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Gimli Glider

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115-595: Air Canada Flight 143 , commonly known as the Gimli Glider , was a Canadian scheduled domestic passenger flight between Montreal and Edmonton that ran out of fuel on Saturday, July 23, 1983, at an altitude of 41,000 feet (12,500 m), midway through the flight. The flight crew successfully glided the Boeing 767 to an emergency landing at a former Royal Canadian Air Force base in Gimli, Manitoba , which had been converted to

230-515: A floatstick measurement before departure. If both channels fail, no fuel display was seen in the cockpit, and the aircraft would be considered unserviceable and not authorized to fly. Because inconsistencies had been found with the FQIS in other 767s, Boeing issued a service bulletin for the routine checking of this system. An engineer in Edmonton duly did so when the aircraft arrived from Toronto following

345-592: A California company, MotoArt, under the product name "PLANETAGS". In June 2017, a permanent museum exhibit of the event opened in Gimli. The exhibit includes a cockpit mock-up flight simulator, and as of July 2017, sold event memorabilia. Airline An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers or freight . Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements , in which they both offer and operate

460-421: A Comet 4, and Pan Am followed on 26 October with a Boeing 707 service between New York and Paris. The next big boost for the airlines would come in the 1970s, when the Boeing 747 , McDonnell Douglas DC-10 , and Lockheed L-1011 inaugurated widebody ("jumbo jet") service, which is still the standard in international travel. The Tupolev Tu-144 and its Western counterpart, Concorde , made supersonic travel

575-430: A crusade to create an air network that would link America to the world, and he achieved this goal through his airline, Pan Am , with a fleet of flying boats that linked Los Angeles to Shanghai and Boston to London . Pan Am and Northwest Airways (which began flights to Canada in the 1920s) were the only U.S. airlines to go international before the 1940s. With the introduction of the Boeing 247 and Douglas DC-3 in

690-535: A defective FQIS, so he disabled the defective channel, and made an entry in the logbook. The next morning, Captain John Weir and co-pilot Captain Donald Johnson were told about the problem. Since the FQIS was now operating on a single channel, a dripstick reading was taken to obtain a second fuel quantity measurement. Weir converted the dripstick reading from centimetres to litres to kilograms, finding that it agreed with

805-519: A density of 1.78. Repeating the same error, Captain Pearson determined that he had 20,400 kg (45,000 lb) of fuel and entered this number into the FMC. However, he actually had just 9,250 kg (20,400 lb) of fuel. The previous flight from Edmonton to Montreal had avoided the error. The fueler at Edmonton knew the density of jet fuel in kg/L, and he calculated the correct number of litres to pump into

920-449: A downturn in the nation's economy occurred. New start-ups entered during the downturn, during which time they found aircraft and funding, contracted hangar and maintenance services, trained new employees, and recruited laid-off staff from other airlines. Major airlines dominated their routes through aggressive pricing and additional capacity offerings, often swamping new start-ups. In the place of high barriers to entry imposed by regulation,

1035-571: A gift from the taxpayers. (Passenger carriers operating scheduled service received approximately $ 4 billion, subject to tax.) In addition, the ATSB approved loan guarantees to six airlines totaling approximately $ 1.6 billion. Data from the U.S. Treasury Department show that the government recouped the $ 1.6 billion and a profit of $ 339 million from the fees, interest and purchase of discounted airline stock associated with loan guarantees. The three largest major carriers and Southwest Airlines control 70% of

1150-461: A major international carrier. In 1933, Aéropostale went bankrupt , was nationalized and merged into Air France . Although Germany lacked colonies, it also began expanding its services globally. In 1931, the airship Graf Zeppelin began offering regular scheduled passenger service between Germany and South America, usually every two weeks, which continued until 1937. In 1936, the airship Hindenburg entered passenger service and successfully crossed

1265-589: A newly created Air Transportation Stabilization Board (ATSB). The applications to DOT for reimbursements were subjected to rigorous multi-year reviews not only by DOT program personnel but also by the Government Accountability Office and the DOT Inspector General. Ultimately, the federal government provided $ 4.6 billion in one-time, subject-to-income-tax cash payments to 427 U.S. air carriers, with no provision for repayment, essentially

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1380-540: A proving flight across the English Channel , despite a lack of support from the British government. Flown by Lt. H Shaw in an Airco DH.9 between RAF Hendon and Paris – Le Bourget Airport , the flight took 2 hours and 30 minutes at £21 per passenger. On August 25, 1919, the company used DH.16s to pioneer a regular service from Hounslow Heath Aerodrome to Paris's Le Bourget , the first regular international service in

1495-471: A race track complex, now known as Gimli Motorsports Park . It included a road-race course, a go-kart track, and a dragstrip . A Canadian Automobile Sport Clubs -sanctioned sports-car race hosted by the Winnipeg Sports Car Club was underway at the time of the accident. The area around the decommissioned runway was full of cars and campers. Part of the decommissioned runway was being used to stage

1610-457: A racetrack, Gimli Motorsports Park . It resulted in no serious injuries to passengers or persons on the ground, and only minor damage to the aircraft. The aircraft was repaired and remained in service until its retirement in 2008. This unusual aviation accident earned the aircraft the nickname "Gimli Glider." The accident was caused by a series of issues, starting with a failed fuel-quantity indicator sensor (FQIS). These had high failure rates in

1725-547: A reality. Concorde first flew in 1969 and operated through 2003. In 1972, Airbus began producing Europe's most commercially successful line of airliners to date. The added efficiencies for these aircraft were often not in speed, but in passenger capacity, payload, and range. Airbus also features modern electronic cockpits that were common across their aircraft to enable pilots to fly multiple models with minimal cross-training. The 1978 U.S. airline industry deregulation lowered federally controlled barriers for new airlines just as

1840-500: A result of the terrorist attacks. This resulted in the first government bailout of the 21st century. Between 2000 and 2005 US airlines lost $ 30 billion with wage cuts of over $ 15 billion and 100,000 employees laid off. In recognition of the essential national economic role of a healthy aviation system, Congress authorized partial compensation of up to $ 5 billion in cash subject to review by the U.S. Department of Transportation and up to $ 10 billion in loan guarantees subject to review by

1955-407: A serendipitous advantage after touchdown for the safety of those on the converted runway. As the plane approached the runway, the pilots realized it was coming in too high and fast, increasing the likelihood that the 767 would run off the runway. The lack of hydraulic pressure prevented flap / slat extension that would have, under normal conditions, reduced the aircraft's stall speed and increased

2070-467: A serious competitive threat to the legacy carriers. However, of these, ATA and Skybus have since ceased operations. Increasingly since 1978, US airlines have been reincorporated and spun off by newly created and internally led management companies, and thus becoming nothing more than operating units and subsidiaries with limited financially decisive control. Among some of these holding companies and parent companies which are relatively well known, are

2185-428: A trouble-free flight the day before the accident. While conducting this check, the FQIS failed, and the cockpit fuel gauges went blank. The engineer had encountered the same problem earlier in the month when this same aircraft had arrived from Toronto with an FQIS fault. He found then that disabling the second channel by pulling the circuit breaker in the cockpit restored the fuel gauges to working order, albeit with only

2300-624: Is called "Central Daylight Time" (CDT) and is UTC−05:00 . In the United States, all time zones that observe DST were effectively changed by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 . Beginning in 2007, DST would now begin at 2 a.m. (02:00) on the second Sunday in March instead of the first Sunday in April, moving the time from 2 to 3 a.m. (i.e., from 02:00 to 03:00). Additionally, DST would end at 2 a.m. (02:00) on

2415-536: Is known locally as the Zona Centro . The federal entities of Mexico that observe Central Time: Out of the seven countries comprising Central America , all but one use Central Standard Time year-round: Panama , which recognizes Eastern Standard Time (UTC−5) year round, is the exception. Daylight saving time (DST) is in effect in much of the Central time zone between mid-March and early November. The modified time

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2530-488: Is on Central Standard Time year-round, never adjusting for Daylight Saving Time. One major exception includes Lloydminster , a city whose borders overlap both Alberta and Saskatchewan. The city charter stipulates that it shall observe Mountain Time and DST, putting the community on the same time as all of Alberta (UTC−7) in the winter, and in time with Saskatchewan (UTC−6) during the summer. Ten states are contained entirely in

2645-557: The Farman F.60 Goliath plane flew scheduled services from Toussus-le-Noble to Kenley , near Croydon , England. Another early French airline was the Compagnie des Messageries Aériennes , established in 1919 by Louis-Charles Breguet , offering a mail and freight service between Le Bourget Airport , Paris and Lesquin Airport , Lille . The first German airline to use heavier than air aircraft

2760-626: The Ford Motor Company bought out the Stout Aircraft Company and began construction of the all-metal Ford Trimotor , which became the first successful American airliner. With a 12-passenger capacity, the Trimotor made passenger service potentially profitable. Air service was seen as a supplement to rail service in the American transportation network. At the same time, Juan Trippe began

2875-686: The Tupolev Tu-104 . Deregulation of the European Union airspace in the early 1990s has had substantial effect on the structure of the industry there. The shift towards 'budget' airlines on shorter routes has been significant. Airlines such as EasyJet and Ryanair have often grown at the expense of the traditional national airlines. There has also been a trend for these national airlines themselves to be privatized such as has occurred for Aer Lingus and British Airways . Other national airlines, including Italy's Alitalia , suffered – particularly with

2990-638: The UAL Corporation , along with the AMR Corporation , among a long list of airline holding companies sometime recognized worldwide. Less recognized are the private-equity firms which often seize managerial, financial, and board of directors control of distressed airline companies by temporarily investing large sums of capital in air carriers, to rescheme an airlines assets into a profitable organization or liquidating an air carrier of their profitable and worthwhile routes and business operations. Thus

3105-748: The United States Army Air Service . Private operators were the first to fly the mail but due to numerous accidents the US Army was tasked with mail delivery. During the Army's involvement they proved to be too unreliable and lost their air mail duties. By the mid-1920s, the Postal Service had developed its own air mail network, based on a transcontinental backbone between New York City and San Francisco . To supplement this service, they offered twelve contracts for spur routes to independent bidders. Some of

3220-552: The 1930s, the U.S. airline industry was generally profitable, even during the Great Depression . This trend continued until the beginning of World War II . World War II, like World War I, brought new life to the airline industry. Many airlines in the Allied countries were flush from lease contracts to the military, and foresaw a future explosive demand for civil air transport, for both passengers and cargo. They were eager to invest in

3335-512: The 20,088 litres (4,419 imp gal; 5,307 US gal) of additional fuel that they required, they took on only 4,917 litres (1,082 imp gal; 1,299 US gal). The use of the incorrect conversion factor led to a total fuel load of only 22,300 lb (10,100 kg) rather than the 49,170 lb (22,300 kg) that were needed. This was less than half of the amount required to reach their destination. The flight management computer (FMC) measures fuel consumption, allowing

3450-441: The 61 passengers or the people on the ground. As the aircraft's nose had collapsed onto the ground, its tail was elevated, so some minor injuries occurred when passengers exited the aircraft via the rear slides , which were not sufficiently long to accommodate the increased height. Racers and course workers with portable fire extinguishers extinguished a minor fire in the nose area. The Aviation Safety Board of Canada (predecessor of

3565-441: The 767, and the only available replacement was also nonfunctional. The problem was logged, but later, the maintenance crew misunderstood the problem and turned off the backup FQIS. This required the fuel to be manually measured using a dripstick . The navigational computer required the fuel to be entered in kilograms; however, an incorrect conversion from volume to mass was applied, which led the pilots and ground crew to agree that it

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3680-468: The 767, he flew the aircraft at 220 knots (410 km/h; 250 mph). First Officer Quintal began to calculate whether they could reach Winnipeg. Quintal used the altitude from one of the mechanical backup instruments, while the distance travelled was supplied by the air traffic controllers in Winnipeg, measured by the aircraft's radar echo observed at Winnipeg. In 10 nautical miles (19 km; 12 mi),

3795-593: The Atlantic 36 times before crashing at Lakehurst, New Jersey, on 6 May 1937. In 1938, a weekly air service from Berlin to Kabul , Afghanistan , started operating. From February 1934 until World War II began in 1939, Deutsche Lufthansa operated an airmail service from Stuttgart , Germany via Spain , the Canary Islands and West Africa to Natal in Brazil . This was the first time an airline flew across an ocean. By

3910-512: The Central Time Zone is affected by two time designations yearly: Central Standard Time (CST) is observed from the first Sunday in November to the second Sunday in March. It is six hours behind Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and designated internationally as UTC−6. From the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November the same areas observe daylight saving time (DST), creating

4025-640: The Central Time Zone, Kenton, Oklahoma —located to the adjacent east of the defined border of the Central and Mountain time zones (at the Oklahoma− New Mexico state line)—unofficially observes Mountain Time. This is reportedly because most people who interact with the town reside in either New Mexico or Colorado . Most of Mexico—roughly the eastern three-fourths—lies in the Central Time Zone, except for five northwestern states ( Baja California , Baja California Sur , Sinaloa , Sonora , and most of Nayarit ) and one southeastern state ( Quintana Roo ). It

4140-688: The Central Time Zone: Five states are split between the Central Time Zone and the Mountain Time Zone : Five states are split between the Central Time Zone and the Eastern Time Zone : Additionally, Phenix City, Alabama , and several nearby communities in Russell County, Alabama , unofficially observe Eastern Time. This is due to their close proximity to Columbus, Georgia , which is on Eastern Time. Although legally located within

4255-409: The FQIS was not working, Captain Pearson decided to take on enough fuel to reach Edmonton without refuelling at Ottawa. The flight plan showed that 22,300 kilograms (49,200 lb) of fuel were required for the flight from Montreal to Ottawa to Edmonton. A dripstick check found that 7,682 litres (1,690 imp gal; 2,029 US gal) of fuel was already in the tanks. To calculate how much fuel

4370-526: The FQIS. The plane flew to Toronto and then Montreal without accident. At Montreal, Captain Robert "Bob" Pearson and First Officer Maurice Quintal took over the airplane for Flight 143 to Ottawa and Edmonton. During the handover, Weir told Pearson that a problem existed with the FQIS, and Pearson decided to take on enough fuel to fly to Edmonton without refuelling in Ottawa. Meanwhile, an avionics technician had entered

4485-493: The Gimli Glider was offered for sale at auction, by a company called Collectable Cars, with an estimated price of CA$ 2.75–3 million . However, bidding only reached CA$ 425,000 and the lot was unsold. According to a website dedicated to saving the aircraft, the Gimli Glider was scrapped in early 2014. Parts of the metal fuselage skin were made into 10,000 sequentially numbered luggage tags, and as of 2015, were offered for sale by

4600-753: The Russian Aeroflot (1923). Airline ownership has seen a shift from mostly personal ownership until the 1930s to government-ownership of major airlines from the 1940s to 1980s and back to large-scale privatization following the mid-1980s. Since the 1980s, there has been a trend of major airline mergers and the formation of airline alliances. The largest alliances are Star Alliance , SkyTeam and Oneworld . Airline alliances coordinate their passenger service programs (such as lounges and frequent-flyer programs ), offer special interline tickets and often engage in extensive codesharing (sometimes systemwide). DELAG , Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft I

4715-671: The Sky: Flight 174 is loosely based on this event. The Discovery Channel Canada / National Geographic TV series Mayday covered the accident in a 2008 episode titled "Gimli Glider". The episode featured interviews with survivors, including Pearson and Quintal, and a dramatic flight recreation. After almost 25 years of service, C-GAUN flew its last revenue flight on January 1, 2008. The Gimli Glider then began its final voyage on January 24, 2008, as AC7067, from Montreal Trudeau to Tucson International Airport and final flight to retirement at California's Mojave Airport . The flight

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4830-493: The U.S. passenger market. Although Philippine Airlines (PAL) was officially founded on February 26, 1941, its license to operate as an airliner was derived from merged Philippine Aerial Taxi Company (PATCO) established by mining magnate Emmanuel N. Bachrach on 3 December 1930, making it Asia's oldest scheduled carrier still in operation. Commercial air service commenced three weeks later from Manila to Baguio , making it Asia's first airline route. Bachrach's death in 1937 paved

4945-517: The United States until its closure in 2008. Following World War I , the United States found itself swamped with aviators. Many decided to take their war-surplus aircraft on barnstorming campaigns, performing aerobatic maneuvers to woo crowds. In 1918, the United States Postal Service won the financial backing of Congress to begin experimenting with air mail service, initially using Curtiss Jenny aircraft that had been procured by

5060-513: The age of 68 on September 24, 2015, in Saint-Donat, Quebec . The aircraft was temporarily repaired at Gimli and flew out two days later to be fully repaired at a maintenance base in Winnipeg. The aircraft was returned to service with Air Canada after the full repair. Following a successful appeal against their suspensions, Pearson and Quintal were assigned as crew members aboard another Air Canada flight. The 1995 television movie Falling from

5175-478: The aircraft lost 5,000 feet (1,500 m), giving a glide ratio of roughly 12:1 (dedicated glider planes reach ratios of 50:1 to 70:1). At this point, Quintal proposed landing at the former RCAF Station Gimli , a closed air force base where he had once served as a pilot for the Royal Canadian Air Force . Unbeknownst to Quintal or the air traffic controller, a part of the facility had been converted to

5290-439: The aircraft was being prepared to return to Edmonton, a maintenance worker decided to investigate the problem with the faulty FQIS. To test the system, he re-enabled the second channel, at which point the fuel gauges in the cockpit went blank. However, before he could disable the second channel again, he was called away to perform a floatstick measurement of fuel remaining in the tanks, leaving the circuit breaker tagged (which masked

5405-527: The aircraft's flying condition since the previous day, reinforced by what he saw in the cockpit, Pearson now had a signed-off maintenance log, which had become customarily preferred over the MMEL. In older aircraft with a three-person crew, the flight engineer kept a fuel log and supervised the fuelling. The Boeing 767 belonged to a new generation of aircraft that flew with only a pilot and co-pilot, but Air Canada had not clearly assigned responsibility for supervising

5520-428: The aircraft's nose to slam into, bounce off, and then scrape along the ground. This additional friction helped to slow the airplane, and kept it from crashing into the crowds surrounding the runway. Pearson applied extra right brake, which caused the main landing gear to straddle the guardrail. Air Canada Flight 143 came to a final stop on the ground 17 minutes after running out of fuel. No serious injuries occurred among

5635-456: The aircraft, the backup instruments did not include a vertical speed indicator that could be used to determine how far the aircraft could glide. On the Boeing 767, the control surfaces are so large that the pilots cannot move them with muscle power alone. Instead, hydraulic systems are used to multiply the forces applied by the pilots. Since the engines supply power for the hydraulic systems, in

5750-466: The airline had failed to reallocate the task of checking fuel load (which had been the responsibility of the flight engineer on older aircraft flown with a crew of three). The safety board also said that Air Canada needed to keep more spare parts, including replacements for the defective fuel quantity indicator, in its maintenance inventory, and provide better, more thorough training on the metric system to its pilots and fuelling personnel. The final report of

5865-425: The airplane had to take on, he needed to convert the 7,682   litres of fuel already in the tanks to their equivalent mass in kilograms, subtract that figure from the 22,300 kg total fuel that would be needed, and convert that result back into its equivalent volume. The density in metric units was 0.803 kg/L, so the correct calculation would have been: At the time of the accident, Canada's aviation sector

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5980-479: The altitude reporting function, and forcing the controllers to revert to primary radar to track the plane. The 767 was one of the first airliners to include an electronic flight instrument system , which operated on the electricity generated by the aircraft's jet engines. With both engines stopped, the system went dead, and most screens went blank, leaving only a few basic battery-powered emergency flight instruments. While these provided sufficient information to land

6095-464: The average domestic ticket price has dropped by 40%. So has airline employee pay. By incurring massive losses, the airlines of the USA now rely upon a scourge of cyclical Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings to continue doing business. America West Airlines (which has since merged with US Airways) remained a significant survivor from this new entrant era, as dozens, even hundreds, have gone under. In many ways,

6210-499: The biggest winner in the deregulated environment was the air passenger. Although not exclusively attributable to deregulation, indeed the U.S. witnessed an explosive growth in demand for air travel. Many millions who had never or rarely flown before became regular fliers, even joining frequent flyer loyalty programs and receiving free flights and other benefits from their flying. New services and higher frequencies meant that business fliers could fly to another city, do business, and return

6325-406: The carriers that won these routes would, through time and mergers, evolve into Pan Am , Delta Air Lines , Braniff Airways , American Airlines , United Airlines (originally a division of Boeing ), Trans World Airlines , Northwest Airlines , and Eastern Air Lines . Service during the early 1920s was sporadic: most airlines at the time were focused on carrying bags of mail . In 1925, however,

6440-428: The case of a complete power outage, the aircraft was designed with a ram air turbine that swings out from a compartment located beneath the bottom of the 767, and drives a hydraulic pump to supply power to hydraulic systems. In line with their planned diversion to Winnipeg, the pilots had been descending through 35,000 feet (10,700 m) when the second engine shut down. They had searched their emergency checklist for

6555-455: The cockpit and read the logbook. While waiting for the fuel truck, he enabled the defective channel, and performed an FQIS self-test. Distracted by the arrival of the fuel truck, he left the channel enabled after the FQIS failed the test. Pearson entered the cockpit to find the FQIS blank, as he expected. After taking a dripstick measurement, Pearson converted the reading from centimetres to litres to kilograms. However, he did his calculation with

6670-478: The country's flagship carrier to this day, on 17 May 1933. Germany's Deutsche Lufthansa was created in 1926 by merger of two airlines, one of them Junkers Luftverkehr . Lufthansa, due to the Junkers heritage and unlike most other airlines at the time, became a major investor in airlines outside of Europe, providing capital to Varig and Avianca. German airliners built by Junkers , Dornier , and Fokker were among

6785-399: The crew to keep track of fuel burned as the flight progresses. It is normally updated automatically by the FQIS, but the fuel quantity can also be entered manually. Because the FMC would reset during the stopover in Ottawa, the captain had the fuel tanks measured again with the dripstick . With 11,430 litres (2,510 imp gal; 3,020 US gal) of fuel in the tanks, the fueler gave

6900-502: The density figure for jet fuel in pounds/litre from the Air Canada refueler's slip, used for all other aircraft in the fleet, instead of kilograms/litre for the all-metric 767 aircraft, which was new to the fleet. Since the FQIS was not operational, he entered the reading into the flight management computer, which tracked the amount of fuel remaining in kilograms. The airplane flew to Ottawa without accident, where another dripstick measurement

7015-469: The designation of Central Daylight Time (CDT) which is five hours behind UTC and known internationally as UTC−5. The province of Manitoba is the only province or territory in Canada that observes Central Time in all areas. The following Canadian provinces and territories observe Central Time in the areas noted, while their other areas observe Eastern Time : Also, most of the province of Saskatchewan

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7130-467: The domestic industry operates over 10,000 daily departures nationwide. Toward the end of the century, a new style of low cost airline emerged, offering a no-frills product at a lower price. Southwest Airlines , JetBlue , AirTran Airways , Skybus Airlines and other low-cost carriers began to represent a serious challenge to the so-called "legacy airlines", as did their low-cost counterparts in many other countries. Their commercial viability represented

7245-502: The end of the 1930s Aeroflot had become the world's largest airline, employing more than 4,000 pilots and 60,000 other service personnel and operating around 3,000 aircraft (of which 75% were considered obsolete by its own standards). During the Soviet era Aeroflot was synonymous with Russian civil aviation, as it was the only air carrier. It became the first airline in the world to operate sustained regular jet services on 15 September 1956 with

7360-434: The fact that it was no longer pulled). The FQIS was now completely unserviceable, and the fuel gauges were blank. On entering the cockpit, Captain Pearson saw what he was expecting to see—blank fuel gauges and a tagged circuit breaker. Pearson consulted the master minimum equipment list (MMEL), which indicated that the aircraft was not legal to fly with blank fuel gauges. Still, due to a misunderstanding, Pearson believed it

7475-408: The failure of the front landing gear to lock into position during the gravity drop, and a guardrail installed along the centre of the repurposed runway to facilitate its use as a drag race track . Pearson braked hard as soon as the wheels touched down on the runway, skidding and promptly blowing out two of the aircraft's tires. The unlocked nose wheel collapsed and was forced back into its well, causing

7590-558: The first Sunday in November instead of the last Sunday in October, moving the time from 2 to 1 a.m. (i.e., from 02:00 to 01:00). At the time, Mexico decided not to go along with this change and observed their horario de verano ("summer schedule") from the first Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October. In December 2009, the Mexican Congress allowed ten border cities, eight of which are in states that observe Central Time, to adopt

7705-604: The first flagships of the Jet Age in the West, while the Eastern bloc had Tupolev Tu-104 and Tupolev Tu-124 in the fleets of state-owned carriers such as Czechoslovak ČSA , Soviet Aeroflot and East-German Interflug . The Vickers Viscount and Lockheed L-188 Electra inaugurated turboprop transport. On 4 October 1958, British Overseas Airways Corporation started transatlantic flights between London Heathrow and New York Idlewild with

7820-420: The forward slip. With both engines completely starved of fuel , the plane made hardly any noise during its approach. This gave people on the ground no warning of the impromptu landing and little time to flee. As the gliding plane closed in on the decommissioned runway, the pilots noticed boys were riding bicycles within 1,000 feet (300 m) of the projected point of impact. Two factors helped avert disaster:

7935-475: The fuelling. On the day of the accident, two technicians and two pilots worked on the calculation in Montreal. One technician stopped after he found that he was not making any progress. Another technician was using a piece of paper in his pocket, and he stopped when he ran out of space. First Officer Quintal did the calculation by hand, and Captain Pearson checked the arithmetic with his Jeppesen slide rule . Since

8050-464: The immediate conversion of all Air Canada aircraft from imperial units to metric units , since a mixed fleet was more dangerous than an all-imperial or an all-metric fleet. The aircraft involved, manufactured in 1983, was a Boeing 767-233 registered as C-GAUN with serial number 22520. It was powered by two Pratt & Whitney JT9D-7R4D engines. On July 22, 1983, Air Canada Boeing 767 C-GAUN underwent routine checks in Edmonton. The technician found

8165-434: The investigation was published in April 1985. The amount of fuel in the tanks of a Boeing 767 is computed by the FQIS and displayed in the cockpit. The FQIS on the aircraft was a dual-processor channel, each independently calculating the fuel load and cross-checking with the other. In the event of one failing, the other could still operate alone, but in that case, the indicated quantity was required to be cross-checked against

8280-513: The last 50 years of the airline industry have varied from reasonably profitable, to devastatingly depressed. As the first major market to deregulate the industry in 1978, U.S. airlines have experienced more turbulence than almost any other country or region. In fact, no U.S. legacy carrier survived bankruptcy-free. Among the outspoken critics of deregulation, former CEO of American Airlines, Robert Crandall has publicly stated: "Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing shows airline industry deregulation

8395-443: The latter fixed the former. The aircraft flew from Edmonton to Montreal on the day of the accident. Before departure, the engineer informed the pilot of the problem and confirmed that the tanks must be verified with a floatstick. In a misunderstanding, the pilot believed the aircraft had been flown with the fault from Toronto the previous afternoon. The flight to Montreal proceeded uneventfully, with fuel gauges operating correctly on

8510-439: The left engine, the cockpit warning system sounded again with the "all engines out" sound, a sharp "bong" that no one in the cockpit could recall having heard before. The right-side engine stopped seconds later, and the 767 lost all power. Flying with all engines out was never expected to occur, so it had never been covered in training. Adding to both the crew's and the controllers' problems, the plane's transponder failed, stopping

8625-408: The lift coefficient of the wings, to slow the airliner for a safe landing. The pilots briefly considered a 360° turn to reduce speed and altitude, but they decided they did not have enough altitude for the manoeuvre. Pearson decided to execute a forward slip to increase drag and reduce altitude. This manoeuvre, performed by "crossing the controls" (applying the rudder in one direction and ailerons in

8740-405: The major airlines implemented an equally high barrier called loss leader pricing. In this strategy an already established and dominant airline stomps out its competition by lowering airfares on specific routes, below the cost of operating on it, choking out any chance a start-up airline may have. The industry side effect is an overall drop in revenue and service quality. Since deregulation in 1978

8855-540: The merger of Instone Air Line Company , British Marine Air Navigation , Daimler Airway and Handley Page Transport , to allow British airlines to compete with stiff competition from French and German airlines that were enjoying heavy government subsidies. The airline was a pioneer in surveying and opening up air routes across the world to serve far-flung parts of the British Empire and to enhance trade and integration. The first new airliner ordered by Imperial Airways,

8970-509: The merger. PAL restarted service on 15 March 1941, with a single Beech Model 18 NPC-54 aircraft, which started its daily services between Manila (from Nielson Field ) and Baguio , later to expand with larger aircraft such as the DC-3 and Vickers Viscount. Cathay Pacific was one of the first airlines to be launched among the other Asian countries in 1946 along with Asiana Airlines , which later joined in 1988. The license to operate as an airliner

9085-403: The modern Transportation Safety Board of Canada ) reported that Air Canada management was responsible for "corporate and equipment deficiencies." Their report praised the flight and cabin crews for their "professionalism and skill." It noted that Air Canada "neglected to assign clearly and specifically the responsibility for calculating the fuel load in an abnormal situation." It further found that

9200-532: The most advanced in the world at the time. In 1926, Alan Cobham surveyed a flight route from the UK to Cape Town , South Africa , following this up with another proving flight to Melbourne , Australia . Other routes to British India and the Far East were also charted and demonstrated at this time. Regular services to Cairo and Basra began in 1927 and were extended to Karachi in 1929. The London- Australia service

9315-636: The newly emerging flagships of air travel such as the Boeing Stratocruiser , Lockheed Constellation , and Douglas DC-6 . Most of these new aircraft were based on American bombers such as the B-29 , which had spearheaded research into new technologies such as pressurization . Most offered increased efficiency from both added speed and greater payload. In the 1950s, the De Havilland Comet , Boeing 707 , Douglas DC-8 , and Sud Aviation Caravelle became

9430-420: The other direction), is commonly used in gliders and light aircraft to descend more quickly without increasing forward speed; it is rarely used in large jet airliners outside of rare circumstances like those of this flight. The forward slip disrupted airflow past the ram air turbine, which decreased the hydraulic power available; the pilots were surprised to find the aircraft slow to respond when straightening after

9545-411: The passenger cabins were often spacious with luxurious interiors – over speed and efficiency. The relatively basic navigational capabilities of pilots at the time also meant that delays due to the weather were commonplace. By the early 1920s, small airlines were struggling to compete, and there was a movement towards increased rationalization and consolidation. In 1924, Imperial Airways was formed from

9660-411: The pilots turned off the alarm, knowing that the engine could be gravity-fed in level flight. A few seconds later, the fuel pressure alarm also sounded for the right engine. This prompted the pilots to divert to Winnipeg . The left engine failed within seconds, and the pilots began preparing for a single-engine landing. As they communicated their intentions to controllers in Winnipeg and tried to restart

9775-399: The race. As the aircraft slowed on approach to landing, the reduced power generated by the ram air turbine rendered the aircraft increasingly difficult to control. Without main power, the pilots used a gravity drop to lower the landing gear and lock it into place. The main gear locked into position, but the nose wheel did not. The failure of the nose wheel to lock would later prove to be

9890-637: The rapid increase of oil prices in early 2008. Finnair , the largest airline of Finland , had no fatal or hull-loss accidents since 1963, and is recognized for its safety. Tony Jannus conducted the United States' first scheduled commercial airline flight on January 1, 1914, for the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line . The 23-minute flight traveled between St. Petersburg, Florida and Tampa, Florida , passing some 50 feet (15 m) above Tampa Bay in Jannus' Benoist XIV wood and muslin biplane flying boat. His passenger

10005-644: The regional market of Asian airline industry India was also one of the first countries to embrace civil aviation. One of the first Asian airline companies was Air India , which was founded as Tata Airlines in 1932, a division of Tata Sons Ltd. (now Tata Group ). The airline was founded by India's leading industrialist, JRD Tata . On 15 October 1932, J. R. D. Tata himself flew a single engined De Havilland Puss Moth carrying air mail (postal mail of Imperial Airways ) from Karachi to Bombay via Ahmedabad . The aircraft continued to Madras via Bellary piloted by Royal Air Force pilot Nevill Vintcent . Tata Airlines

10120-399: The same day, from almost any point in the country. Air travel's advantages put long-distance intercity railroad travel and bus lines under pressure, with most of the latter having withered away, whilst the former is still protected under nationalization through the continuing existence of Amtrak . By the 1980s, almost half of the total flying in the world took place in the U.S., and today

10235-548: The same flight. Generally, airline companies are recognized with an air operating certificate or license issued by a governmental aviation body. Airlines may be scheduled or charter operators. The first airline was the German airship company DELAG , founded on November 16, 1909. The four oldest non-airship airlines that still exist are the Netherlands' KLM (1919), Colombia's Avianca (1919), Australia's Qantas (1920) and

10350-417: The section on flying the aircraft with both engines out, only to find that no such section existed. Captain Pearson was an experienced glider pilot, so he was familiar with flying techniques rarely used in commercial flight. Pearson needed to fly the 767 at the optimum glide speed to have the maximum range and, therefore, the largest choice of possible landing sites. Making his best guess as to this speed for

10465-431: The single FQIS channel operative. Without any spares, he repeated this temporary fix by pulling and tagging the circuit breaker. A record of all actions and findings was made in the maintenance log, including the entry: "SERVICE CHK – FOUND FUEL QTY IND BLANK – FUEL QTY #2 C/B PULLED & TAGGED...". This reports that the fuel gauges were blank and that the second FQIS channel was disabled, but it does not make clear that

10580-450: The single channel. On arrival in Montreal, a new crew boarded for the return flight to Edmonton. The outgoing pilot informed Captain Pearson and First Officer Quintal of the problem with the FQIS and passed along his mistaken belief that the aircraft had flown the previous day with this problem. In a further misunderstanding, Captain Pearson believed he was also being told that the FQIS had been completely unserviceable since then. While

10695-423: The tanks. He testified that it was a "regular practice of his" to do such calculations. When fuelling was complete, Captains Weir and Johnson checked the figures. The captain knew "from previous experience" the density of jet fuel in kg/L. He also had a working FQIS, which agreed with his calculations. Following Air Canada's internal investigation, Captain Pearson was demoted for six months, and First Officer Quintal

10810-560: The way for its eventual merger with Philippine Airlines in March 1941 and made it Asia's oldest airline. It is also the oldest airline in Asia still operating under its current name. Bachrach's majority share in PATCO was bought by beer magnate Andres R. Soriano in 1939 upon the advice of General Douglas MacArthur and later merged with newly formed Philippine Airlines with PAL as the surviving entity. Soriano has controlling interest in both airlines before

10925-424: The world. Established by aviator Albert Plesman , it was immediately awarded a "Royal" predicate from Queen Wilhelmina . Its first flight was from Croydon Airport , London to Amsterdam , using a leased Aircraft Transport and Travel DH-16 , and carrying two British journalists and a number of newspapers. In 1921, KLM started scheduled services. In Finland , the charter establishing Aero O/Y (now Finnair )

11040-533: The world. The airline soon gained a reputation for reliability, despite problems with bad weather, and began to attract European competition. In November 1919, it won the first British civil airmail contract. Six Royal Air Force Airco DH.9A aircraft were lent to the company, to operate the airmail service between Hawkinge and Cologne . In 1920, they were returned to the Royal Air Force. Other British competitors were quick to follow – Handley Page Transport

11155-403: Was Aircraft Transport and Travel , formed by George Holt Thomas in 1916; via a series of takeovers and mergers, this company is an ancestor of modern-day British Airways . Using a fleet of former military Airco DH.4 A biplanes that had been modified to carry two passengers in the fuselage , it operated relief flights between Folkestone and Ghent , Belgium. On July 15, 1919, the company flew

11270-512: Was Deutsche Luft-Reederei established in 1917 which started operating in February 1919. In its first year, the D.L.R. operated regularly scheduled flights on routes with a combined length of nearly 1000 miles. By 1921 the D.L.R. network was more than 3000 km (1865 miles) long, and included destinations in the Netherlands, Scandinavia and the Baltic Republics. Another important German airline

11385-450: Was Junkers Luftverkehr , which began operations in 1921. It was a division of the aircraft manufacturer Junkers , which became a separate company in 1924. It operated joint-venture airlines in Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland. The Dutch airline KLM made its first flight in 1920, and is the oldest continuously operating airline in

11500-517: Was a former mayor of St. Petersburg, who paid $ 400 for the privilege of sitting on a wooden bench in the open cockpit. The Airboat line operated for about four months, carrying more than 1,200 passengers who paid $ 5 each. Chalk's International Airlines began service between Miami and Bimini in the Bahamas in February 1919. Based in Ft. Lauderdale , Chalk's claimed to be the oldest continuously operating airline in

11615-622: Was a mistake." Congress passed the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act (P.L. 107–42) in response to a severe liquidity crisis facing the already-troubled airline industry in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks . Through the ATSB Congress sought to provide cash infusions to carriers for both the cost of the four-day federal shutdown of the airlines and the incremental losses incurred through December 31, 2001, as

11730-648: Was also one of the world's first major airlines which began its operations without any support from the Government. Central Time Zone The North American Central Time Zone ( CT ) is a time zone in parts of Canada , the United States , Mexico , Central America , and some Caribbean islands . In parts of that zone (20 states in the US, three provinces or territories in Canada, and several border municipalities in Mexico),

11845-492: Was captained by Jean-Marc Bélanger, a former head of the Air Canada Pilots Association ; captains Robert Pearson and Maurice Quintal were also on board, as were three of the six flight attendants from Flight 143. That summer, on July 23, 2008, the 25th anniversary of the accident, pilots Pearson and Quintal were celebrated in a parade in Gimli, and a mural was dedicated to commemorate the landing. In April 2013,

11960-512: Was carrying enough fuel for the remaining trip. The aircraft was carrying only 45% of its required fuel load. The aircraft ran out of fuel halfway to Edmonton, where maintenance staff were waiting to install a working FQIS that they had borrowed from another airline. The Board of Inquiry found fault with Air Canada procedures, training, and manuals. It recommended the adoption of fuelling procedures and other safety measures that U.S. and European airlines were already using. The board also recommended

12075-400: Was converting from imperial to metric units. As part of this process, the new 767s acquired by Air Canada were the first to be calibrated for metric units. The fueler reported that the density of jet fuel at the time was 1.77, which was in lb/L, since other Air Canada aircraft used lb. Pearson and Quintal both used the density of jet fuel in lb/L without converting to kg/L: Instead of taking on

12190-418: Was established in 1919 and used the company's converted wartime Type O/400 bombers with a capacity for 12 passengers, to run a London - Paris passenger service. The first French airline was Société des lignes Latécoère , later known as Aéropostale, which started its first service in late 1918 to Spain. The Société Générale des Transports Aériens was created in late 1919, by the Farman brothers and

12305-450: Was granted by the federal government body after reviewing the necessity at the national assembly. The Hanjin occupies the largest ownership of Korean Air as well as few low-budget airlines as of now. Korean Air is one of the four founders of SkyTeam , which was established in 2000. Asiana Airlines joined Star Alliance in 2003. Korean Air and Asiana Airlines comprise one of the largest combined airline miles and number of passenger served at

12420-474: Was inaugurated in 1932 with the Handley Page HP 42 airliners. Further services were opened up to Calcutta , Rangoon , Singapore , Brisbane and Hong Kong passengers departed London on 14 March 1936 following the establishment of a branch from Penang to Hong Kong. France began an air mail service to Morocco in 1919 that was bought out in 1927, renamed Aéropostale , and injected with capital to become

12535-612: Was safe to fly if the amount of fuel was confirmed with measuring sticks. The 767 was still a very new aircraft, having flown its maiden flight in September 1981. C-GAUN was the 47th Boeing 767 off the production line and had been delivered to Air Canada fewer than four months prior to this flight. In that time, 55 changes had been made to the MMEL, and some pages were blank pending development of procedures. Because of this unreliability, maintenance personnel authorizing flights had become standard practice. To add to his misconceptions about

12650-592: Was signed in the city of Helsinki on 12 September 1923. Junkers F.13 D-335 became the first aircraft of the company, when Aero took delivery of it on 14 March 1924. The first flight was between Helsinki and Tallinn , capital of Estonia , and it took place on 20 March 1924, one week later. In the Soviet Union , the Chief Administration of the Civil Air Fleet was established in 1921. One of its first acts

12765-545: Was suspended for two weeks for allowing the accident to happen. Three maintenance workers were also suspended. In 1985, Pearson and Quintal were awarded the first ever Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Diploma for Outstanding Airmanship. Several attempts by other crews who were given the same circumstances in a simulator at Vancouver resulted in crashes. Quintal was promoted to captain in 1989. Pearson remained with Air Canada for ten years and then moved to flying for Asiana Airlines ; he retired in 1995. Maurice Quintal died at

12880-418: Was taken and converted using the density in pounds/litre. Since the aircraft appeared to have enough fuel to reach Edmonton, no fuel was loaded at Ottawa. While Flight 143 was cruising over Red Lake, Ontario at 41,000 feet (12,500 m) shortly after 8 pm CDT , the aircraft's cockpit warning system sounded, indicating a fuel-pressure problem on the aircraft's left side. Assuming that a fuel pump had failed,

12995-605: Was the Handley Page W8f City of Washington , delivered on 3 November 1924. In the first year of operation the company carried 11,395 passengers and 212,380 letters. In April 1925, the film The Lost World became the first film to be screened for passengers on a scheduled airliner flight when it was shown on the London-Paris route. Two French airlines also merged to form Air Union on 1 January 1923. This later merged with four other French airlines to become Air France ,

13110-630: Was the world's first airline . It was founded on November 16, 1909, with government assistance, and operated airships manufactured by The Zeppelin Corporation . Its headquarters were in Frankfurt . The first fixed-wing scheduled airline was started on January 1, 1914. The flight was piloted by Tony Jannus and flew from St. Petersburg, Florida , to Tampa, Florida , operated by the St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line . The earliest fixed wing airline in Europe

13225-404: Was to help found Deutsch-Russische Luftverkehrs A.G. (Deruluft), a German-Russian joint venture to provide air transport from Russia to the West. Domestic air service began around the same time, when Dobrolyot started operations on 15 July 1923 between Moscow and Nizhni Novgorod. Since 1932 all operations had been carried under the name Aeroflot . Early European airlines tended to favor comfort –

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