I thought that plane design would allow this to be possible and also allow for the pilot to dump excess fuel so that a plane crash would not lead to such catastrophic outcomes as is often the case.|||There have in fact been two recent instances of a commercial airliner suffering fuel exhaustion and having to be piloted to a dead-stick landing.
The 'Gimli Glider', an Air Canada Boeing 767, was loaded with insufficient fuel due to confusion between metric and English units of weight. It glided to a landing in Gimli, Manitoba in 1983.
The 'Azores Glider' is an Air Transat Airbus A330 which glided to a dead-stick landing in the Azores in 2001.
There is not a 'certain speed' at which an aircraft can glide. Any aircraft can glide at a variety of airspeeds depending upon angle of attack. Each aircraft type does however have a glide ratio defined at max lift/drag ratio.
Furthermore, glide speed does not necessarily correlate directly with size (weight) of aircraft, but with wing loading and wing aspect ratio.
Many, but not all, commercial airliners have fuel jettison capability. Search www.airliners.net for a very recent thread containing a comprehensive list of aircraft types with this capability.|||The plane can glide with no power. controls will be very tight,but it can be landed safely,provided there is room enough to do this. Most crashes happen shortly after take off and with no power you cannot turn around. I would hate to be piloting a commercial airliner on it's way down,...........................who knows what would be going through your mind. Keep in mind the speeds that these planes cruise at,......................not much time to find a perfect put down area.|||It is possible for any aircraft to glide ... as long as it has enough altitude to generate forward speed (by lowering the nose) ... the problem is how far will it glide.
Aircraft engines are becoming ... or should I say have become much more reliable than those of 'yesteryear' ... for all engines to fail on a commercial aircraft means that you are really realy having a very bad day
All aircraft have different glide performance (drift down) characteristics.
All aircraft are NOT designed to dump fuel.|||Yes, a few years ago an Air Ansat B-767 glided 100+ miles after a fuel leak and bad cockpit procedures resulted in all fuel being lost. The aircraft landed with no loss of life at a US Air Force base in the Azores. The plane laneded very fast and the wheels and tires were destroyed.|||It depends a great deal on the airplane's aerodynamics and current loading. An experienced pilot flying in a non-jet plane with lots of wing area, in visual sight of an airport, should be able to execute a safe landing by maintaining the minimum landing speed to an unoccupied runway with minimal crosswinds. Forget about dumping fuel in this kind of emergency.|||Absolutely.
Total loss of engine power followed by a glide to a successful emergency landing has actually happened TWICE:
Air Transat Flight 236 (not "Air Ansat" as written above) %26amp; Air Canada 143, commonly known as the "Gimli Glider" as it glided to the closed air base in Gimli, Manitoba
Read about the incidents here-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat鈥?/a>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glide鈥?/a>
There have also been many, MANY incidents where airlines have lost power in one engine and have continued on safely, not needing to glide at all.|||Absolutly. All aircarft have a certain speed at which they glide, larger ones just have higher speeds.|||well united flight 811 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZjclTQwW鈥?/a> landed with only one engin but those versions of he 747 the 747-100 was not designed to fly with only one engine yet it landed safetly then I heard of a british airways 747 that lost all engines but landed (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKJXvXMQ9鈥?/a>
Cheers
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