Jeanette will find this interesting.

_____________

The "Gimli Glider" was a world renowned aircraft incident 
that could have resulted in the death of a plane-load of 767 
passengers but instead resulted in a text book case of how 
not to handle anything at all, and a deadstick semiwheelsup 
unpowered uninstrumented crash landing of a 767 on a 
decommissioned military airstrip.

It has finally been decommissioned last week, having failed 
to be at Gimli long ago, and now resides at Mojave Spaceport 
or close by.

The following account is fascinating reading in its own 
right. However, if you deal with systems of ANY sort that 
can go wrong, this case study can shown you a number of ways 
that people can make it happen when you least expect it. 
Jeanette, aformentioned and BCC'd is a nurse and will find 
it instructional.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

It's a far more detailed account of the total incident than
I'd seen before - and may even be correct :-).

I'd recommend that everyone who has anything whatever to do
with safety systems, backup systems, multi-person checklists
etc read this as an excellent example of he said-I
thought-it wasn't-they should have .... CRASH.

Utterly amazing sequence of events and failings and
misunderstandings.

Below the " ... leaving the circuit breaker tagged (which 
masked the fact
that it was no longer pulled ... " is the sort of thing that 
kills people.



A smallest fragment:

" Whilst the aircraft was being prepared for its return to
Edmonton, a maintenance worker decided to investigate the
problem with the faulty FQIS. In order to test the system he
re-enabled the second channel, at which point the fuel
gauges in the cockpit went blank. He was then called away to
perform a dripstick measurement of fuel remaining in the
tanks. Distracted, he failed to disable the second channel,
leaving the circuit breaker tagged (which masked the fact
that it was no longer pulled). The FQIS was now completely
unserviceable and the fuel gauges were blank."



        Russell



>> Remember the Gimli glider!!!!
>
> Yeah, that's a particularly good reference on unit 
> conversion errors...
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider
> (I first heard about it from a Canadian.  It's well known 
> there, where
> pulling a Gimli Glider is now slang for royally screwing 
> up.  Mostly only
> aviation buffs know about the incident elsewhere.)
>
> On that topic... I saw recently on the Mojave Airport mail 
> list (on
> Yahoo Groups) that the Gimli Glider 767, which was 
> repaired after the
> 1983 incident and continued passenger service for 25 
> years, was retired
> on Jan 1 and is now parked at Mojave.  It used the 
> callsign "Glider One"
> and had the 1983 incident crew aboard. 

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