Article content continued

“We’re looking at generating some interest if there’s somebody who is interested in bringing it back to Canada for its historical significance,” Mr. Lobzun said.

The story of the Gimli Glider began on July 23, 1983, when maintenance crews for Air Canada Flight 143 discovered a shoddy soldering job had knocked out the computer that calculates how much fuel was needed to get the plane from Montreal to Edmonton, with a brief stopover in Ottawa.

Rather than cancelling the flight, the ground crew calculated manually how much fuel would be needed – triple-checking their work before it took off. None of them had been trained to do this, but when the plane arrived in Ottawa safely, they were heartened by their work.

A warning signal at about 41,000 feet, however, somewhere over Red Lake, Ont., shattered that confidence and pointed to a critical error in their calculations – they had used imperial rather than metric measurements for their calculations and the plane was rapidly running out of fuel.

First one of the engines when out. Then, because the electrical system was run off the engine too, it was knocked out next. Soon the power went in the cockpit, forcing the pilots to switch to manual controls as the plane began plunging at 2,000 feet per minute.

Fortunately, Capt. Pearson was trained glider pilot and immediately had his first officer begin calculating the optimum gliding speed for an 80-tonne jumbo jet.

They determined they could make it Winnipeg, but instead First Officer Quintal suggested they land the plane at a nearby Air Force base in Gimli, Man., where he had once served.