That's an amazing story, I'm surprised I hadn't heard of it until now.

I’m sorry, how the hell does this actually happen?

Do planes seriously not have a fuel gauge? I would hope there is a nit more of a warning system than the engines shutting off.

I am amazed they could even take off, frankly.

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According to the wikipedia article the fuel gauges weren't working, wow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

How were they even allowed to fly? I'm not familiar with aviation laws in Canada, but in the US, a working fuel gauge is required (14 CFR 23.1337b). I can't believe the pilot's were given an award for causing an avoidable accident. It doesn't matter that the ground crew improperly fueled the plane, it is always the pilot's responsibility to verify that the plane is airworthy before takeoff.

Here's a great (and hilarious) write up of what happened: https://www.damninteresting.com/the-gimli-glider/

OK, hold the fucking phone here. This video is just a disaster. It is flippant and glossing over the facts of what actually happened. This story is a favorite of mine, so I have done a lot a reading on it.

This happened in 1983 (36 years ago).

>> Do planes seriously not have a fuel gauge?

There is specifically a digital fuel gauge processor on that plane, and it was malfunctioning. There was an inductor coil that wasn't properly soldered onto the circuit board. At that time, planes were allowed to fly without a functioning digital fuel gauge as long as there was a manual check of the fuel in tanks and the computer was told the starting fuel.

The problem is that fuel trucks pump by volume and planes measure fuel by weight. The fueling truck converted the volume to kilograms and then converted to pounds. He should not have used both. In 1983 ground crews were used to converting volume to pounds. The 767 was the first plane in Air Canada's fleet to have metric fuel gauges.

The line in the video "the flight crew approved of the fuel without noticing the error" glosses over how it is actually done. The pilot was passed a form that contained the numbers and calculations from the ground crew that stated that 22,300 kg of fuel was loaded on the plane. The math was wrong, but unless the pilots re-did the numbers by hand, there wouldn't be anything to jump out at them. He accepted the form and punched those numbers in to the computer.

The 767 was one of the first planes to eliminate the Flight Engineer position and replace it with a computer. There was no clear owner as to who does the fuel calc in this situation. In this case, it fell to the ground crew.

>> I would hope there is a nit more of a warning system than the engines shutting off.

If there was a functional digital fuel gauge, it would have showed them missing half their fuel from the start, and the error would have been caught. Because there wasn't, the computer was calculating and displaying the amount of fuel based on an incorrect start value.

That is another problem with this video. It states that "they didn't even think about it until ... and an alarm went off signalling that their left engine had quit working."

Fuck you, narrator asshole.

In this case, low fuel pump pressure warnings were firing off before the engines shut down. They were investigating why they would be getting these low pressure warnings when their calculated fuel values (based on the original error) showed that they had enough fuel.

>> I can't believe the pilot's were given an award for causing an avoidable accident.

The pilots did not cause it. They followed all the proper procedures applicable at that time, 1983. It was only due to their skill and quick thinking that the pilots landed the plane without any serious injuries to passengers.

They ran simulations in Vancouver of this exact fuel and flight situation and all the crews that ran this simulation crashed their planes.

"Bad math can kill you." Flippant, correct, but still not quite applicable to this situation. Air Canada did not provide any conversion training for dealing with kilograms and the 767. Not the ground crew, nor the pilots, were trained how to handle it. They were expected to "figure it out". That, and the elimination of the Flight Engineer position, set these situations up for disaster.

I remember watching this one on TV live.

While we're on the subject, does anyone remember the news reports from around 1989 I think, of a private plane flying along the east coast of the U.S. near Florida and it was assumed the pilot was incapacitated. He wasn't responding to the radio but the jet pilots saw that the sun visor position had changed while they were tracking him so obviously someone was flying the plane.

I think he eventually landed but it was never clear what the explanation was for the lack of communication. It was a big deal at the time but I can't find any reference to it with Google.

Interesting site for your curiosity.

https://www.avherald.com/h?list=&opt=0

I don't remember that one. But then again I've had a bad memory for as long as I can remember.

If this had been today, there would be a thousand videos of it from all angles.

So there's no redundant mechanical VSI on a 767? Wow.

Interestingly, this plane was still in operation at Air Canada until 2008, and I flew on it many times (there was a little brass plaque near the front entrance). Also interesting, Air Canada has had flat screens on the back of all of their seats since the 90s and of the many shows available for viewing was the show Mayday. So I got to watch the Mayday of the crash on the Gimli Glider, on the Gimli Glider.