The Gimli Glider! So many things came together to make this safe landing:
The co-pilot was a local and knew all the local airstrips
...including the decommissioned 10,000 foot military runway they ultimately chose as their destination
...but because it had been decommissioned, was now utilized by a local go-kart club for racing
...which, on that day, was indeed having a great time racing go-karts on the old runway
...and because there was no way to alert the people on the ground and the planeās approach was utterly silent (NO ENGINES) with kids in go-karts were whizzing around on the runway, the final approach was, shall we say, alarming
...until a parent looked up and noticed a giant fucking airplane getting bigger and bigger
OH GOD HEāS LANDING HERE
Thus within seconds the whole area was cleared by frantic parents
Plane lands perfectly, but without power they had to drop the gear via gravity and the nose wheel failed to lock into place
Plane screeches to a halt, and because they landed at a go-kart event pretty much every dad has a fire extinguisher, so they manage to extinguish the small fire caused by friction
The only minor injuries were due to passengers jumping from the emergency exit slides, which dangled off the ground due to elevated tail height
If you have 27 spare minutes and want an excruciatingly detailed, technical breakdown of what happened as told by a real pilot, hereās the Mentour Pilot episode on the Gimli Glider.
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