It didn't take long, at least in Canada and for those in aviation circles, to begin comparing what happened on the Hudson River to what happened 25 years ago in Gimli, Manitoba and the plane that became known as the Gimli Glider
The Story
Air Canada flight 143 was the newest plane in the airlines fleet; a brand new Boeing 767 with all the bells and whistes. Unfortunatly, however, a few of the bugs hadn't been worked out. While it was being fueled in Montreal for it's flight to Edmonton, Alberta they noticed the fuel gage was not working. Through a number of human errors, the flight took off with only half the amount of fuel needed for the trip.
Over western Ontario they lost their first engine and then very shortly after their second. They were out of fuel and flying at 41,000 feet.
This is where some of the similarities really start to appear.
Just like with the incident in New York, the Captain of the plane, Bob Pearson, was a trained glider pilot. The Co-Pilot, Maurice Quintal, a former member of Canada's Air Force. Between the two of them they had to find a way to land a plane with no engines. If you can imagine how daunting that was, add to this that they had almost no help from Air Traffic control because nobody could see them on modern radar!. When a plane loses engines (at least back in the 1980s), they drop off the radar completly. It took a while for the ATC in Winnipeg to get an older dopplar radar system back up and running. All the calculations for location had to be figured out, on paper, by the Co-Pilot.
With the plane dropping very quickly it was decided they couldn't reach Winnipeg before they would be forced to land. Quintal, however, had trained at Gimli Air Force base located near Winnipeg. He knew the runway was large enough to land a 767. Their decision was then made to land there.
The Pilot had another problem though. The plane was coming in too fast and would likely overshoot the runway. I'm not an aviation expert so I can't explain what exactly what he did, but he decided to use a move called a side slip to slow it down. Basically, he forced the nose down and had the plane coming in on an angle to use the wind as resistance. At the very last minute he would have to straighten out the plane and land. They knew that their rear landing gear was down and locked, but only the co-pilot knew the front landing gear had fallen, but not locked in place. This video I found on YouTube shows, basically, what was done.
What they didn't know was that the Gilmi Air strip had been taken over by the local community and turned into a drag racing strip. It was Family Day in Gilmi! Racers and their familes were there camping and just having a good time. What they didn't know was there was a large jet coming towards them silently. Not a sound. From what we've heard, one of the strangest thing about the crash in New York was witnesses describing how silent it was.
Pearson landed that plane perfectly on the runway. The front landing gear gave way and the plane's nose hit the ground. For most of the people on and near the track that was the first sound they heard of the plane. With two panicked kids on bikes trying to outrun the plane, the Pilot was able to manover it into a guard rail that had been installed to make the race track. The plane came to a stop. The crew got everyone out and the only injuries suffered by anyone, from the plane or on the ground, were those sustained while trying to get out of the plane. The racecar drivers ran over with fire extinquishers and they and the Captain and Co-Pilot put out a small fire in the nose of the plane. That was it. What's even more amazing is that there was almost no damage to the plane. It had it's wheels fixed, it's nose looked at and it flew out of there two days later!
National Geographic featured the Gimli Glider in an episode that you can watch you Youtube. Here is a link to Part 3, the landing of the plane. The whole of the episode is there if you are interested in watching.
Just like with New York, there are so many coincidences that had to line up perfectly for this plane to land. To have the skill in the cockpit, to have the knowledge of a small, retired air force base, everything. Even the landing gear not locking saved the plane by helping it slow down.
As you can imagine, Captain Bob Pearson's being interviewed quite a few times in the last few days. I don't think its a coincidence that the Gimli Glider story was aired last night on the TV show Urban Legends either. The stories are both amazing.