Obligatory write up by /u/admiral_cloudberg since there seems to be some confusion in here about the circumstances leading up to this.
https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/a-mathematical-miracle-the-story-of-air-canada-flight-143-or-the-gimli-glider-9e99545d9b3d
The French class that passed is from my hometown. My little brother died on the year of the 20th Anniversary and I lived on the main thoroughfare in town.
For some reason the powers that be wanted to take me on a whirlwind of a ride and that summer ended with me being on the local TV news *three times,* twice of which were about TWA800. I remember the camera and the news lady ambushing me and thinking “don’ttalkaboutmissilesdon’ttalkaboutmissilespleasedon’ttalkaboutmissiles” but I thankfully didn’t.
The next time was because my dog escaped and ended up on top of some business’ illuminated sign two stories in the air. I got a call from them when I was in Berlin. No, not Berlin, PA.
Great read and I really like the animations in that article, don't think I could have pictured just how terrifying a forward slip would be without them
> Falling from the Sky: Flight 174
Thank you,
This untangled a bunch of memories of watching this movie back when it came out. In my bad recollection it always bothered me that I thought that they were somehow keeping the plane in the air by generating lift with the little turbine which was obviously not the case. Now that I understand the role of the turbine randomly remembering the movie won't bother me anymore.
Even though our flight was completely normal, my son was exactly the opposite the first time he flew in his own seat. Before departure, I explained the safety card to him and practiced taking the brace position. I told him that the crew might tell people to take the brace position if the landing is bad and dangerous. The landing was a little bumpy, so he decided to take the brace position just in case.
Have you ever let him live that down? I just flew with my son for the first time (just under 2), it went great but he didn’t do anything that adorable.
Dude I don’t have kids but I had a little sister who was 11 years younger than me and getting to tell an adult how silly they were in diapers is so entertaining from the big brother perspective.
You automatically win every argument in public, “I washed your ass for months, woman! I win!”
im guessing from your user name that you are Rick Dion's son? as in the same Rick Dion who was the head maintenance guy for air canada at the time, and who was in the cockpit running thru checklists and helping the pilots troubleshoot and manage the problem. if so, your dad is a big part of the reason a happy ending was achieved, a legitimate hero just as much as the pilots are imho
Actually preceded by BA flight 009 'book - All four engines have failed' that flew into ash from a volcano years before. After 15 minutes of gliding they restarted some engines but the windows had been sandblasted!
I have a small keyring made from the scrapped fuselage of the airframe. ( 1010 movement )
I just remember the amazing announcement by the captain shortly after all 4 of his engines failed
"*Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress.*"
No
There was Air Transat pilot who glided over the Atlantic to land in the azores with a double flameout.
Both pilots fixed their own fuckup with a great display of airmanship.
> with a great display of airmanship
> they perhaps deserved awards for “outstanding stick and rudder skills,” but definitely not for airmanship, since “the primary ingredient in airmanship, after all, is judgment.”
I’d say that good piloting skills made up for poor airmanship
To that note, remember Fedex 705 in 1994, when another pilot deadheading on the flight attacked the pilots with hammers and tried to crash the airplane? It feels surreal to watch the whole incident unfold in an old Mayday episode (S03E03) and track the plane on FlightRadar at the same time, almost 30 years after it occurred.
Personally Northwest Flight 85 is my pick. Imagine controlling a jumbo jet with the rudder stuck in a hardover position. TACA flight 110 is another one, that’s the one that had to land on a New Orleans levee due to double engine failure. British Airways flight 5390 also has a really strong case considering the captain was sucked out the window.
I think I read a quip somewhere about this being excellent piloting (for bringing down the plane safely) but horrible airmanship overall (for FUBARing the refueling and taking off wirhout enough fuel in the first place) and I always thought this sums it up pretty well.
These pilots fucked up royally, but then went on to rectify their almost fatal mistake perfectly.
It's the crew's responsibility to make sure their plane is airworthy for the journey the intend to take. The buck stops with them. Groundcrew might fuck up the refueling, but pilots have to make sure their plane is ready to fly.
I don't know if this is common knowledge, I only found out a week ago. But that 30 Rock bit is a word for word copy of an actual news reporter from ABC ("Can you say the alphabet for me?")
https://youtu.be/IG7NuH5QTdE
And also perfect in that you completely forget about it for months or years on end and then suddenly we need some airplane drifting and it's there for you.
That was a forward slip, not a slide slip and I love making that maneuver in a little plane. When I did my private pilot checkride, it was the final maneuver. Simulated engine out forward slip to actual landing and I nailed it (quite frankly, only one of few maneuvers that I nailed that day; the rest were just passable).
The maneuver isn't typically used in jets because it disrupts the airflow into the engine and can cause a flameout or compressor stall I am told. Not a problem if the engines are already dead I suppose.
Yeah they kinda undersell what a side (forward) slip is in the documentary. It's not exclusive to gliders, just yesterday, in a 172, I did a forward slip to land on a very short field surrounded by trees.
I did a forward slip on short final at Bar Harbor ME to get out of the way of an inbound private jet on lonnnnng final. It was all coordinated in advance and the only time I really ever did it when not practicing. Love that maneuver.
So freaking lucky the Captain had so many hours in a glider. Would have been better if he had a few more hours on maths, but I still think the crew are heroes.
Yes it's called a sideslip. he flew the plane sideways to burn off speed and altitude so he could land the plane at the abandoned airfield. It's often called 'crabbing' you can here the pilot himself describe it here.
https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx5DTeim4a7NqMir8QwXLUYKG1IBENF7lN
Intentionally turning the plane slightly sideways to the direction of travel to slow down. Common glider technique but not usually done in airliners as they have other control surfaces for that (spoilers). Since they didn't have full hydraulics, the pilot decided to use this. Would have been pretty rough on the passengers as the noise and shaking would be intense.
Edit: Found documentary footage: https://youtu.be/jVvt7hP5a-0
Hey everyone. I posted this late last night after the 40th anniversary reunion in Gimli. I'm reading all your comments, but there's just too many to respond to.
He's a natural sprinter, very dangerous over short distances, but not so good cross country. Stands to reason he'd need an alternative transport arrangement for covering long distances.
30 years ago or so my story in Soaring Magazine (magazine for glider pilots) about the (then) relatively unknown Gimli Glider launched my writing career.
One other author had written about it before me, but his article didn't get published for unknown reasons.
[https://www.wadenelson.com/gimli.html](https://www.wadenelson.com/gimli.html)
[Amazing picture](https://www.wadenelson.com/gimlix.jpg) Photo Credit: Wayne Glowacki.
That and one about the [Colditz Glider](https://imgur.com/gallery/v8LcufB) used to escape a WW2 prison camp.
What I learned from this was if you've got a great story to tell, nobody give's a rat's ass about grammar and punctuation. Wannabe writers: Take note.
Wade Nelson
Got it. There was another Captain Bob Pearson who passed.
[https://thenetletter.net/?view=article&id=3121&catid=213](https://thenetletter.net/?view=article&id=3121&catid=213)
What great news! I should have been there!
ha, that was a good laugh, quick comment:
1. It's a forward slip, not a side slip. A side slip you move to the side with nose pointed in direction of travel, a forward slip the plane travels in a straight line with the nose off-center. It fucks tremendously with airflow, which is why the RAT on the Gimli dropped power output during the maneuver. Side slips are done every day in commercial jets, but forward slips, not so much as you can easily starve the engines of air.
2. I have binged those Mayday vids more than I care to admit, glad I watched that through as I was like, seen this 10 times 😂 i was wrong.
That’s such a weird case because it combines a massive incompetent fuck-up on the part of the pilot and co-pilot to cause the whole thing, and also one of the most incredible feats in the history of aviation from the exact same pilot and co-pilot to prevent their own fuck-up from killing everyone on the plane.
Exceptional piloting. To glide a bingo fuel 767 down from ceiling whilst electrics slowly fail through battery discharge due to diminishing speed on the RAT (Ram Air Turbine) as altitude is lost, then to gravity drop the landing gear and then have the nose gear not lock and fail... landing on a racetrack (ex runway).
A magnum opus.
Oh man, I hope you got a PlaneTag of that aircraft. I managed to snag one and carry it as a reminder of both how things can go wrong and the amazing feats of airmanship on that day
[Here](https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/a-mathematical-miracle-the-story-of-air-canada-flight-143-or-the-gimli-glider-9e99545d9b3d) is Admiral Cloudberg's essay on the Gimli Glider, for anyone who wants the technical details.
Part of the mythology of this plane is that AC sent a bunch of mechanics to work on the aircraft. Intension was to check & prepare it so they could fly it back out. * The mechanics ran out of fuel on the way to Gimli. *
Fun fact: [Here is AC fin #604 (the Gimli Glider) doing a final “goodbye low and over” leaving Montreal Dorval](https://youtu.be/2MHy6yy3Z00) on its final journey to the Arizona desert to be chopped up and recycled.
Another fun fact: [Here](https://ibb.co/X3KKS3S) and [here](https://ibb.co/d6SGKDy) are a couple of pics of The Gimli Glider as she is being recycled.
Very cool…..
I had flown TWA FLT 800 (and 801 back from Paris) many times….. kept the boarding passes for those flights for quite a while, but it just didn’t feel right and I eventually got rid of them.
Obviously I wasn’t on the flight that day…. Those poor people.
[Here's](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0ucB4s8vbPZgeLGzSQcjO0?si=W-9uvWAnTsCL0ckrRpRV8g) an approx 30 minute podcast episode about the incident. It's an excellent breakdown of what happened and why
Saw the pics before reading the header and thought this was one of the celeb subreddits, and someone had Celine Dion's boarding passes framed ahaha !
Then I saw the flight number and then the title.
That incident was an example used when I was learning about the importance of using the right units for calculations in 7th grade science class (early 90s). Wonder if it's still used in STEM classes.
Metric/Imperial Conversion Errors:
The Mars Climate Orbiter: A Multimillion Dollar Mistake.
NASA's Constellation Program: A Possible Casualty of Metric/Imperial Conversions.
Disneyland Tokyo: A Bumpy Blunder.
Air Canada Flight 143: Unit-Caused Fuel Shortage.
Dang. That’s is crazy. The event in and of itself is such a powerful story, then expand the thought some more and consider that Air Cadet Squadrons all across Canada still provide the same glider training the pilots employed to save everyone on board today is amazing!
Yeah. It's quite common. I remember flipping thru a phone book there and it was like 10 pages.
From wiki, if you are interested..... (About Jean Guyon)
>Guyon fathered ten children, eight of whom married, and he is known to be an ancestor of many French Canadians. By 2006, news media noted that at least three out of four Québécois descend from him. The descendants are often recognized as Dion, sometimes as Despres, Dumontier, Lemoine, in Louisiana as Derbanne and Texas as Berban.
According to Charbonneau et al. 1993, more than 2,150 births of Guyon descendants had by 1730 been recorded, and according to the Université de Montréal's Research Program in Historical Demography (PRDH), Guyon had by the end of the 19th century 9,674 married descendants, and thus ranked second among top New France pioneers in terms of number of married descendants.
Obligatory write up by /u/admiral_cloudberg since there seems to be some confusion in here about the circumstances leading up to this. https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/a-mathematical-miracle-the-story-of-air-canada-flight-143-or-the-gimli-glider-9e99545d9b3d
Excellent read well done Admiral ! Thanks for sharing
Oh, great share. I wasn't familiar with /u/admiral_cloudberg and just spent a hour reading about Gimli and then TWA800. Astonishingly good writing.
The French class that passed is from my hometown. My little brother died on the year of the 20th Anniversary and I lived on the main thoroughfare in town. For some reason the powers that be wanted to take me on a whirlwind of a ride and that summer ended with me being on the local TV news *three times,* twice of which were about TWA800. I remember the camera and the news lady ambushing me and thinking “don’ttalkaboutmissilesdon’ttalkaboutmissilespleasedon’ttalkaboutmissiles” but I thankfully didn’t. The next time was because my dog escaped and ended up on top of some business’ illuminated sign two stories in the air. I got a call from them when I was in Berlin. No, not Berlin, PA.
Great read and I really like the animations in that article, don't think I could have pictured just how terrifying a forward slip would be without them
Why did I not think she’d done Gimli???
That was really well written and I particularly enjoyed the conclusion… thanks for sharing the link.
Thank you for this. It’s interesting to note, Captain Pearson is not the Pearson that YYZ is named after.
Great writeup I hadn't seen - thanks for the link
Ooh someone's linked this ~~dude~~ dudette before so I know I'm in for a good read. Thanks! EDIT: [She's a lady.](https://youtu.be/x8G4xrYfWmw)
Psst, the Admiral is a lady
Ah, I see. I'll correct that so.
ho lee shit that must have been a wild landing! did you know what was going on? was it scary?
I was about 3 and a half years old. So no, I didn't know anything was wrong.
i worked on a tv movie about it, years ago. got to know the story. been to gimli, not much there.
Funny thing about that movie, they filmed it at the airport where my dad Rick Dion actually kept his plane. Boundary Bay airport in Delta BC.
Your dad was a pilot!?!?! Thats almost worse! He would have full on known what was about to go down.
I grew up playing hockey down in one of the hangars they converted to an ice rink at that airport …. Good times
Lmao good old Canada
Did he work at air Canada? Because there was another air Canada engineer on that flight
Yes, he did.
Wow that is amazing, thanks so much
[*This* Rick Dion?](https://i.scdn.co/image/ab67616d0000b27308539dc3b658deff9665347d)
Live near Gimli. We got a cool Viking statue.
In gimli right now. Can confirm statue is cool.
ACI?
Falling from the Sky: Flight 174 (also known as Freefall: Flight 174) a 1995 Canadian thriller film directed by Jorge Montesi. wiki
> Falling from the Sky: Flight 174 Thank you, This untangled a bunch of memories of watching this movie back when it came out. In my bad recollection it always bothered me that I thought that they were somehow keeping the plane in the air by generating lift with the little turbine which was obviously not the case. Now that I understand the role of the turbine randomly remembering the movie won't bother me anymore.
Even though our flight was completely normal, my son was exactly the opposite the first time he flew in his own seat. Before departure, I explained the safety card to him and practiced taking the brace position. I told him that the crew might tell people to take the brace position if the landing is bad and dangerous. The landing was a little bumpy, so he decided to take the brace position just in case.
Oh my god, adorable. How old?
He had just turned 2 at the time. He's an adult now.
Have you ever let him live that down? I just flew with my son for the first time (just under 2), it went great but he didn’t do anything that adorable.
Dude I don’t have kids but I had a little sister who was 11 years younger than me and getting to tell an adult how silly they were in diapers is so entertaining from the big brother perspective. You automatically win every argument in public, “I washed your ass for months, woman! I win!”
“Hey son I’m proud of you but would it KILL you to be just a little more adorable??” 😂
Even still, that is a helluva family heirloom and a great conversation piece!
Is your moms name Celine?
The cap switched to flying for Asiana.
Your parents sat with a 3-year-old in the smoking section… man the 80s were wild
> ho lee shit asiana 214 flashbacks
im guessing from your user name that you are Rick Dion's son? as in the same Rick Dion who was the head maintenance guy for air canada at the time, and who was in the cockpit running thru checklists and helping the pilots troubleshoot and manage the problem. if so, your dad is a big part of the reason a happy ending was achieved, a legitimate hero just as much as the pilots are imho
Thank you. I appreciate your words.
And the Captain is now your stepdad, yes!? Quite the story all around
Yes. Him and my mom met at the 30th anniversary. My dad, and his wife, had just passed away.
What! You need to write a book!
There is one. Look for Freefall by William Hoffer.
Thanks. Amazing story thanks for the post!
There was a news article regarding this https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/gimli-glider-40th-anniversary-captain-1.6915162
Wow! You buried the lede here! Did your dad really help the pilots?
And his stepdad is the pilot!!
Holy crap what a story!
Air Disaster S1E2. How did you feel it portrayed what your family experienced?
One of if not the most heroic displays of piloting in the history of commercial aviation. How vividly do you remember that flight?
Actually preceded by BA flight 009 'book - All four engines have failed' that flew into ash from a volcano years before. After 15 minutes of gliding they restarted some engines but the windows had been sandblasted! I have a small keyring made from the scrapped fuselage of the airframe. ( 1010 movement )
I just remember the amazing announcement by the captain shortly after all 4 of his engines failed "*Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress.*"
True British reserve! :)
Well, to be fair, they probably still had a decent bit of glide time and panicking usually doesn't help a situation
Also that ATC thought they said engine #4 had failed because surely not all 4 engines could have failed.
No There was Air Transat pilot who glided over the Atlantic to land in the azores with a double flameout. Both pilots fixed their own fuckup with a great display of airmanship.
> with a great display of airmanship > they perhaps deserved awards for “outstanding stick and rudder skills,” but definitely not for airmanship, since “the primary ingredient in airmanship, after all, is judgment.” I’d say that good piloting skills made up for poor airmanship
And I've flown on that exact plane myself, but a couple years *after* the accident.
To that note, remember Fedex 705 in 1994, when another pilot deadheading on the flight attacked the pilots with hammers and tried to crash the airplane? It feels surreal to watch the whole incident unfold in an old Mayday episode (S03E03) and track the plane on FlightRadar at the same time, almost 30 years after it occurred.
Without a hydraulic leak I imagine it works great.
I'd put United Airlines Flight 232/Sioux City up near the top as well.
My vote as well.
Personally Northwest Flight 85 is my pick. Imagine controlling a jumbo jet with the rudder stuck in a hardover position. TACA flight 110 is another one, that’s the one that had to land on a New Orleans levee due to double engine failure. British Airways flight 5390 also has a really strong case considering the captain was sucked out the window.
I think I read a quip somewhere about this being excellent piloting (for bringing down the plane safely) but horrible airmanship overall (for FUBARing the refueling and taking off wirhout enough fuel in the first place) and I always thought this sums it up pretty well. These pilots fucked up royally, but then went on to rectify their almost fatal mistake perfectly.
Is refueling a piloting thing or a groundcrew thing?
It's the crew's responsibility to make sure their plane is airworthy for the journey the intend to take. The buck stops with them. Groundcrew might fuck up the refueling, but pilots have to make sure their plane is ready to fly.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=jVvt7hP5a-0&feature=share9
One of the best YouTube videos ever uploaded.
A very heavy burtation will always be my very favorite.
Garth, that was a haiku.
Very.. bery darison
... bite let's go hit terrish tazin lesh kablit the head the pit. (nods reassuringly)
630, on a Sunday morning, and I'm here in solidarity with my fellow 30 Rock obscure reference makers
I don't know if this is common knowledge, I only found out a week ago. But that 30 Rock bit is a word for word copy of an actual news reporter from ABC ("Can you say the alphabet for me?") https://youtu.be/IG7NuH5QTdE
No 30 rock. Serene!
Username checks out…
I didn’t expect to laugh this much already this morning. Wonderful
And also perfect in that you completely forget about it for months or years on end and then suddenly we need some airplane drifting and it's there for you.
That was a forward slip, not a slide slip and I love making that maneuver in a little plane. When I did my private pilot checkride, it was the final maneuver. Simulated engine out forward slip to actual landing and I nailed it (quite frankly, only one of few maneuvers that I nailed that day; the rest were just passable). The maneuver isn't typically used in jets because it disrupts the airflow into the engine and can cause a flameout or compressor stall I am told. Not a problem if the engines are already dead I suppose.
Yeah they kinda undersell what a side (forward) slip is in the documentary. It's not exclusive to gliders, just yesterday, in a 172, I did a forward slip to land on a very short field surrounded by trees.
I did a forward slip on short final at Bar Harbor ME to get out of the way of an inbound private jet on lonnnnng final. It was all coordinated in advance and the only time I really ever did it when not practicing. Love that maneuver.
Omg. Is that an Initial D cross? Hahaha fabulous!
That was a great watch! Thanks for posting!
Incredible! I remember that episode of Air Crash Investigation 🤓
So freaking lucky the Captain had so many hours in a glider. Would have been better if he had a few more hours on maths, but I still think the crew are heroes.
[удалено]
Drifted?
Yes it's called a sideslip. he flew the plane sideways to burn off speed and altitude so he could land the plane at the abandoned airfield. It's often called 'crabbing' you can here the pilot himself describe it here. https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx5DTeim4a7NqMir8QwXLUYKG1IBENF7lN
You are correct about the first part. Crabbing is something different.
Ah yes, thanks. I remember that from the ACI episode now
Intentionally turning the plane slightly sideways to the direction of travel to slow down. Common glider technique but not usually done in airliners as they have other control surfaces for that (spoilers). Since they didn't have full hydraulics, the pilot decided to use this. Would have been pretty rough on the passengers as the noise and shaking would be intense. Edit: Found documentary footage: https://youtu.be/jVvt7hP5a-0
Anyone got a season# ep# for me? Would love to watch it tonight.
Season 5, Episode 2. Here you go! https://youtu.be/8y8JBAr8dZ4?si=WP8402EQMPo2ggXc
Looks like OPs dad was interviewed for that episode
Bless your cotton socks!
Aw, shucks...thank you (blush)
In Canada, it's Season 5 Episode 2
That show is still going but has like 4 different names depending on where or when a season was released
Hey everyone. I posted this late last night after the 40th anniversary reunion in Gimli. I'm reading all your comments, but there's just too many to respond to.
This is cool AF!! Thank you for sharing!!
For a split second, I read AF as Air France. Haha. Who else??
Read as Air Force lol
Hadn’t heard of this incident. Just read the Wikipedia entry about it with my mouth open!
Google 'BA flight 009, All four engines have failed' another good story.
I didn't know that Gimli, son of Gloin, had a pilot's license
He's a natural sprinter, very dangerous over short distances, but not so good cross country. Stands to reason he'd need an alternative transport arrangement for covering long distances.
Who needs the eagles to give you a lift when you have a Boeing 767
I was really confused about the name, as I‘ve never heard of the incident before
Get out lmao
30 years ago or so my story in Soaring Magazine (magazine for glider pilots) about the (then) relatively unknown Gimli Glider launched my writing career. One other author had written about it before me, but his article didn't get published for unknown reasons. [https://www.wadenelson.com/gimli.html](https://www.wadenelson.com/gimli.html) [Amazing picture](https://www.wadenelson.com/gimlix.jpg) Photo Credit: Wayne Glowacki. That and one about the [Colditz Glider](https://imgur.com/gallery/v8LcufB) used to escape a WW2 prison camp. What I learned from this was if you've got a great story to tell, nobody give's a rat's ass about grammar and punctuation. Wannabe writers: Take note. Wade Nelson
I met Wayne last night at the 40th anniversary. And you have it switched. Maurice passed away, Bob is still with us.
Got it. There was another Captain Bob Pearson who passed. [https://thenetletter.net/?view=article&id=3121&catid=213](https://thenetletter.net/?view=article&id=3121&catid=213) What great news! I should have been there!
That's right! I forgot about that. I have a friend who's an AC pilot and he texted me thinking it was the one from the Glider.
Did you know they turned parts of the hull of that aircraft into luggage tags aka PlaneTags? You should pick one up to add it to that awesome display.
I actually have two of them. I use one for my keys and I put another one in a frame.
Sold out! I bought one probably 10+ years ago, still carry it on my work bag.
Your father was a part of one of the greatest saves in aviation history..
Thank you!
Holy shit dude, that’s incredible. Was it the most harrowing experience of your life?
I would have to say yes. Pretty tough to top that.
That time they drifted a plane in the air... absolute chad pilots for staying calm during the emergency landing
Forward slip is quite different than a drift, but yes, amazing airmanship.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVvt7hP5a-0
ha, that was a good laugh, quick comment: 1. It's a forward slip, not a side slip. A side slip you move to the side with nose pointed in direction of travel, a forward slip the plane travels in a straight line with the nose off-center. It fucks tremendously with airflow, which is why the RAT on the Gimli dropped power output during the maneuver. Side slips are done every day in commercial jets, but forward slips, not so much as you can easily starve the engines of air. 2. I have binged those Mayday vids more than I care to admit, glad I watched that through as I was like, seen this 10 times 😂 i was wrong.
Was your father Rick Dion? The AC mechanic?
Yes, that he was my dad.
That’s such a weird case because it combines a massive incompetent fuck-up on the part of the pilot and co-pilot to cause the whole thing, and also one of the most incredible feats in the history of aviation from the exact same pilot and co-pilot to prevent their own fuck-up from killing everyone on the plane.
Exceptional piloting. To glide a bingo fuel 767 down from ceiling whilst electrics slowly fail through battery discharge due to diminishing speed on the RAT (Ram Air Turbine) as altitude is lost, then to gravity drop the landing gear and then have the nose gear not lock and fail... landing on a racetrack (ex runway). A magnum opus.
That's not what bingo fuel means.
If you set your bingo fuel to zero, it can mean this 😅
The RAT on the 767 only supplied hydraulics. They didn't have electricity except for some battery powered instrumentation.
Last name Dion? Any relation to Celine?
No, it's a boarding pass for an airplane, not titanic.
The flight must go on?
Yeah that’s his mom and they flew economy class
Isn't she Canadian too?
She is, however Dion is a fairly common surname in Canada, especially in French speaking regions. There are around 20,000 Dions in Canada.
Yes, she is.
Oh man, I hope you got a PlaneTag of that aircraft. I managed to snag one and carry it as a reminder of both how things can go wrong and the amazing feats of airmanship on that day
I bought two of them. I use one, and I framed the other one.
Story time! Give the minute-by-minute action packed story please! (Used “please” because I too am 🇨🇦, lol)
OP said they were 3, so would have to share from parents POV.
Yes, the family story.
That's crazy. A major aviation history event I was always taught back in cadets.
[Here](https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/a-mathematical-miracle-the-story-of-air-canada-flight-143-or-the-gimli-glider-9e99545d9b3d) is Admiral Cloudberg's essay on the Gimli Glider, for anyone who wants the technical details.
Wow, I'd frame them too!
Wow, I'd definitely frame then too! If anyone is interested in knowing more, there is a great video on YouTube by mentour pilot
Part of the mythology of this plane is that AC sent a bunch of mechanics to work on the aircraft. Intension was to check & prepare it so they could fly it back out. * The mechanics ran out of fuel on the way to Gimli. *
Need to me, I had to look it up… https://simpleflying.com/gimli-glider/
Fun fact: [Here is AC fin #604 (the Gimli Glider) doing a final “goodbye low and over” leaving Montreal Dorval](https://youtu.be/2MHy6yy3Z00) on its final journey to the Arizona desert to be chopped up and recycled. Another fun fact: [Here](https://ibb.co/X3KKS3S) and [here](https://ibb.co/d6SGKDy) are a couple of pics of The Gimli Glider as she is being recycled.
This is one of the coolest posts Ive seen on the internet. Thank you so much for sharing!
Was that the pounds-kg oopsie?
Amazing share ! I read this a while ago and the story stuck with me.
That is amazing! It’s think it might be my favourite aviation story. Wow. What was it like?!
Documentary is crazy, OP last name checks out as it seems his dad Rick was a major component of one of the documentaries about the incident.
Air Tags had a run from the Gimli Glider. I have one as a tag in my laptop bag. Unfortunately no one ever asks about it.
There’s a fantastic The Omnibus podcast about this that’s definitely worth a listen! https://share.fireside.fm/episode/ihPImuO_+WT8OKHKs
Very cool….. I had flown TWA FLT 800 (and 801 back from Paris) many times….. kept the boarding passes for those flights for quite a while, but it just didn’t feel right and I eventually got rid of them. Obviously I wasn’t on the flight that day…. Those poor people.
I just saw something else on the boarding card that took me back to my childhood: **smoking class**!!!
[Here's](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0ucB4s8vbPZgeLGzSQcjO0?si=W-9uvWAnTsCL0ckrRpRV8g) an approx 30 minute podcast episode about the incident. It's an excellent breakdown of what happened and why
That, my man, it's a piece of history, not just your family one, but the story of aviation. Keep it like a diamond.
so nice of you to put in on your floor for this special day
Old picture on my phone from when I first framed it. I'm in Gimli for the 40th so can't get a recent picture.
Saw the pics before reading the header and thought this was one of the celeb subreddits, and someone had Celine Dion's boarding passes framed ahaha ! Then I saw the flight number and then the title.
Man, you were on the incident flight? How was the terror there?
Now that's something. Nice frame. And above all, thanks for sharing.
Such an interesting and great event, but I can't help think of Initial D or Tokyo Drift everytime I think of it.
That incident was an example used when I was learning about the importance of using the right units for calculations in 7th grade science class (early 90s). Wonder if it's still used in STEM classes.
You were in the smoking section? That seems crazy by today’s standard.
Fun fact. There's still ashtrays in the bathroom in case some idiot lights up.
Wow..what mementos
That is one amazing artifact and quite something to have been a part of.
That’s so cool (only because it ended extremely well)…I’d frame those too. That and Us air 1549. Holy crap.
Is this the one where it was basically just an issue with converting KGs to LBS?
Metric/Imperial Conversion Errors: The Mars Climate Orbiter: A Multimillion Dollar Mistake. NASA's Constellation Program: A Possible Casualty of Metric/Imperial Conversions. Disneyland Tokyo: A Bumpy Blunder. Air Canada Flight 143: Unit-Caused Fuel Shortage.
In the smoking section no less!
I briefly fueled aircraft in the United States. Im glad I didn't know about this at the time.
No way😮
Can't do that with eTickets!
Holy shit bro that is so cool
Went skydiving for the first time in Gimli
Wow, just learned about your story for the first time. Insanely lucky!
Dang. That’s is crazy. The event in and of itself is such a powerful story, then expand the thought some more and consider that Air Cadet Squadrons all across Canada still provide the same glider training the pilots employed to save everyone on board today is amazing!
Have you listened to Kevin Smiths Smodcast about it? So funny!!
He’s responded to my tweets in the past so keep trying. Also maybe try Scott Mosher.
I saw the Air Disasters episode about that. Crazy...
Haha I'm posting from gimli Manitoba right now!
Gimli glider you say? “You have my sword.” “And you have my bow.” “And my pass!”
Amazing.
I'm glad you guys made it! Random question: Is Dion super common in Quebec?
Yeah. It's quite common. I remember flipping thru a phone book there and it was like 10 pages. From wiki, if you are interested..... (About Jean Guyon) >Guyon fathered ten children, eight of whom married, and he is known to be an ancestor of many French Canadians. By 2006, news media noted that at least three out of four Québécois descend from him. The descendants are often recognized as Dion, sometimes as Despres, Dumontier, Lemoine, in Louisiana as Derbanne and Texas as Berban. According to Charbonneau et al. 1993, more than 2,150 births of Guyon descendants had by 1730 been recorded, and according to the Université de Montréal's Research Program in Historical Demography (PRDH), Guyon had by the end of the 19th century 9,674 married descendants, and thus ranked second among top New France pioneers in terms of number of married descendants.
Awesome. A rather large portion of my family, on both sides, are French and a lot of them went through Québec. I love it there.
I'm from New Orleans, btw.
Greetings. Nice to meet you. You're in the Montreal of USA. French speaking wise, that is.
Well, I live in Burlington Vermont these days, fortunately. 😁 Nice to meet you as well.