The Gimli Glider

In 1983 a brand new Boeing 767 ran out of fuel at 41,000 feet over Canada. Nothing was broken: the plane was fuelled using one wrong number on a slip of paper, and the only runway it could reach was full of families at a race day. This is the true story of Air Canada Flight 143, the "Gimli Glider": how a country halfway through going metric, a broken fuel gauge and a conversion done in pounds instead of kilograms took a jet out of the sky, and how Captain Bob Pearson, a weekend glider pilot, and First Officer Maurice Quintal, who remembered an old air force runway at Gimli, brought 69 people down with no engines and almost no instruments. And why, 43 years later, Pearson finally accepted one of Canada's biggest aviation honours, but only together with his co-pilot. CHAPTERS 0:00 A jet with no engines at 41,000 feet 1:48 Canada goes metric 3:02 The two pilots 3:35 The chain of small mistakes (and the number 1.77) 5:58 Both engines stop 7:42 In the cabin 8:06 The glide, and the maths that saved them 9:35 Race day at Gimli 10:03 The approach and the forward slip 11:27 The landing 12:39 The blame, the inquiry and the simulator 14:06 What happened to the pilots SOURCES Final Report of the Board of Inquiry into Air Canada Boeing 767 C-GAUN (Government of Canada, 1985) AOPA Pilot, "The Gimli Glider" (July 2000) Skies Magazine, interview with Capt. Robert Pearson (21 July 2023) CTV News / CP24 and CBC, Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame announcement (12–13 October 2026) Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame, 2027 inductees (cahf.ca) #GimliGlider #Aviation #TrueStory