Gimli Glider - Air Canada

Gimli Glider: How the Lives of 69 Air Canada Passengers Were Saved

People don’t easily accept change. That’s why, whenever Facebook tweaks its look or features even slightly, there’s an uproar everywhere. The same applies to life – on a subconscious level, people resist adapting to anything new. A striking example of this is Air Canada Flight 143, famously known as the Gimli Glider.

On July 23, 1983, veteran pilot Bob Pearson – with 15,000 hours of flight experience – took off in an Air Canada Boeing 767-233. The flight typically operated between Ottawa and Edmonton. That day, the aircraft was fully fueled before departure. But mid-air, the fuel suddenly ran out – something that simply shouldn’t happen. Naturally, the engines shut down. Yet even when an aircraft loses engine power mid-flight, it doesn’t just drop from the sky. From an altitude of 42,000 feet, Bob Pearson decided to glide the aircraft toward Winnipeg, 120 miles away. With 69 lives in his hands – including his own – he realized that reaching Winnipeg wasn’t feasible. So he made the bold decision to attempt an emergency landing at the nearby Gimli airstrip in Manitoba, which had no rescue infrastructure in place. Still, he took the risk. The plane was plummeting rapidly, passengers were screaming – it felt like the end.

But no—it wasn’t. The skilled pilot managed to land the aircraft with remarkable control. Though the plane was damaged and 10 passengers sustained minor injuries, all 69 people survived. It became an unforgettable event in aviation history, now known as the Gimli Glider.

Why did this happen? At the time, Canada still used the imperial system (pounds). Suddenly, the world shifted to the metric system – kilograms, meters, liters-as the new standard. That particular Boeing aircraft was the first in Canada to use fuel measurements in liters. Remember what I said earlier – people don’t easily accept change. A ground maintenance engineer made a critical error. He used the conversion 1 liter = 2.2 pounds. So instead of loading 1,000 liters of fuel (which equals 2,200 pounds), he loaded just 1,000 pounds – about 545 liters. This mathematical mistake nearly cost the lives of 69 people.

The person you see in the photo is the legendary pilot Bob Pearson.