“Would the lead steward please come to the flight deck... immediately”. Sounds like one of those in-flight announcements from a dramatic plane crash movie. No one would ever want to hear this in reality. Unfortunately, it’s exactly what the passengers on Air Transat Flight 236 heard as their plane ran out of fuel somewhere above the Atlantic.

It was supposed to be a regular flight for Air Transat from Toronto, Canada, to Lisbon, Portugal. The weather was fine that August evening, and Flight 236 took off without delays. It had 306 people on board. The Airbus was fairly new, with only 2 years of active service. It had two powerful engines, and 5 tons more fuel than is required when it took off. Yet, 8 hours later, when the plane should have touched down in Lisbon, it was nowhere to be seen...

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