THE GIMLI
GLIDER STORY
On July, 23rd 1983, Air Canada flight 143 began it's journey, flying
from Montreal to Ottawa and after a brief stopover in Ottawa the flight
would continued on to Edmonton.
The aircraft was a Boeing 767-200 which was new to the Air Canada fleet.
Out of Ottawa flight 143 was cleared to flight level 410 for the 1,550
nautical
mile flight, they only made it 800 nm's before they ran out of fuel.
What Happened?
Back in Ottawa, the fuel gages were inop and pilots made a mistake when
the figured out how much fuel was loaded because they calculated
how much fuel there was based on “Kilo’s” and the ground staff in
Ottawa used “Liter’s.”
The Captain entered "his" estimated amount of fuel onboard into his
FMC,
20,116 kilo’s, the actual amount of fuel on board was 9,144 kilo’s,
roughly half what
was needed to reach Edmonton.
After take-off they headed toward the Red Lake (YRL) VOR, approximately
800 nm’s away.
Along the way they checked the time in route along with their fuel and
everything checked out.
Just after passing over YRL, a fuel pressure warning light came on.
The pilots thought they had a failing fuel pump and turned it off. They
also
thought they had a computer problem, the FMC showed that they had ample
fuel remaining.
Shortly thereafter, a second fuel pressure fail warning light came on
and they
thought something was up so they made a decision to divert to Winnipeg,
150 nm's away and requested a gradual descent FL 280.
Things started to go wrong very fast.
The number 1 engine flamed out as they tried to cross-feed the fuel
into the
other fuel tank. They were also preparing for a single engine landing.
After completing the checklist for a single engine landing the number 2
engine flamed out.
At that time the Boeing 767-200 became a glider.
Approaching FL 280 the "glass" instruments went black along with the
autopilot, fortunately the radio and backup instruments still worked.
The RAM (Ram Air Turbine) deployed supplying need power to
the hydraulic pumps.
As the Captain was flying his “glider” the first officer was franticly
looking
in his manual for a “no engine” landing. Boeing never published that
page.
ATC in Winnipeg began looking for places for the 767 to land. Another
problem arose when the radar transponder failed. ATC had to use a ruler
on their screens to estimate where the aircraft was.
The pilots had never practiced a no engine landing in the simulator.
The Captain tried to maintain an airspeed of 220 kts. with a sink rate
between -2,000 and -2,500 fpm.
Thirty five nm's out of Winnipeg, the F/O was making glide slope
calculations and discovered they were not going to make Winnipeg and
told the Captain
to “Immediately Turn North.”
The only landing site that they would make was Gimli airport, an
abandoned Royal Canadian Air Force Base Airfield, approximately 12
miles away.
The F/O had been in and out of the field many times before and knew the
approach,
good thing, because Air Canada didn’t have a Jepson for the airport.
It had been years since the F/O had been into Gimli and was unaware
that the runways were now use for auto racing.
The RAM didn’t supply any power to the
landing gear, flaps or speed brakes. The Captain ordered a “gravity
drop” of the gear. Both the main gear locked and showed green lights
but the nose gear didn’t lock and showed a red light.
Six miles from landing, the 767 was flying too high and too fast, 180
kts. Without
flaps or speed brakes there was only one way to slow the plane down.
Put the plane into a forward slip. The left wing down and the right
wing up. By doing the
slip the RAM was losing power that supplied the hydraulic pumps and it
was becoming harder to control the aircraft.
The Captian was able to recover the aircraft in time for landing at a
speed of
180 kts., 45 kts. over the recommended landing speed.
On that eventful day the runway was being used by the Winnipeg Sports
Car Club and there was numerous racers and fans on the runway /
racetrack.
When the 767 finally touched down people were doing everything they
could to get out of the way of the approaching aircraft.
Upon landing, the Captain stood on the brakes and in doing so blew two
tires and when the nose came down the nose gear, which wasn’t locked in
place,
collapsed.
He was also able to use the brakes to keep the main gear from hitting a
guardrail that was located down the middle of the runway as the nose of
the aircraft knocked out a few wooden supports. When the
aircraft finally stopped it was only 100 feet from hitting cars,
campers and
BBQ’s.
The plane touched down 800 feet from the threshold and was able to stop
within 3,000 feet.
A small fire broke out but was quashed quickly by the racers with fire
extinguishers.
Only a few passengers were injured by exiting the aircraft but by some
miracle, no one on the ground and no one on the aircraft were injured
during the landing.
It took Air Canada mechanics two days and 1 million dollars to fix the
aircraft enough for it to return to their maintenance base.
The aircraft is still in service with Air Canada and is known as the
“The Gimli Glider."
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