Miracle In The Azores: How Air Transat Flight 236 Glided To Safety After Running Out Of Fuel simpleflying.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from simpleflying.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
In 2001 a plane carrying 293 passengers and 13 crew lost power in both its engines over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Unbeknown to the pilots of Air Transat Flight 236, the aircraft bound for Lisbon had been leaking fuel ever since it left Toronto six hours earlier. Having lost the first of two engines, Captain Robert Piche declared a fuel emergency and announced to Air Traffic Control his intention to divert to the Azores. Ten minutes later the second engine sputtered to a stop.
Piche and his first officer, Dirk DeJager, with more than 20,000 hours of flight experience between them, proceeded to glide the Airbus A330, without any power, for 19 minutes â covering some 75 miles â until landing hard at Lajes Air Base.