Pilot who glided 767 to miraculous Gimli landing returns to scene, hailed as hero

By: Steve Lambert, THE CANADIAN PRESS WINNIPEG - Art Zuke can still picture the huge Boeing 767 barrelling straight at him and his two young friends, its nose grinding along an abandoned airstrip in Gimli, Man., firing off sparks and smoke. Twenty-five years later, he will finally get a chance to thank the plane's pilot, Bob Pearson, whose heroic actions, he says, prevented dozens of people from being killed. "The plane really couldn't have gone 300 feet farther than it did without mowing down things, myself included," Zuke said this week in an interview with The Canadian Press. "People would have been killed for sure." Wednesday marks the 25th anniversary of the emergency landing of what has become known fondly as the Gimli Glider, an Air Canada 767 that had left Montreal and Ottawa for Edmonton with 69 passengers and crew... [read full story]