The Danger of Under-preparation

There were no signs of trouble.

For the passengers and crew of Air Canada Flight 143, July 23, 1983, would just be another Saturday. And this would be on of many routine flights.

Pre-flight checks proved everything to be on point. In the cockpit, Captain Bob Pearson and his co-pilot were running through a routine they had mastered for over two decades. With combined flight hours of 22,000, both pilots were nothing short of “experienced”. Everything was in place.

Why not?

This Boeing 767-223 was the beauty of its time. Its fuel efficiency, lesser noise and superior engine design made it the right choice for Air Canada’s newest purchases.

Passengers boarded in a single file, grateful to escape the anger of the summer sun. Down below, maintenance workers were refuelling the bird for her four-hour-forty-minute flight from Montreal to Edmonton. But refuelling took longer than necessary.

For some reason, the Flight Management Computer (FMC) was inoperative. That meant the fuel-level display on the aircraft’s instrument panel could not be trusted. And so the fuel load was going to be measured and calculated manually.

It was 1983 and Canada was switching from the Imperial system of measurement to the Metric system. That meant Flight 142’s fuel load would be measured in litres, not gallons. That shouldn’t be a problem. After making the conversions, the maintenance staff pumped the required fuel load for the journey and the aircraft was good to go.

Minutes after take-off, the plane was cruising at 12,000 meters over Red Lake Ontario—at a speed of 800 Km/h—when the cockpit warning system came off. There was a fuel pressure problem on the left side of the plane. Captain Pearson silenced the alarm, assuming it was a fuel pump issue. Soon after that, the left engine ground to a halt. Minutes later the right engine followed suit.

With the power out, air-conditioning ceased and the display board went blank, leaving only a few basic battery-powered emergency flight instruments to support landing. Flying an aircraft with both engines off was not covered in-flight training back then. Both pilots ran a quick search through their emergency checklist for the section on “flying the aircraft with both engines off”, only to realise that no such section existed. In other words, they were left to follow their whims.

Dangerous!

Even though Captain Pearson was an experienced glider pilot, he had never glided anything as heavy as a Boeing 767 before. The plan was switch course to Winnipeg, but with both engines out, they would crash before getting there. Air Traffic Control had directed them to an abandoned airfield just miles away but upon getting there, the plane was moving too fast for a successful landing. At such speed, it’ll hit the ground with enough G-force to kill everyone on board.

Seventeen minutes and several manoeuvres later, Air Canada Flight 143 crash-landed on a decommissioned runway at Gimli Industrial Park, Gimli, Manitoba.

All 69 souls on board survived. The plane has been dubbed “Gimli Glider”.

The investigations that followed revealed a shocking truth. For starters, what the pilots had mistaken for engine failure was them running out of fuel. Running out of fuel mid-flight is a nightmare for any pilot, let alone passengers.

Earlier, the Captain calculated a fuel requirement of 27,875 litres for the trip. A floatstick check revealed that the plane already had 7,682 litres of fuel. All they needed was an additional 20,193 litres of fuel. Instead, they took on only 4,917 litres. Using the incorrect conversion factor led to a total fuel load of only 22,300 pounds rather than the 22,300 kilograms that were needed. And so, even when the captain double-checked the calculations, the wrong conversion factor still gave him wrong readings.

There are so many lessons to glean from the Gimli glider incident. But I’ll share just one.

The Danger of Under-preparation

The Gimli Glider incident pretty much mirrors our propensity to use the wrong metrics in measuring our success—or the requirement for our success. 

For most of us, we know what we want out of life. We have gone the extra mile of articulating those desires in well-crafted goals and expectations.

We’ve taken our visualization from the back of our minds and splattered it on vision boards.

We have developed structures around the fulfilment of our goals, but for the most part, we’re using the wrong metrics.

Like the crew of Flight 143, we miscalculate the level of preparation it’ll take to BECOME the person capable of achieving those feats. 

We miscalculate the level of effort it’ll take to hit the milestones.

We underestimate the intensity, consistency and quality of thinking, planning and action it’ll take to perform at the level we want.

Since we have little or no idea that “success is not a solo sport,” building the right relationships becomes a low priority.

Underprepared and half-baked, we launch into a frantic search for opportunities. And because we’re ‘stubborn’ about what we want, doors begin to open one after the other.

It all sounds like good news…until your unpreparedness begins to surface.

Flight 143 reminds me of the 5 foolish virgins in Jesus’ parable. Though grossly underprepared, they went out to meet the bridegroom anyway.

Like the others, they had lamps. They had the apparel. They spoke the same language. They probably looked alike. Most importantly, they were no less virgins than the others.

However, like the captains of Flight 142, they miscalculated the required fuel load for their journey.

The lesson is simple, under-preparation will cost you more than inaction. Leaving your comfort zone is enough pain already. Not making it to your destination is even greater pain.

This is not an encouragement to just hold the gun, aim, adjust the target, adjust the trigger, change the bullet, clean the barrel, aim again, and repeat the cycle without taking the shot.

I’m simply saying, like David, don’t charge at Goliath with one stone. Take five!

Like Moses, don’t accost Pharaoh without an empowered staff, get one first.

Like Joseph, don’t face Pharaoh without a solution in hand.

No matter what it’ll take, be prepared.

As you seek opportunities, make sure taking corresponding steps to prepare.

You’re seeking public speaking opportunities, but you haven’t taken one training on public speaking. You haven’t refined your ideas until they’re TED-worthy. Your opportunity will surely come, but unpreparedness will help you flunk it.

Going forward, give premium to preparation. Take the relevant courses. Join the right networks. Attend the right events. Take volunteering opportunities more seriously. Read the right books. Seek mentorship. By all means, keep your gun loaded. And when you sense the opportunity, take the shot.