Best pilot ever

[Slim1951]

My favorite pilot story is a commercial Canadian passenger jet that ran out of gas at 30000 ft. I forget what caused the error but it was a large jet and no gas. The pilot turned the jet into a "glider" and desperately searched for an airfield. The best he could come up with was an old deserted small plane airport that was being used by model plane enthusiasts. He managed to reach the airfield and successfully landed it in the very short strip provided. There was no crash nor injuries. The people flying their models must have been stunned to see such a large jet come gliding in to land. The fact that he landed with no gas and at a very short unimproved airstrip amazes me. That guy should have gotten a major award. Really.

[Hagar]

This belongs in Real Aviation. I think you mean the Gimli Glider incident. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

On 23 July 1983, a Boeing 767-200 jet, Air Canada Flight 143, ran out of fuel at 41,000 feet (12 km) altitude about halfway through its flight from Montreal to Edmonton. The crew was able to glide the aircraft safely to a forced landing at Gimli Industrial Park Airport, a former airbase at Gimli, Manitoba.

There is a film based on it. http://www.airodyssey.net/articles/movie-flt174.html

[beaky]

He was a very good flier, but as a captain, he made a terrible mistake.
 The fuel exhaustion was due to him not making absolutely certain that they had taken on enough fuel... there was some confusion about a US/metric conversion that had them taking off with half the fuel they needed to complete the planned leg.
He was also damn lucky his FO knew about Gimli, a closed runway now used for weekend amateur drag races.  It was practically right under them when the engines quit.  ;D

[rootbeer]

Is the conversion-factor-challenged pilot still employed? That is what I want to know...

[Hagar]

This put Air Canada in a difficult situation. On the one hand it was a serious case of pilot error & on the other a fine piece of airmanship. This quote is from the Wikipedia article from my previous link: [i]"It has been reported that following the Air Canada internal investigation Captain Pearson was demoted for six months, First Officer Quintal suspended for two weeks and three maintenance workers also suspended. Both pilots however continued to work for Air Canada and in 1985 were awarded the first ever F