Landing A Boeing 767 Without Engines | Gimli Glide | Mayday: Air Disaster

PART 1 | July 23, 1983 - It’s a calm summer evening. Air Canada flight 143 is on its way to Edmonton from Montreal. Captain Bob Pearson and First Officer Maurice Quintal are both veteran pilots, but they’re flying a new automated Boeing 767. Midway through the flight, things begin to go horribly wrong. The plane is in danger of running out of fuel. Pearson decides to land as soon as possible. He heads for Winnipeg. As he descends he loses one engine, then another. The huge Boeing is powerless and falling from the sky – it won’t make it to Winnipeg, Gimli, a decommissioned air base nearby, is the best bet. But the only way for Pearson to get his plane safely down is to try a manoeuvre that only glider pilots would know about. Bob Pearson flies gliders in his spare time and forces the plane into a sideways free fall. It’s called a sideslip. As Pearson touches down, his front landing gear collapsed, his rear tires blow. The first-ever 767 to land without engines does so without so much as a single seri