The Gimli Glider: How a Boeing 767 Landed With No Engines

On July 23, 1983, Air Canada Flight 143, a new Boeing 767, was cruising at 41,000 feet over Manitoba when both engines flamed out, one after the other. The aircraft had run completely out of fuel. With the engines went most of the electrical power and the main instrument displays; a small ram-air turbine deployed into the slipstream to provide just enough hydraulic pressure to keep the flight controls alive. The cause was a chain of errors rooted in a units mix-up. Canada was transitioning to the metric system, and the new 767 measured fuel in kilograms while the ground crew calculated the load using pounds. The result was that the aircraft departed with roughly half the fuel the crew believed it had. Captain Bob Pearson happened to be an experienced glider pilot, and First Officer Maurice Quintal knew the region. Quintal suggested a former air force base at Gimli — not knowing part of it had been converted into a motor-racing strip, busy with people that day. Pearson flew the powerless jet using techniques borrowed from gliding, including a sideslip — crossing the controls to steepen the descent without gaining speed — to lose excess altitude on final approach. The 767 touched down fast, blew two tires, and stopped short of the crowd. No one aboard was seriously hurt. The "Gimli Glider" became a landmark case study in airmanship, in the danger of unit confusion, and in how deeply a pilot's outside skills can matter. Final authority for the safe operation of the aircraft rests with the pilot in command per 14 CFR §91.3 — and on that day it was exercised about as completely as it ever has been.