Originally Posted by tht
One other question, will UA keep somthing like this "hush hush", or willl details be published somwhere so I can find out what the problem was?
UA will be required to file an incident form with the FAA which should be publically available. I imagine such incidents are available on their website.
Originally Posted by hsmythe
You may recall the "Gimli Glider" incident (where) a 767 operated by Air Canada ran out of fuel (and) despite loss of both engines and the APU, but utilizing the RAT for hydraulics and electrical power, the flight crew operated the 767 as a glider for some distance before very successfully landing it at a deactivated Royal Canadian Air Force field at Gimli, Manitoba.
A similar incident happened to an Airbus A330 over the Atlantic where it lost all fuel and had to deploy the RAT to make a landing in the Azores. The Discovery Channel (I think) did a special on it. Most interesting and, frankly, comforting to know that even in such a dire situation (one shot on one runway on one little island in the middle of the Atlantic), the systems on this plane (and all other birds, I imagine) allowed it to make a controlled and safe landing.