The time was about 1:30 in the night, in pitch darkness over the Atlantic Ocean, Air Transit Flight 236 was going from Toronto to Lisbon . More than 4 hours had passed since it took off and by this time the plane Everything was normal, but then suddenly a warning comes in front of the pilot in the cockpit. This warning was that the plane was about to run out of fuel. The fuel of Flight 236 was running out in the middle of the ocean at an altitude of 40,000 feet. It was over, the pilot lost his s
enses because they were in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and there was no sign of land even far away, that is, now there was only one option in front of the pilots and that was to save the 293 passengers sitting in the plane. Along with sacrificing his life by drowning in the deep waters of the Atlantic, which was almost certain, but during this time something happened with this plane which was quite surprising. What happened in the air at an altitude of 39000 feet in the middle of the ocean?
Let us know with Transit Flight 236. This story begins from Toronto Pearson Airport on August 23, 2001 at 852 pm local time. Air Transit Airlines' Airbus A330 takes off from Toronto, Canada for Lesbon, Portugal. There was a 7-hour long non-stop flight in which there were 293 passengers, two pilots and 13 crew members. Before take off, the plane was filled with about 46.99 tons of fuel, which was 45 tons more than the required amount. The plane was being flown by 48-year-old Captain Robert PJ an
d 4 28 year old First Officer Dak Dag Captain PJ had approximately 16,800 hours of flying experience, of which 796 hours were spent in the Airbus a330, while First Officer Dag had approximately 48,400 hours of flight experience, of which 386 hours were spent in the Airbus a330. Which meant that both these pilots were very experienced. After the boarding of passengers, this plane takes off at 8:5 according to the local time and in just a few minutes it reaches an altitude of 39000 feet in the air
. Which was its cruising altitude. After the flight, the plane was going to directly cross the Atlantic and land in Lisbon. At the time of take-off, everything was normal in the plane. Most of the passengers were sleeping and the crew members and pilots also did not have any special work in the plane. More than 4 hours had passed since takeoff and it was now in the middle of the Atlantic when at 1:03 a.m. Captain Robert noticed an unusual reading in the aft cockpit. It seems that this error was
due to high oil pressure, low oil quantity and low oil temperature. Now in such long non-stop flights, such minor errors were common and the pilot himself or with the help of the crew could fix them while sitting in the cockpit. But the error seen in this air transit flight was not normal. Despite both the Captain and the First Officer having so much experience in the Airbus A330, both of them had never made such an error before in their entire career. Had not seen this, so these people try to
find out more about it by opening the flight manual, but there was nothing about it in the flight manual, now if the pilots wanted, they could have ignored this error, but it is obvious that When you are in the middle of the ocean, you don't want to take any kind of risk so Captain Peachey sought help from A Transit's Maintenance Control Center to find out more about this matter but the surprising thing was that this plane The maintenance team also did not know anything about this error. The mai
ntenance team advised the pilots to constantly keep an eye on it and as soon as they came to know about something, they would immediately get informed , which is quite a normal thing. But exactly half an hour after this incident, at 1:36 in the night, the pilots see another warning. This was the warning of fuel imbalance. In fact, in every plane, the fuel is equally distributed in both the wings, but sometimes fuel is distributed equally in one wing. The fuel goes up and down a bit, hence the wa
rning of imbalance starts being heard in the cockpit, but this was a problem which the pilots could fix while sitting in the cockpit. The pilot did exactly the same. There was less fuel in the right wing of the plane, hence They transferred fuel from the left wing to the right wing and somehow they got rid of this problem too, but these two pilots did not know that during this time they had done something which was going to be a threat to their lives due to this fuel transfer. Later, such a prob
lem arose which gave goosebumps to the pilots. In fact, after this fuel transfer, the oil temperature in engine number two of the plane started falling and the oil pressure started increasing. Understanding the seriousness of the issue, the pilots became a little serious. At that time, they were right in the center of the Atlantic Ocean and there was no land anywhere near them. The nearest airport was the largest air base on Azores Island in Portugal. He immediately contacted the airport authori
ty and asked for emergency landing permission. He got the landing permission and also diverted the plane towards Azores, but during this time Captain Peachey came to know that with every passing second in the plane, Gallons of fuel were getting low and now they had only 60 tonnes of fuel left, hence they could only get up for half an hour more and Lajas airport was still 280 km away from them, meaning they had no time to reach Lajas. There was no fuel but still these people tried to reach Lajas
somehow but the situation became worse when at 2:1 in the night engine number two of the right wing of the plane caught fire and the pilots lost consciousness. Now there was only one engine left in the plane and there was very little fuel in it, but whatever happened now, the reality was that that one engine was the last support of the plane. To fly the plane on one engine, the captain left it behind at 39000 feet. The fuel brought from the altitude to the nozzle of 33000 feet was still depletin
g rapidly. The pilots felt that there was some leakage, so they also tried to find this leakage, but due to darkness, they could not find it. The plane's maintenance unit contacts them and suggests them to bring the plane down from an altitude of 33,000 feet to 20,000 feet so that if there is any leakage, it can be detected, but the pilots could not take such a risk because if the plane Once it had come down so low and even if the leakage was confirmed, it would not have been able to reach back
to that height and it would have been forced to land in the sea and if there had been even a slight rise or fall while landing, the entire plane would have fallen into the sea. Therefore, the pilot does not listen to the maintenance unit and without taking any kind of risk, remains at an altitude of 33000 feet. The pilot still had hope that he could land safely at the largest airbase even on the basis of one engine. Therefore, the airport authority had also made complete preparations on the runw
ay to eliminate any kind of risk at the time of landing. The plane was now slowly moving towards Lajas Airport, but in the meantime, a fire broke out in engine number two of the plane. Just 10 minutes later, engine number one of the plane caught fire and with this it was now confirmed that there was a leakage somewhere in the plane, but now it made no sense because both the engines were working. The engines were damaged. As soon as the electricity supply to the entire plane stops, however, with
the help of the ram air turbine, there was still enough electricity in the cockpit to run the necessary equipment. Oxygen mask in the passenger cabin at around 2:30 in the night. They come down and there is no panic among all the passengers. By this time the plane had reached an altitude of 300 feet and now it has started gliding. By gliding a plane, we mean that any plane when any vertical distance. If it decides, it also decides the horizontal distance in the same ratio and every plane has its
own glide and the glide ratio of Airbus a330 was 15:1, which means that every 15 feet the plane goes forward and comes down 1 foot and now Lajas The distance between the airport and the plane was only 121 km, which could be covered by gliding, but during this time, another problem arose in front of the pilots. While gliding, the plane had reached so close to the Azores Islands that now its And there was only 15 km distance left between the islands and the problem was that the plane was still at
an altitude of 20000 feet and if the pilot tried to land the plane from such a height, there was a high possibility of the plane crashing . Pilots contact Air Traffic Control. ATC advises the pilot to perform a 360 degree before landing. Both the pilots do exactly the same and make the plane make a round circle i.e. 360 degree revolution like the altitude of the plane is 20000 feet. It falls to 5000 feet but this altitude was also not safe for landing, so the pilot made the plane perform severa
l S turns due to which the plane came to an altitude of 2000 feet and this was the perfect altitude for the plane to land. Now both the pilots bring the plane to the largest air base, but this landing was also not free from danger . As soon as it landed, eight of the 12 wings of the plane were completely destroyed and the speed of the plane was also 370 km/h, so high. Due to speed, the plane touches the runway and It bounces and then starts moving on the runway. After traveling for about 2300 me
ters, the plane brakes and lands. By this time most of the tires of the plane had burst but due to the alertness of the airport crew, a major accident was averted. There was a lot of chaos in the plane during Gaya landing, due to which about 14 passengers and two crew members suffered minor injuries but no one suffered any major damage. The July 236 Air Transit Airlines flight later became the world's worst in history. It became the first plane to glide without an engine for a long distance of 1
21 km, hence it is also called the Azores Glider. After the incident, the Portuguese Aviation Investigation Department GPI AA investigated it and found that before the flight, the maintenance crew had made a mistake in the hydraulic system of the plane. The wrong part was installed, due to which this part got damaged shortly after the flight and fuel leakage started in the plane due to which both the engines of the plane burnt out. A Transit was also at fault in this incident, hence the Canadian
Government almost fined the company. A fine of one million Canadian dollars was imposed and Airbus also made necessary changes in all its planes in the future so that such problems would not have to be faced again.
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