Your video, Air Canada #AC8684 lost a wheel as it departed Montreal, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

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.

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.

Air Canada plane’s near-disaster at SFO has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579.

Those two pilots will probably never fly a commercial aircraft again after the investigation.

The negative outcome would have been horrific.

Its bad enough when two aircraft strike one another like in the case of KLM Pan Am Tenerife Accident (1977), the worse aviation disaster in history:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjLrZ2SDDaU

If the Air Canada pilots didn't start their go around when they did they probably would have taken out 2 other aircraft at a minimum.

Thats one very bad day at work for those 2 pilots.

Curious how Air Canada didn't have a visual that let him know he was lined up wrong. Amazing that a mistake like this could happen.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'air canada, 797, stan, rogers' to 'air canada, 797, stan rogers' - edited by calvados

Funny story. My sister and her boyfriend went down to cuba for a week long vacation at one of their resorts. The resort was kind of a bust, but they met a dog along the beach that was scavenging crab shells and whatnot, anything she could eat. So, after it was there on the second day, they decided to smuggle her into their room.

For the week, they fed and took care of the dog, named it Lucy, and decided they wanted to take her back with them. So, they tried to add the dog to the cargo list for their plane, but found they couldn't because she hadn't had her shots.

They then found a lady who takes care of a lot of stray dogs to take care of Lucy until they could come back down and get her. Turns out, the lady was also friends with a Vet who could spay her and give her the shots she needed while she was there.

So, a week goes by, and my sister flies back down to Cuba to get Lucy. The return flight was the day after she got there, so the lady taking care of Lucy allowed my sister to stay for the night. She gave my sister a room and put Lucy in it, and a second little puppy that needed to be separated from the rest named Tommy.

All night, all Tommy wanted to do was play with my sister and Lucy, and was heartbroken when she took Lucy to the airport the next day. Turns out, the weather was too hot for animals to be in the cargo bay that day, and they wouldn't allow my sister to take Lucy that day. The lady taking care of Lucy said "I'll get you your dog, but only if you promise to take Tommy too"

My sister agreed, and reluctantly got on the plane, once again sans dog.

Half a month goes by, and finally we hear from this lady saying that a stewardess on Air Canada agreed to take the dogs with her to Montreal for free.

Long story short, my sister now has two Cuban dogs.

I don't know about this security stuff, but apparently if you pay your dues and are a good pilot, Air Canada is a terrific employer.

>> ^Stormsinger:

How in the hell is this "unbelievable"? Have these people not watched movies in thirty years?
Latex makeup and masks are nothing new, nor are they hard to obtain or use.


Agreed. Seems to me like fail on the part of airport security and CNN

Your video, Disguised man boards Air Canada:Caucasian To Asian, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

I miss Wardair- best airline EVAR!

Well, at least compared to (shiver) Air Canada.

Obviously Air Canada.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'air canada, toronto, london, restraints' to 'air canada, toronto, london, restraints, airplane, scream, yell, crazy, kill me, inflight' - edited by lucky760

air *canada