Part of Gimli Glider returns to the Interlake

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This article was published 15/08/2015 (3421 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

GIMLI — A piece of aviation history touched down in the Interlake Sunday.

On July 23, 1983, Capt. Bob Pearson managed a successful emergency landing in Gimli when his Air Canada 767 flight from Montreal to Edmonton ran out of fuel at 41,000 feet.

It was discovered later the crew responsible for filling the plane’s fuel tank used the imperial measurement system instead of the newly implemented metric system to determine how much to put in the tanks.

A broken computer system in the plane didn’t detect the mistake.

When the first of two engines failed near Red Lake, Ont., Pearson thought the plane had enough fuel to get to Winnipeg.

His co-pilot, First Officer Maurice Quintal, suggested they make an emergency landing in Gimli, where he was aware of an old military airstrip. 

What Quintal didn’t know was the base had been converted into a go-kart speedway and children were playing on the track.

Fortunately, Pearson managed to glide the jet sideways onto the Gimli runway — both engines had stopped working at this point — without any serious injuries.

Three boys on bicycles pedalled out of the plane’s path in a hurry. They didn’t hear the jet approaching because it was gliding in without the whir of its engines.

Thirty-two years later, parts of the plane now referred to as the Gimli Glider have returned to the beach town on Lake Winnipeg after a prolonged stay in the Mojave Desert.

The Glider’s owner started to dismantle the plane into pieces recently and sold them online. 

Members of the Gimli Art Club, including Barbara Gluck, fundraised for years to be able to get parts of the plane back and managed to snap up five of them — throttles, the steering wheel, a piece of the side of the plane, a fuel control panel and a fuel tank.

“I want to bring it here for the public to see and experience. We’re just going gaga over it,” she said.

The restored piece of the plane’s side — boasting three passenger window panes and a fresh paint job — was on display at the Gimli Air Model Fest Sunday.

Hundreds gathered from across North America to watch model planes take off, spinning circles around one another and staging combat drills.

Many tourists came to see the mural dedicated to the Gimli Glider on the harbour seawall, painted in 2008 by local Dave McNabb to mark the landing’s 25th anniversary. Then, they wonder where more information about the plane can be found, Gluck said.

“People would come along and look at that mural on the seawall and the next thing they would say is ‘Where’s the museum? Where’s the story?’ ” she said. “So it just reinforces what we suspected all along — (the plane) belongs in our community.”

Winnipegger Jeff Kelsey visited Gimli for the model plane entertainment and was shocked to stumble upon a piece of the original Glider.

“I was coming back from getting doughnuts and as I was walking by, I saw the Air Canada red and white,” he said. “I walked over and I touched it and the hair on my arms stood up.

“I touched a piece of the Titanic and this did the same thing. Just the hairs stood up and the history that’s involved in it… it just absolutely blew me away.”

The Gimli Glider story spawned a TV movie, Falling from the Sky: Flight 174, and a documentary, The Gimli Glider: 30 Years Later.

Gluck is still accepting donations — cheques can be addressed to the RM of Gimli and sent to the RM of Gimli, Box 1246 — to build a museum where it can permanently house the pieces of the Gimli Glider, Gluck said.

 

jessica.botelho-urbanski@freepress.mb.ca