Gimli Glider cockpit makes return trip to Manitoba

A portion of the famed ‘Gimli Glider’ is back on Canadian soil. Joseph Bernacki has more.

After a 7,000-kilometre journey from a southern California scrapyard, a part of a plane that was made famous 43 years ago was reunited with the captain that flew it.

“This was my office. I flew this airplane quite a few times and as a matter of fact, I was the last one to use it,” said retired captain, Robert Pearson with a smile.

The cockpit from the former Boeing 767 aircraft known as the Gimli Glider was recently recovered and brought back to Manitoba.

“It’s great that this has been salvaged by the museum in Gimli,” Pearson said.

“It’s a piece of aviation history.”

Back on July 23, 1983, Pearson safely landed the plane on a decommissioned airstrip in Gimli, Man., a lakeside community about 100 kilometres north of Winnipeg. All 69 people on board, who were flying with Air Canada from Montreal to Edmonton, survived the emergency landing.

An investigation would later reveal the plane ran out of fuel due to a miscalculation of the fuel load.

“Touching down was good. A gentleman came up to me, he put his hand on my shoulder. He said, “Captain, that was some feat,’” Pearson said.

The whole plane went up for auction years ago, but didn’t sell, so it was parted out. The cockpit stayed intact, though it has been collecting dust since 2008 at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, Calif.

The Gimli Glider exhibit volunteers had their eye on it since 2017.

They raised funds and thanks to a generous donor, it’s now on its way to Gimli to be displayed alongside other memorabilia.

“An American businessman spoke to the owners and said, ‘You need to understand how important this museum is,’” said Barbara Gluck, president of the Gimli Glider exhibit.

“Can you cut your price on the cockpit so that they can afford it and get it back for Canadian history?”

Volunteers like Peter Grant met the truck driver on Friday afternoon at the border to see it come through.

“Holy mackerel! As soon as I saw the truck coming through the border and I saw the cockpit, my heart started to beat,” Grant said.

He said the cockpit will be refurbished and put on display in the coming months. He noted he still can’t fathom what it took for Pearson to safely land the plane.

“A lot of people don’t realize the wizardry that Bob Pearson had to have to fly a plane like that with no fuel, no engines,” Grant said.

“All he had was up, down, left, right and he flew the plane for 100 miles with nothing.”

It was all in a days’ work, according to a humble Pearson.

“My job was to take off and land an airplane full of passengers and I’m really pleased I could do my job that day,” Pearson said.