Air Transat Flight 236: The Azores Glider

On 24 August, 2001, Air Transat Flight 236, an Airbus A330-243 aircraft was flying from Toronto to Lisbon over the Atlantic Ocean at 4244N/2305W when the crew noticed a fuel imbalance at 05:33 UTC (UTC is known as “Zulu” time in aviation, denoted “Z”. I shall use this designation). Upon checking the fuel quantities, the crew saw that the imbalance was close to 7 tonnes of fuel. (The aircraft uses about 5 tonnes per hour in cruise flight.) They followed the FUEL IMBALANCE procedure from memory. At 05:45Z, they began a diversion to Lajes airport on Terceira Island in the Azores, a set of mid-Atlantic islands which are part of Portugal. At 06:13Z they informed air traffic control (ATC) that the right engine had flamed out. At 06:26Z, they further informed ATC that the left engine had also flamed out and that a ditching at sea was possible. At this point, the aircraft was about 65 nautical miles (1nm = 6000ft =1.15 statute miles = 1.85km) from the airport at Flight Level 345 (= 34,500 feet pressure altitude = 34,500 ft altitude in an internationally-normed atmosphere). And it was a glider. The aircraft glided in to the airport, carried out an engines-out visual approach at night, in good weather conditions and good visibility. The aircraft landed fast on the runway, with reduced braking possibilities due to lack of some electrical systems, and came to a halt. It was evacuated; some passengers were hurt during the evacuation. The lower landing gear of the aircraft was more or less destroyed through the hard landing and extreme braking. But no one died.