When Air Canada bought the first Boeing 767 about 15 years ago, it was one
of the first all computer controlled jumbos for take-off, etc and the fuel
indicated on digital screens in the cockpit was in Metric units. The
manuals were not complete, nor accurate. The first flight was an early
Sunday morning flight from Montreal to Edmonton or Vancouver with a stop in
Toronto. Before they left they used a wooden dip-stick up on the wing to
try to check the fuel on board. In Toronto, they did it again. But they
still wern't sure. Then during the long haul out west they were just past
Winnipeg (about half way to their destination) when they ran out of fuel.
They glided over a hundred miles with no power and no fuel. The co-pilot
knew of an old airport west of their location. They luckily landed about
10AM at Gimli, Manitoba, a former WW II airport that just happened to be
running the morning practice laps for Vintage sportscars. The huge Boeing
landed without a whisper and they were gliding in at high speed with no
brakes, I believe. The drivers of the sportscars going down the long
straight with no mufflers didn't hear a thing and they almost had several
disasters with the Jumbo quickly catching up to them. The nose wheel strut
broke and with a lot of sparks, this slowed down the plane before the end of
the runway. I can just imagine the haybales flying in all directions. No
one was hurt.
It was also made as a full length feature movie. Quite scarry !
Don Elliott, 1958 TR3A, Montreal
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