{"id":2561702,"date":"2026-06-23T21:40:56","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T19:40:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/air-transat-236-azores-glider-no-engines\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T22:41:37","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T20:41:37","slug":"aliante-air-transat-236-azzorre-senza-motore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/it\/air-transat-236-azores-glider-no-engines\/","title":{"rendered":"306 anime, due motori spenti, una planata"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n<!-- mfsh:top -->\n\n<style>\n.mfsh-trigger{display:inline-flex;align-items:center;gap:10px;height:44px;padding:0 18px;margin:0 0 26px;border:2px solid #0F1720;background:#fff;color:#0F1720;font-family:inherit;font-size:14px;font-weight:700;line-height:1;letter-spacing:0;text-transform:none;cursor:pointer;box-shadow:none;transition:background .15s,color 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No engine hum. No thrust. Just the thin whistle of air over an airframe weighing more than 180 tonnes, sinking toward a black ocean at roughly 2,000 feet per minute. Behind the flight-deck door, 293 passengers are strapped in beneath dangling oxygen masks. Ahead, somewhere out in the dark, lies a single strip of runway on a volcanic island in the Azores &mdash; and no second chances.<\/p>\n\n<p>This was Air Transat Flight 236 on 24 August 2001: a routine Toronto-to-Lisbon redeye that turned into the longest glide an airliner in distress has ever flown. What follows is not a crash story. It is a survival story &mdash; one of the great feats of raw airmanship in the jet age, flown without engines, in the dark, over open water.<\/p>\n\n<p>Every one of the 306 people on board walked away.<\/p>\n\n\n<div style=\"background:#f4f4f4;border-radius:8px;padding:18px 22px;margin:24px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.7\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;font-size:17px\">Quick Facts &mdash; Air Transat Flight 236<\/p><ul style=\"margin:0;padding-left:20px\"><li><strong>Date:<\/strong> 24 August 2001<\/li><li><strong>Aircraft:<\/strong> Airbus A330-243, registration C-GITS (two Rolls-Royce Trent 772B-60 engines)<\/li><li><strong>Route:<\/strong> Toronto (YYZ) &rarr; Lisbon, Portugal<\/li><li><strong>On board:<\/strong> 306 total &mdash; 293 passengers and 13 crew<\/li><li><strong>Cause:<\/strong> Fuel exhaustion after a fuel leak from a mis-matched part fitted during maintenance, compounded by crew mishandling of the leak<\/li><li><strong>Glide:<\/strong> Both engines flamed out; the crew glided roughly 65 nautical miles (about 120 km \/ 75 mi) to <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/air-bases\/lajes\/\">Lajes Air Base<\/a>, Terceira, Azores<\/li><li><strong>Outcome:<\/strong> All 306 survived; 18 injuries (16 minor, 2 serious) during the evacuation; tyres burst on the hard landing<\/li><li><strong>Record:<\/strong> The longest glide by a passenger airliner without engine power<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">A Leak Nobody Saw Coming<\/h2>\n\n<p>Flight 236 lifted off from Toronto at 00:52 UTC with 46.9 tonnes of fuel aboard &mdash; about 4.5 tonnes more than the regulations required. On paper it was a comfortable, well-fed transatlantic crossing. In reality the aircraft was already carrying a hidden flaw, born not in the air but on the hangar floor a week earlier.<\/p>\n\n<p>On 17 August, C-GITS had received a replacement for its number-two (right) engine. The spare, loaned by Rolls-Royce, came from an earlier configuration, and a hydraulic component did not match cleanly. Despite the lead mechanic raising concerns, an adaptation was authorised that left too little clearance &mdash; a gap of only millimetres &mdash; between a hydraulic line and a fuel line. In flight, hour after hour, the two lines chafed against each other until the fuel line cracked.<\/p>\n\n<p>Just under four hours into the crossing, fuel began streaming out of the right engine into the night sky. The crew had no warning light that said &ldquo;leak.&rdquo; What they saw instead was a strange pattern of readings: low oil temperature and high oil pressure on engine two. Captain Robert Pich&eacute; suspected faulty sensors and radioed Air Transat maintenance control in Montreal, which advised the crew to monitor the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/06\/air-transat-c-gits-azores-glider-short-final.jpg\" alt=\"Air Transat Airbus A330 C-GITS, the Azores Glider, on short final\" style=\"display:block;width:100%!important;max-width:100%!important;height:auto!important;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The actual aircraft: Air Transat A330-243 C-GITS, later nicknamed the &ldquo;Azores Glider.&rdquo; Repaired after the accident, it flew on for almost two more decades. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n<p>The clues were there, scattered across the displays. The fuel-on-board figure was dropping faster than it should. The estimated fuel at destination was falling. The trim-tank transfer ran early. But each reading, taken alone, looked like a glitch rather than a catastrophe &mdash; and the human mind tends to reach for the least alarming explanation first.<\/p>\n\n\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5qPsDXhF4sk\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n<p>The definitive reconstruction is the National Geographic <em>Air Crash Investigation<\/em> episode &ldquo;Flying on Empty,&rdquo; which walks through the night minute by minute &mdash; from the first odd gauge reading to the wheels-down silence over Terceira.<\/p>\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Mistake That Drained the Tanks<\/h2>\n\n<p>At 05:36 UTC, a fuel-imbalance warning appeared. The right side was lighter than the left &mdash; which made sense, because fuel was pouring out of the right engine. But the crew did not yet know that. Reaching for the imbalance procedure from memory rather than reading the checklist, they opened the cross-feed and began transferring fuel from the left tanks to balance the load.<\/p>\n\n<p>It was a fatal irony. The fuel they were so carefully moving across was being fed straight to the leak, vanishing overboard at roughly 13 tonnes per hour. Had they paused on the checklist&rsquo;s caution note &mdash; the one warning to rule out a leak before cross-feeding &mdash; the night might have ended differently. The Portuguese investigation later identified the crew&rsquo;s handling of the leak, not the maintenance error alone, as the central cause of the fuel exhaustion.<\/p>\n\n<p>By 05:45 they had grasped enough to act. Pich&eacute; turned the A330 toward Lajes Air Base in the Azores and declared a fuel emergency with Santa Maria Oceanic control. The island was still well over 200 nautical miles away. The question now was brutally simple: could they get there before the tanks ran dry?<\/p>\n\n\n<div style=\"max-width:550px;margin:0 auto 28px\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/Tweet.html?id=1694710636452929852&theme=light\" style=\"width:100%;height:520px;border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n<p>They could not. At 06:13 UTC, 150 nautical miles out and cruising at 39,000 feet, the number-two engine flamed out. Pich&eacute; descended to 33,000 feet, the correct single-engine altitude for the aircraft&rsquo;s weight, and the crew transmitted a mayday. For thirteen minutes the A330 limped on with one engine doing the work of two.<\/p>\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Silence at 33,000 Feet<\/h2>\n\n<p>At 06:26 UTC, about 65 nautical miles from Lajes, the number-one engine flamed out too. Now there was nothing. With both engines dead, the A330 lost its main electrical power; a small emergency ram-air turbine dropped automatically into the slipstream, spinning up just enough power to keep the critical flight instruments and the primary flight controls alive. Without it, the aircraft would have been uncontrollable.<\/p>\n\n<p>The losses cascaded. No flaps. No spoilers. No normal braking. No bleed air to pressurise the cabin &mdash; so at 06:31 the oxygen masks dropped in front of 293 passengers, who now understood, if they had not already, that something had gone very wrong. The jet was descending at around 2,000 feet per minute. The crew reckoned they had perhaps fifteen to twenty minutes before they would have to ditch in the Atlantic.<\/p>\n\n\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;When you don&rsquo;t have that other engine, sooner or later you&rsquo;re going to go down. You don&rsquo;t have time to think about anything else than taking care of the safety of the passengers. You do as you&rsquo;ve been taught.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Captain Robert Pich&eacute;<\/strong> &mdash; Captain of Air Transat Flight 236, in a later interview (CBC \/ Canadian Press, 2001)<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n<p>What Pich&eacute; had been taught reached back decades. He had started out in the 1970s as a bush pilot in remote Quebec, putting light aircraft down on short, rough strips in fog, wind and rain &mdash; the kind of flying where there is no autopilot and no margin. He was also an experienced glider pilot. Of all the people who could have been in that left seat with two dead engines and one island ahead, few were better prepared to fly an airliner like a glider.<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/06\/lajes-air-base-terceira-azores.jpg\" alt=\"Lajes Air Base on Terceira Island in the Azores\" style=\"display:block;width:100%!important;max-width:100%!important;height:auto!important;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">Lajes Air Base on Terceira, in the Azores &mdash; the lone strip of runway, ringed by the Atlantic, that Pich&eacute; aimed for. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Dead-Stick Landing<\/h2>\n\n<p>Military controllers at Lajes guided the powerless jet in on radar. When the runway finally came into view, Pich&eacute; had the opposite of the usual problem &mdash; he was too high and too fast, with no engines to spool up if he misjudged it and no second approach if he came up short. There would be exactly one attempt.<\/p>\n\n<p>So he flew it like the glider pilot he was. He threw the big Airbus into a full 360-degree turn to bleed off altitude, then a series of S-turns, trading height and speed against distance with nothing but airmanship and the energy already in the airframe. It is a manoeuvre every glider pilot knows in their bones and that almost no airline captain ever has to perform in a 180-tonne jet over the ocean at night.<\/p>\n\n\n<div style=\"max-width:550px;margin:0 auto 28px\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/Tweet.html?id=2027690852382887979&theme=light\" style=\"width:100%;height:520px;border:none;border-radius:12px;overflow:hidden\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n<p>At 06:45 UTC the A330 slammed onto runway 33, touching down hard about 300 metres past the threshold at roughly 200 knots, bouncing once before settling. With the anti-skid system gone, the main wheels locked. The tyres abraded and burst within a few hundred feet, and the wheels ground down toward the axles as the jet thundered down the runway. It stopped with runway to spare. Then the doors blew open and the slides deployed into the Azores night.<\/p>\n\n<p>Sixteen people suffered minor injuries and two were seriously hurt during the evacuation. The aircraft had structural damage to its landing gear and lower fuselage. But the headline number was the one that mattered: fatalities, zero. All 306 were alive.<\/p>\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Azores Glider<\/h2>\n\n<p>The flight had glided roughly 65 nautical miles &mdash; about 120 kilometres, or some 75 miles &mdash; without an ounce of thrust. (Exact figures vary slightly between sources and between the moment of the second flameout and touchdown, but it stands as the longest glide ever flown by a passenger airliner in distress.) Pich&eacute; and First Officer Dirk DeJager returned to a heroes&rsquo; welcome, and in 2002 the Air Line Pilots Association honoured Pich&eacute; with its Superior Airmanship Award.<\/p>\n\n<p>The investigation was unsparing about how the situation was handled, and the industry responded. Aviation regulators issued airworthiness directives mandating clear fuel-leak procedures in Airbus flight manuals; Airbus reprogrammed its fuel-monitoring computers to flag abnormal consumption against the flight plan; and Rolls-Royce warned operators about the incompatible parts. Lessons written, as so often in aviation, in the aftermath of a very near thing.<\/p>\n\n\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;Not actioning the fuel leak procedure was the key factor that led to the fuel exhaustion.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Portuguese accident investigation (GPIAA), Final Report, 2004<\/strong> &mdash; Summary of the official finding on the central cause<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n<p>As for C-GITS: the aircraft was repaired and back in the air within about four months, flying with Air Transat for almost two more decades before retiring in 2020. It carried a nickname for the rest of its life &mdash; the &ldquo;Azores Glider&rdquo; &mdash; a quiet reminder, every time it pushed back from a gate, of the night it ran bone dry over the Atlantic and came home anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tJLTxFOxj4s\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n<p>For a tighter telling of the same night, this documentary on Flight 236 traces the chain from the hangar-floor error to the dead-stick approach into Terceira.<\/p>\n\n<p>Engines fail. Parts get fitted wrong. Checklists get skipped under pressure. What Flight 236 proved is that when every system has run out of options, the last line of defence is still a pair of pilots who know how to fly &mdash; and a captain who, long before that night, had learned to land with nothing but altitude, airspeed and nerve.<\/p>\n\n<p style=\"font-style:italic;font-size:14px;color:#666\">Sources: Aviation Accidents Prevention and Investigation Department (GPIAA), Portugal &mdash; Final Report, 2004; US FAA Lessons Learned (C-GITS); Aviation Safety Network; Wikipedia; CBC News; Simple Flying; We Are The Mighty.<\/p>\n<!-- mfsh:bottom -->\n\n<button type=\"button\" class=\"mfsh-trigger mfsh-bottom\" data-mfsh-placement=\"bottom\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\"><svg><use href=\"#mfsh-i-share\"\/><\/svg>Share this story<\/button>\n\n<!-- \/mfsh:bottom -->\n\n\n<!-- mf-faq -->\n\n<div class=\"mf-faq-block\"><style>.mf-faq-block{margin:34px 0}.mf-faq-item:not([open]) .mf-faq-answer{display:none !important}.mf-faq-block h2.mf-faq-h{padding-top:22px;margin-bottom:14px}.mf-faq-item{border:1px solid #e2e8f5;border-radius:8px;margin:0 0 10px;background:#fff}.mf-faq-item summary{list-style:none;cursor:pointer;padding:15px 50px 15px 18px;font-weight:600;color:#1a1a1a;position:relative;line-height:1.45;user-select:none}.mf-faq-item summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mf-faq-item summary::after{content:\"+\";position:absolute;right:18px;top:50%;transform:translateY(-50%);font-size:1.5em;font-weight:400;color:#5C91FF;line-height:1}.mf-faq-item[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mf-faq-item[open] summary{border-bottom:1px solid #eef1f8}.mf-faq-item summary:hover{background:#f5f8ff}.mf-faq-answer{padding:14px 18px;color:#333;line-height:1.6}.mf-faq-answer p{margin:0}<\/style><h2 class=\"mf-faq-h\">Related Questions<\/h2><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>What was Air Transat Flight 236?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>Air Transat Flight 236 was an Airbus A330 flying from Toronto to Lisbon on 24 August 2001 that ran completely out of fuel over the Atlantic and glided to a safe landing in the Azores. All 306 people aboard survived what remains the longest glide ever flown by an airliner in distress.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>How far did Air Transat Flight 236 glide without engines?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>After both engines flamed out, the A330 glided roughly 120 kilometres \u2014 about 65 nautical miles \u2014 with no power to reach Lajes Air Base in the Azores. It is the longest engine-out glide ever performed by a commercial airliner.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>Why did Air Transat Flight 236 run out of fuel?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>A fuel line chafed against a hydraulic line \u2014 the result of a mismatched replacement engine fitted days earlier with too little clearance \u2014 until it cracked and leaked. Not realising they had a leak, the crew opened the cross-feed and unintentionally pumped fuel from the good side straight overboard.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>Did everyone survive Air Transat Flight 236?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>Yes. All 306 people on board survived. Sixteen suffered minor injuries and two were seriously hurt during the emergency evacuation, but there were no fatalities \u2014 an outcome regarded as one of the great feats of airmanship in the jet age.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>Who was the pilot of Air Transat Flight 236?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>Captain Robert Pich\u00e9, a former glider pilot, was in command, with First Officer Dirk de Jager. Pich\u00e9 used glider techniques \u2014 a 360-degree turn and S-turns to bleed off height \u2014 to land the powerless 180-tonne Airbus in a single attempt.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>How can a plane fly without engines?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>With both engines dead, the A330 deployed a ram-air turbine \u2014 a small propeller that drops into the airflow and generates just enough power for the critical flight instruments and controls. The aircraft then glides, trading altitude for distance, which is how Flight 236 reached the Azores.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>Where did Air Transat Flight 236 land?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>It landed at Lajes Air Base on Terceira Island in the Azores, touching down hard at about 200 knots. With the anti-skid braking gone, the tyres burst within a few hundred feet, but the jet stopped with runway to spare.<\/p><\/div><\/details><\/div>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What was Air Transat Flight 236?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Air Transat Flight 236 was an Airbus A330 flying from Toronto to Lisbon on 24 August 2001 that ran completely out of fuel over the Atlantic and glided to a safe landing in the Azores. All 306 people aboard survived what remains the longest glide ever flown by an airliner in distress.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How far did Air Transat Flight 236 glide without engines?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"After both engines flamed out, the A330 glided roughly 120 kilometres \u2014 about 65 nautical miles \u2014 with no power to reach Lajes Air Base in the Azores. 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With the anti-skid braking gone, the tyres burst within a few hundred feet, but the jet stopped with runway to spare.\"}}]}<\/script><!-- \/mf-faq -->\n\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/the-gimli-glider-a-767-runs-dry-at-41000-feet\/\">The Gimli Glider: A 767 Runs Dry at 41,000 Feet<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/both-engines-fail-at-40000-feet-now-what\/\">Both Engines Fail at 40,000 Feet &mdash; Now What?<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 24 August 2001, Air Transat Flight 236 ran out of fuel over the mid-Atlantic. Captain Robert Pich\u00e9 glided the powerless Airbus A330 to the Azores and saved all 306 aboard.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":2561381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[665,666],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2561702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation-world","category-history-and-legends"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Air Transat Flight 236: The Azores Glider Story<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How Air Transat 236 ran out of fuel over the Atlantic in 2001 and Captain Pich\u00e9 glided the engineless A330 to the Azores \u2014 all 306 survived.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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