That Time a Commercial Aircraft Ran Out of Fuel Mid-Flight...

todayifoundout ^ | May 27, 2014 | Melissa

[virgil283]

"On July 23, 1983, in the small town of Gimli, Manitoba, Captain Robert Pearson and Co-Pilot Maurice Quintal expertly glided a 100-ton Boeing 767 carrying 69 people to a safe landing without engines, air brakes or flaps, and minimal control of the aircraft......"

.....;

[GeronL]

It usually returns all sorts of information about that particular plane, the owner and service details.

[RckyRaCoCo]

Luckily for the passengers...

...there were only 69 on-board the 767-233.

[Jack Hydrazine]

“Two minutes after that: “The EICAS issued a sharp bong – indicating the complete and total loss of both engines. . . . ‘It’s a sound that Bob and I had never heard before.’ . . . . Starved of fuel, both . . . engines had flamed out.”

I wonder if it sounds like the cloister bell on the TARDIS?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY8I3_IGmbQ

[KarlInOhio]

767s were flying in 1983?

First flight in 1981, first commercial flight in 1982.

[First_Salute]

469 knots

I miss those days.

[virgil283]

767s were flying in 1983? . according to the video they were new. This plane had 150 hours.

[Logical me]

That forward slip I learned from an old air force pilot. I used this many times and the only thing that was critical was making sure that even though the stall indicator sometimes sounded you were using the tech flying by the seat of your pants. There is a special feel using this tech. Once in a while I used this to cut the landing roll out so short that I usually could make the first turn out because the rate of descend was high and wheels touching would be at a much slower speed. A word of advice, pilots do not try this unless you get a qualified pilot to show how. Cross controlling will even help lining up a runway in windy conditions.

[ken5050]

Even more amazing is the BA 747 that lost all FOUR engines because it ingested volcanic ash..full episode here

[jumpingcholla34]

I used to do slips in sailplanes all the time. It gets you on the deck fast.

[Organic Panic]

I remember a TV movie about this very flight. I think Richard Jordan was one of the pilots.

[virgil283]

"That forward slip I learned from an old air force pilot.....youtube has videos of this maneuver. Its interesting to see a plane moving forward but at an strange angle.

[Squawk 8888]

To all- please ping me to Canadian topics.

Canada Ping!

[Squawk 8888]

Forward slip is standard for the private pilot training here- won’t even get to solo if you can’t do it.

[Squawk 8888]

Forward slips are a standard technique for correcting high approaches but normally are not necessary for commercial aircraft because they’re equipped with spoilers and it’s usually better to just execute a missed approach.

[IncPen]

ping

[EveningStar]

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[The Great RJ]

My father-in-law was a pilot and once ran out of gas in his Piper. He managed to land in a farmer’s field without incident. The farmer helped him get gas for his plane and my father-in-law offered to give him a plane ride for his trouble. The farmer politely declined saying he wouldn’t feel safe flying with any pilot who ran out of gas.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Be sure not to forget about Air Transat Flight 236 (yep, another Canuckian airliner!). And at the controls was another Bob (aka Robert).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236

Air Transat Flight 236 was an Air Transat flight bound for Lisbon, Portugal from Toronto, Canada that lost all power while flying over the Atlantic Ocean on August 24, 2001. The Airbus A330-243 suffered a complete power loss due to a fuel leak caused by improper maintenance. Captain Robert Piché, 48, an experienced glider pilot, and First Officer Dirk de Jager, 28, flew the plane to a successful emergency landing in the Azores, saving all 306 people (293 passengers and 13 crew) on board.[1]

Most of the passengers on the flight were Canadians visiting Europe and Portuguese expatriates returning to visit family in Portugal.[2]

At 06:13 UTC, while still 135 miles (217 km) from Lajes,[5] engine #2 flamed out because of fuel starvation. Captain Piché then initiated a descent to 33,000 feet (10,000 m), which was the proper single-engine altitude for the weight of the plane at that time. Ten minutes later, the crew sent a Mayday to Santa Maria Oceanic air traffic control.

Three minutes later, at 06:26 UTC and approximately 65 nautical miles (120 km) from Lajes Air Base, engine #1 also flamed out.

Military air traffic controllers guided the aircraft to the airport with their radar system. The descent rate of the plane was about 2,000 feet (600 metres) per minute. They calculated they had about 15 to 20 minutes left before they would be forced to ditch in the ocean. The air base was sighted a few minutes later. Captain Piché had to execute one 360 degree turn, and then a series of “S” turns, to dissipate excess altitude.

At 06:45 UTC, the plane touched down hard, approximately 1,030 feet (310 m) past the threshold of Runway 33, at a speed of approximately 200 knots (370 km/h), bounced once and then touched down again, approximately 2,800 feet (850 m) from the threshold. Maximum emergency braking was applied and retained, and the plane came to a stop 7,600 feet (2,300 m) from the threshold of that 10,000 feet (3,000 m) runway. Since they had lost the anti-skid and brake modulation systems, the eight main wheels locked up; its tires abraded and fully deflated within 450 feet (140 m).[3] Fourteen passengers and two crew members suffered minor injuries, while two passengers suffered serious injuries during the evacuation of the aircraft. The plane suffered structural damage to the main landing gear and the lower fuselage.

Documentary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_JD2NjUXjo

[-YYZ-]

And then there was the Air Transat (IIRC) guys out of Canada who had to land in the Azores after their plane ran out of fuel.

I’m very glad that the pilots in these cases were able to dead stick their planes in to a safe landing, but neither case should have happened. 1.7 lbs/liter? Were they actually using that number at some point? Bad idea to mix two different sets of measurements like that.

[Vigilanteman]

What I am absolutely not getting is how a 767 making a short flight from Montreal to Ottawa, an air distance roughly similar to New York to Baltimore, could run out of fuel and end up gliding to a safe landing in Gimli, an air distance roughly similar to Miami.

That a lot of time in the air without an engine and a lot of stress !