The Gimli Glider Fuel Mistake

At 41,000 feet, a passenger plane suddenly went quiet. No engine sound. No power.

Just wind. The pilots looked at the gauges and realized something that didn’t feel

possible… both engines had shut down. Not one. Both. For the people on

board, it felt like the plane was just… floating. Because it was.

In 1983, an Air Canada Boeing 767 ran out of fuel mid-flight over Canada—because of

a simple math mistake during a fuel conversion. The crew didn’t have time to “figure it out later.” They

had minutes to find somewhere—anywhere—to land. But with no engine power,

they weren’t flying anymore. They were gliding. The captain happened to know about an