"We had the crew on board running around, yelling at each other and yelling at passengers. ". It is nearly identical to the four-engine A340 with which it was designed concurrently. Non-subscribers can read and sort comments but will not be able to engage with them in any way. A voice from overhead speakers told them to remove their shoes and grab the lifejackets beneath their seats. . "It's a test that I hope never to have to face. This article was published more than 10 years ago. ", In his words, it was a significant piloting challenge. エア・トランザット236便滑空事故（英語: Air Transat Flight 236 ）は、2001年に発生した航空事故（燃料切れによる無動力緊急着陸）である。大西洋上の巡航高度から動力なしで滑空し緊急着陸に成功した。 "I kept thinking back to all the plane-crash movies," said Vasco Dos Santos, 18, a high-school student in Vaughan, Ont. The passengers were cared for by airport officials and U.S. military staff. The A330, introduced in the early 1990s, is one of the most modern airliners flying, and the one that glided to earth yesterday had been in service only since 1999. . Under international aviation agreements, the responsibility for investigating the accident lies with the Portuguese aviation authorities. Use our search engine above for options. "When you compare the ratios of Air Transat at this point with other carriers, including obviously regular carriers, Air Transat is high above average," Mr. Lemay said. By the end of it, 306 people would be saved from extreme da… As well, Transport Canada is launching an audit of Air Transat's maintenance and operations and will step up surveillance "to ensure compliance with all Canadian aviation regulations.". The best-known previous case was the so-called Gimli Glider, an Edmonton-bound Air Canada Boeing 767 that ran out of fuel over northwestern Ontario and landed safely on a drag-racing strip at a former airbase near the Manitoba town of Gimli in 1983. "I was supposed to fly home today, but nothing can get off the runway," said John Remley, a tourist from Vancouver, Wash. "Still, those people were pretty lucky.". Micro-summary: Following an undetected fuel leak, this A330-243 had to dead-stick to a successful landing. The Captain was carrying out the pilot flying (PF) duties for this flight. But after waiting more than 10 hours on the small island, some passengers said they weren't impressed by the airline's response. A week ago, a Lockheed L-1011 carrying 324 passengers and 14 crew to Toronto had to be cleared of passengers at Orlando's international airport after an air-conditioning unit malfunctioned and some smoke entered the plane's cabin. "But the word 'gliding' is accurate," he said. The mismatched installation of the pre-mod hydraulic tube and the post-mod fuel tube resulted in the tubes coming into contact with each other, which resulted in the fracture of the fuel tube and the fuel leak, the initiating event that led to fuel exhaustion. Capt. Click here to subscribe. © Copyright 2020 The Globe and Mail Inc. All rights reserved. "As soon as we heard, our executives got on a plane to pick them up," Mr. Lemay said. Air Crash Investigation (Mayday: alerte maximum). ", There is no way to regain height if you miscalculate, he said. The agency quoted an airport official as saying: "They had 10 minutes of fuel and were 20 minutes away of arriving. ​The replacement engine was received in an unexpected pre-SB configuration to which the operator had not previously been exposed. At 05:16 UTC, a cockpit warning system chimed a… Now AT has smaller carry on dimensions then all others so your carry on probably will not be allowed .However mine was spec for their regs and under weight yet in Scotland they use a rigid medal cage you MUST put you carry on in and it is smaller than their posted dimensions.So what choice do you have pay up or no flight . Jim Harris, spokesman for the Transportation Safety Board, said that since 1996 there have been two accidents (defined as an incident involving damage to an aircraft or serious personal injury) of Air Transat aircraft. The largest in the fleet is the Airbus A330-300. There is no question the outcome could have been different. Air Transat Flight 236 was a transatlantic flight bound for Lisbon, from Toronto, that lost all engine power while flying over the Atlantic Ocean on August 24, 2001. Fatalities:0 of 13 crew, 0 of 306 passengers, Airports: (Departure) Toronto-Pearson International Airport, ON (YYZ/CYYZ), Canada; (Destination) Lisboa-Portela de Sacavém Airport (LIS/LPPT), Portugal. "But by contrast in the Portuguese message, you could hear the hesitation, the anxiety, almost the forming of tears. Air Transat is a subsidiary of Transat A. T. Inc., the self-proclaimed leader in Canada's holiday-travel industry. With neither of its … Air Transat specializes in charter flights from several Canadian and European cities to vacation destinations, mainly in the south during the winter months and in Europe and Canada during the summer. The Airbus A330 ran out of fuel due to a fuel leak caused by improper maintenance. Book your flight to Canada, Europe, USA or the South. The first was in July when a L-1011 flying out of Lyon in France had to return after being damaged by hailstones. Eddie sez: The pilots did an excellent job gliding their airplane to a safe landing, not a single occupant was injured. This is a space where subscribers can engage with each other and Globe staff. Air Transat said 10 people were slightly hurt. . We hope to have this fixed soon. "My mother's legs were hurt when her seat fell apart, and then she slid down during the evacuation and got hurt again," Sarah Romeiro, 17, said. The landing was not soft. In the Gimli case, confusion over metric fuel measurement was partly to blame for too little fuel being loaded when the airliner was being prepared for departure in Montreal for a flight to Edmonton. Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s comment community. flight crew did not recognize that a fuel leak situation existed and carried out the fuel imbalance procedure from memory, which resulted in the fuel from the left tanks being fed to the leak in the right engine. The lead technician relied on verbal advice during the engine change procedure rather than acquiring access to the relevant SB, which was necessary to properly complete the installation of the post-mod hydraulic pump. The A-330 in the Air Transat incident has 10,000 flight hours and a perfect operating record, Mr. Lemay said. Mr. Romeiro called his daughters in Bradford, Ont., around 9 a.m. yesterday to tell them he and his wife would remain in hospital. Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s comment community. That view was endorsed by Art LaFlamme, director-general of civil aviation for Transport Canada. However, a Transport Canada official said the 14-year-old airline has an excellent safety record and has never had a fatal accident or lost an aircraft. Book your Air Transat flight in USD. Planning your trip. Readers can also interact with The Globe on Facebook and Twitter . Air Transat Flight 236 was an Air Transat route between Toronto, Canada and Lisbon, Portugal.On August 24, 2001, flown by Captain Robert Piché and First Officer Dirk De Jager, the flight ran out of fuel over the Atlantic Ocean with 306 people (293 passengers and 13 crew) aboard. I believe in skill and professionalism. "This is the first [over-ocean]incident I'm aware of involving a total loss of engine power," he said. The second was the Azores accident. You would use the maximum braking in any emergency-landing situation. If you are looking to give feedback on our new site, please send it along to, To view this site properly, enable cookies in your browser. To keep you busy during your travels, the airline offers several entertainment options that vary depending on what aircraft you are flying. As well, five or six years ago, there was another emergency clearing of an Air Transat aircraft at Gatwick airport in England. Conducting the FUEL IMBALANCE procedure by memory negated the defence of the Caution note in the FUEL IMBALANCE checklist that may have caused the crew to consider timely actioning of the FUEL LEAK procedure. . Captain Don Hudson, who flies a different Airbus model for another airline, said the big planes will glide about three miles for every 1,000 feet of height with engines at idle, somewhat less with engines dead. Air Transat. There were 293 pas­sen­gers and thir­teen crew mem­bers on board. What the causes of those problems are will have to be determined by the investigation, and we'll take action as soon as we find out. "There obviously could have been a catastrophe," killing all 291 passengers and 13 crew, he said. Above the Atlantic Ocean, the crew noticed a dangerous fuel imbalance. You get one shot.". Because it specializes in vacation destinations, it typically flies to warmer destinations during winter months and … RE-POST From Forum>Airline Related>ACI Air Transat 236 First of all, I am so glad that everyone on that flight made it back alive~ Thanks to them Airbus revised the fuel imbalance and fuel leak procedure~ 我又一如以往base on final report講下~ 黑字係report~ 藍字就係我ge個人想法~ Actually Airbus modified the fuel leak procedures after this Some information in it may no longer be current. Transport Canada's Mr. Laflamme said: "We do monitor reports on airliners and follow up, but we don't have any indication of any systemic problems involving their accident record.". "It's too early to say if it's an engine problem or a fuel problem or another problem. It was pow­ered by two Rolls Royce Trent 772B-60 en­gines ca­pa­ble of de­liv­er­ing 71,100lb thrust each. One explanation would be a lack of fuel. With Stephen Bogaert, Guy Richer, Nick Baillie, Natacha La Ferriere. One or more tires burst and there were reports that friction caused small fires that were quickly extinguished. Read our, I'm a print subscriber, link to my account, Avoid the use of toxic and offensive language. "It's an amazing feat to be able to take an aircraft that doesn't have any thrust and plant it on the end of a runway, especially a short runway," a senior airline captain said. The airline captain quoted earlier explained the emergency manoeuvre: "If you have total fuel starvation, you have no operating engines. For the same period, there were no such violation reports for Air Canada or Canadian Airlines. "So the safety record is good.". On August 24, 2001, Air Transat Flight 236, an Airbus 330, was on its way from Toronto, Canada to Lisbon, Portugal with 306 people on board. "There aren't any Air Transat representatives who have spoken to us," Mr. Rodrigues said. He had to pull very hard on the brakes, so he made a little fire in the tires and made some damage on the runway.". In 2000, Transat said, it carried 3.5 million passengers. Mr. Lemay said that in 14 years of operation Air Transat has had only three emergency evacuations, including the Azores one. Air Transat Flight 236 was a transatlantic flight bound for Lisbon, Portugal, from Toronto, Canada, that lost all power while flying over the Atlantic Ocean on August 24, 2001.The Airbus A330 suffered a complete power loss due to a fuel leak caused by improper maintenance. 351 King Street East, Suite 1600, Toronto, ON Canada, M5A 0N1, Just $1.99 per week for the first 24 weeks, var select={root:".js-sub-pencil",control:".js-sub-pencil-control",open:"o-sub-pencil--open",closed:"o-sub-pencil--closed"},dom={},allowExpand=!0;function pencilInit(o){var e=arguments.length>1&&void 0!==arguments[1]&&arguments[1];select.root=o,dom.root=document.querySelector(select.root),dom.root&&(dom.control=document.querySelector(select.control),dom.control.addEventListener("click",onToggleClicked),setPanelState(e),window.addEventListener("scroll",onWindowScroll),dom.root.removeAttribute("hidden"))}function isPanelOpen(){return dom.root.classList.contains(select.open)}function setPanelState(o){dom.root.classList[o?"add":"remove"](select.open),dom.root.classList[o? On August 24, 2001, Air Transat Flight TSC236, an Airbus 330-243 aircraft, was on a scheduled flight from Toronto Lester B Pearson Airport, Ontario (CYYZ), Canada to Lisbon Airport (LPPT), Portugal with 13 crew and 293 passengers on board. That means: Comments that violate our community guidelines will be removed. There have been only a few of those in the entire history of aviation on multiengine aircraft on transatlantic operations. "There appears to have been a problem with one engine, leading to problems with another engine. This is a space where subscribers can engage with each other and Globe staff. Leaving the gate in Toronto, the aircraft had 47.9 tonnes of fuel on board, 5.5 tonnes more than required by regulations. We aim to create a safe and valuable space for discussion and debate. Leav­in… Discover our program featuring enhanced health and safety measures at check-in, during boarding, on board and at destination. Air Transat 236 Case Studies. He had found one of the few landing strips in the middle of the ocean. According to the Transport Canada Web site, Air Transat was cited in four violation reports in 1999 and 2000 and fined $1,250 in each case. It was a day like any other for the experienced crew – at least it started off like a normal day. Glasgow Toronto oct 18 extorted by Air Transat for 100 UK pound . The violations involved such things as installing parts certified for an L-1011 on an Airbus and for operating an aircraft without the required number of flight attendants. At some point, he said, the captain reassured passengers that they weren't going to land on water. It employs 2,500 people. Air Transat Flight 236, an Airbus A330 twin-engined aircraft with 304 aboard, was in transit from Toronto to Lisbon on August 21st. Getting a clear handle on Air Transat's safety record is not easy because no agency compiles a readily accessible method of determining a safety rating. At 06:13 the right engine flamed out. Flight status, tracking, and historical data for Air Transat 326 (TS326/TSC326) including … The A330's ETOPS rating is 120 minutes. The installation of the post-mod hydraulic pump and the post-mod fuel tube with the pre-mod hydraulic tube assembly resulted in a mismatch between the fuel and hydraulic tubes. "My expectation is that they would have used full, maximum braking permissible.". Founded in 1986, it is the country's third-largest airline, operating scheduled and charter flights, serving 60 destinations in 25 countries. It is now possible to book your Air Transat flight in USD! The crew that did this was probably very skilled.". This means that Air Transat will have to change the overseas routes of its Airbus aircraft so that they fly no further than 60 minutes from airports along the way, a condition that likely will make their flights more costly. The 291 passengers aboard Air Transat Flight 236 were having breakfast thousands of metres above the Atlantic yesterday when flight attendants rushed to gather their dishes. "Certainly, it's not comforting to know that it's one of ours, so we want to follow up and make sure this doesn't happen again.". He could not say exactly how far. 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After the near disaster, Transport Canada restricted Air Transat's three A330s to flights in which they are never more than 60 minutes from an airport, until it is satisfied that no safety problems exist. Now, having said that, how did the airplane lose all that fuel and end up becoming a glider? Air Transat spokesman Michel Lemay said the restrictions would add to flying times. The crew did not correctly evaluate the situation befo. Mr. Rodrigues said the landing gear gouged so deeply into the tarmac that work crews had difficulty removing the plane from the strip. "She was crying. Air Transat commenced operations in 1987 and is headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Air Transat is a Canadian airline based in Montreal, Quebec. It was shut down. Sarah Olivieri's sister Claudia, 27, was on the plane with their aunt and uncle. Most of the passengers were loaded onto ferries for a five-hour ride to another airport on a nearby island, where they were to board another Air Transat plane and continue to Portugal. S01/EP06 - Air Transat 236: "Du bout des ailes". Track Air Transat (TS) #326 flight from Toronto Pearson Int'l to Cancun Int'l. The correct action would have been to shut the engine down. The wide-bodied plane carries 295 to 440 passengers in its 63.7-metre fuselage. "You want to judge the rate of descent properly so that, obviously, you're not too low and not too high for the aiming point. Hudson's formula suggests that a pilot whose engines quit at a cruising altitude of 41,000 feet would need to find an island -- and a landing strip -- within 120 miles or less. 236: Narrative: Air Transat Flight TS236, was en route at FL390 when at 05:36 UTC, the crew became aware of a fuel imbalance between the left and right-wing main fuel tanks. Although a clearance between the fuel tube and hydraulic tube was achieved during installation by applying some force, the pressurization of the hydraulic line forced the hydraulic tube back to its natural position and eliminated the clearance. But all the passengers were able to scramble out of the plane, sliding down inflatable chutes. So the only available braking mechanism to you is the mechanical brakes and aerodynamic drag for the flaps and the spoilers. Air Transat Flight 236 was on its routine route from Toronto, bound for Lisbon, Portugal. Another senior captain, who asked not to be identified, said the incident was virtually unprecedented in transoceanic flights. The plane hit the runway at a U.S. air base at Lajes on Terceira, a Portuguese island in the Azores, around 2:45 a.m. EDT. "My sister called collect early in the morning," said Ms. Olivieri, 19, of Mississauga. Flight TS 236 took off from Toronto at 0:52 (UTC) on Friday August 24, 2001 (local time: 8:52 p.m. (EST) on Thursday August 23, 2001) bound for Lisbon. In this situation, the object of the exercise is to get the aircraft stopped in a safe manner as quickly as possible. This did not have the desired effect, since the right engine continued to consume fuel. News reports said there were sprained ankles, dislocated shoulders and strained backs.