks for the links and info

It was great to see the documentary last night on the Gimli Glider on Prime.

kiwibarguy wrote:

QUOTE (kiwibarguy @ Sep 22 2008, 09:05 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It was great to see the documentary last night on the Gimli Glider on Prime.

It was a good one

thats one expensive glider

I think I've seen it in the Aircrash Investigation program @ Discovery. Indeed, those pilots are heros and real professionals. It was lucky that the front undercarriage collapsed as they couldn't stop the plane otherwise.

when you think about it though, if the first error hadent happened, and the plane landed normally, the the undercarrage failure could have been catasrophic. and in a way, succesful maintainance could have killed people.

2fst4u wrote:

QUOTE (2fst4u @ Sep 22 2008, 06:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

when you think about it though, if the first error hadent happened, and the plane landed normally, the the undercarrage failure could have been catasrophic

The gear collapsed because, without engines, they had no hydraulics so they had to do a gravity drop. The nose landing gear never locked. If the flight had gone normally the gear would have been lowered via normal hydraulics with the gear locked in place.

Deane

what was interesting is they flew that puppy outta there a few days later

I wonder if it was similar to the British airways plane

That is so cool definatly a few beers after that one!!!

PiperDriver wrote:

QUOTE (PiperDriver @ Sep 23 2008, 07:36 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I wonder if it was similar to the British airways plane

Which one?

I think he means the one that flew through some volcanic ash near Indonesia and subsequently turned into a glider - they got the engines restarted though.

Naki wrote:

QUOTE (Naki @ Sep 23 2008, 09:29 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think he means the one that flew through some volcanic ash near Indonesia and subsequently turned into a glider - they got the engines restarted though.

Oh yup it was a 744 wasn't it? I think I saw an Air Crash Investaigation (or some similar program) about it ages ago.

I mean the BA B777 on finals and landed wheels up.

PiperDriver wrote:

QUOTE (PiperDriver @ Sep 23 2008, 09:41 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I mean the BA B777 on finals and landed wheels up.

without looking it up on the net, i think that 777 incident had something to do with the computers controlling the engines, also it didnt land wheels up, it landed in the grass before the runway wheels down, which subsequently caused it to have no undercarriage

Squawk1200 wrote:

QUOTE (Squawk1200 @ Sep 25 2008, 04:38 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

without looking it up on the net, i think that 777 incident had something to do with the computers controlling the engines, also it didnt land wheels up, it landed in the grass before the runway wheels down, which subsequently caused it to have no undercarriage

Turned out to be ice in the gas mr Yohansen

A185F wrote:

QUOTE (A185F @ Sep 25 2008, 05:36 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Turned out to be ice in the gas mr Yohansen

my bad, i said without refering to the net, i think it was originally suspected at throttle control problems or something computer-like...

Eh thats what I thought it would have been