Empty Tanks
“For this reason we… do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work.” [Colossians 1:9,10]
On July 23, 1983, Air Canada Flight 143 ran out of fuel at 41,000 feet. The new Boeing 767 jet was only halfway through its trip from Montreal to Edmonton when the aircraft’s warning system sounded in the cockpit, indicating a fuel problem on the left side. The pilots naturally assumed that a fuel pump had failed, and turned off the alarm. But then a few moments later a second fuel alarm sounded, followed by a loud bong, and then both engines starving for fuel went silent. Obviously this stunned the pilots and terrified the 63 passengers.
Without any engine power most of the cockpit instruments went blank, leaving only a few battery-powered basics. Still disbelieving the jet could be out of fuel, the pilots scrambled to restart the engines. When they saw this was futile they began frantically searching charts for any landing strip within gliding distance that would be long enough to accommodate their rapidly descending jet. They turned towards the nearest landing site, a closed airbase at Gimli, Manitoba, 20 miles away. What the pilots didn’t know was that the decommissioned runway was being used that day as a drag racing strip and was full of cars, campers… and people.
Without regular engine power, the hydraulic steering became very stiff. Captain Bob Pearson performed a difficult side-slip maneuver to line up the silently descending aircraft with the runway. As the 767 main gear touched down the captain stood on the brakes. Then the nose wheel collapsed, sending sparks flying 300 feet into the air as the aircraft plowed down the runway. Shocked spectators, racers, and kids on bicycles scattered, clearing the runway. Miraculously, the crew was able to safely land the jumbo jet and no one was hurt. The subsequent investigation revealed that someone had miscalculated the fuel load. Canadian airlines had recently adopted the metric system in place of the imperial system.
It takes power to fly an airplane up into the blue sky. It also takes power for the Christian to “walk worthy of the Lord.” If the fuel tank is empty and the engines are not running, you will glide downward like the Gimli Glider. Fortunately, the pilots of Flight 143 made a safe landing. But how many people will crash and burn because they are not filled with the power of the Holy Spirit?
