Bad Math Can Kill You
In 1983, Canada was in the midst of converting from the barbarian imperial units to the metric system. Unfortunately, the positive shift caught the Air Canada refueling team in Montreal off balance. Instructed to fill the fuel tanks for the Boeing 767’s trip to Edmonton with 41 passengers aboard, the crew did so using the recently dismissed imperial units system.
Alarmingly, the refueling left the plane half full, but the pilot and crew unwittingly cleared the way for takeoff. As the story goes, the plane’s two engines shut down and all electricity on board was lost while cruising at 41,000. And the drama intensified! View the outcome in this episode of RealLifeLore.
