416 Gimli Glider The Eighties in America
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Gimli Glider
Identification Air Canada 767 involved in an
emergency landing
Date July 23, 1983
Place Gimli, Manitoba
The safe landing of this Boeing 767 after it had run out of
fuel was seen as both a random and a miraculous occur-
rence.
On July 23, 1983, Air Canada Flight 143 took off
from Montreal, Quebec, to begin a scheduled four-
hour flight across Canada to Edmonton, Alberta, via
Ottawa, Ontario. The airplane, a Boeing 767-200,
carried sixty-one passengers. Before leaving, the air-
plane was bedeviled by a fuel gauge that did not work
properly. This problem meant that the ground crew
and pilots needed to take special precautions to en-
sure that the proper amount of fuel was available for
the flight. A calculation of the quantity of fuel be-
lieved to be in the tanks was made, and the airplane’s
computer indicated that it would be sufficient for
the journey. There was a problem, however. The 767
was one of the first Air Canada planes to have instru-
ment readings displayed in metric units, while all
calculations had traditionally been done using the
imperial system. The Canadian government of Prime
Minister Pierre Trudeau in the 1970’s had adopted
the metric system to replace the imperial system.
While younger people became increasingly comfort-
able with the new system of measurement through
schooling, metric measurements remained unfamil-
iar to many Canadians. As a result of this unfamiliar-
ity, a crucial mistake was made, and Air Canada’sThe Gimli Glider lands in Toronto in July, 2005. The famous plane remained in service for decades after surviving the incident that gave
it its nickname.(© Contrails Aviation Photography)