User Reviews

Without doubt, one of the most remarkable episodes of the entire series. This is a genuine story of heroism, bravery and airmanship. It's almost unimaginable that an aircraft of that size could land safely with no engines functional and with practically no injuries sustained by the passengers yet with only 150 hours of practice on this plane the crew did it.

Not to mention that the plane was -flown- out of Gimli airport a couple of days after the incident after minor repairs and under it's own power. It'd be amazing if the crew landed the plane with no loss of life, but the plane itself survived and did another 20 years of service before being retired to the Mohave Desert (and eventually was scrapped).

I believe Bob Pearson and Maurice Quintal are still alive to this day, unfortunately Rick Dion passed away in 2009.

Falling from the Sky: Flight 174 is the movie upon which this real life air drama is based, and Air Crash Investigation is one of the best that covers this fateful Air Canada flight. Sure, Sully is glorified but this is Sully x 10, and there were no deaths remarkably.

22,300 kilos of fuel instead of 22,300 pounds...the consequences of metric being ignored in the switchover in Canada. Kin of reminded me of the Simpsons episode where the secret society boasts about preventing the USA going metric.

Anyway, Captain Bob Pearson, the hero of this drama, flew for 10 more years after the incident, and he even had a cameo in Falling from the Sky: Flight 174

Those interested in knowing more about this incident might want to look up a TV movie from 1995, "Free Fall: Flight 174." An Air Canada flight, a Boeing 767, has just passed the half-way point on its trip from Montreal to Edmonton in 1983, when warnings show up that two of the three gas tanks are low in pressure. The problem may be with the fuel pumps or with the amount of fuel available but other instruments show plenty of fuel. The pilot decides to head for the nearest airport, Winnipeg, only 120 miles away. At 26,500 feet -- still 75 miles from the airport -- both engines fail for lack of fuel. All the electrical equipment except the most basic is lost.

The First Officer calculate the distance and the rate of descent and informs the captain that they'll hit the ground before they make Winnipeg. The decision is made to switch to an abandoned air force strip at Gimli.

The pilot, Pierson, has a hell of a problem. Approaching Gimli, the airplane has too much altitude. If he descends normally he'll overshoot the strip and crash. If he noses down to lose altitude, he'll pick up speed and without any engines the airplane will roll off the end of the runway and crash. So Pierson sideslips the mammoth aircraft, crossing the controls so that the airplane is actually flying sort of sideways into the air, which cuts down its speed and drops its altitude. It's easy enough in a light airplane. I've seen it done with no trouble. But in an airplane weighing several tons it's a trip into the unknown.

But Pierson does get it down on the strip. The main landing gear drop and lock through gravity but the nose wheel fails to descend, so the Boeing lands and skids along with its nose on the airstrip. The problem is that Gimli is no longer an airstrip but has been converted into a drag race strip. No cars or humans are hit, but two young boys, staring at the airplane skidding towards them at 100 miles per hour, turn their bicycle around and try to outrace it. It never occurs to them to get off the strip, although it occurs to the pilot, who is close enough to see the terror on their faces.

So why did the Air Canada flight run out of fuel half way to its destination? The answer is simple, human, and easily rectified.

First. if you are interested in a very detailed account of what happened, which includes a very detailed account of how, where, and when the failures in the measurement of the fuel occurred, there is a MUCH better source than this episode. The book "Freefall, a true story, 41,000 feet & Out of Fuel" can be had used for cheap from the internet, gives such background and perspective far better than any video or internet article source I have found.

The thing that disturbs me is this -- the obvious solution would be that: If instrumentation is broken, the simplest method to determine safety MUST be used, regardless of cost. Else, the flight MUST be canceled. (In this case, the tanks would have had to be FILLED, since the fuel gages didn't work. That would have cost a little more fuel due to the full-tank fuel weight, but would have ENSURED that there was enough fuel. Oh, and if the airline didn't like this, they could have had MORE SPARE PARTS, so the repair could have been made.

Instead, manual calculations (by very poorly trained employees in various jobs) were allowed, and they were all wrong. (Interestingly, the psychology reviewed in the book is that EVERY position considered the responsibility to be SOMEONE ELSE'S job. Also, the official aircraft documentation was WRONG, contributing to how the flight crew made their contribution to the bad calculations/decisions.

I can't speak for Canada, but for the US, this is typical of regulators bowing to corporate interests instead of making PUBLIC SAFETY the primary goal. The FAA is captive to airlines and the pressure to save on cost. This causes numerous tragedies. In my city, flight 5191 is a tragic example, where a personal friend burned to death due to (at least in part) lax FAA rules.