When Avianca Flight 52 ran out of fuel, why did it plunge straight to earth and not glide?
Techwing, the Skipper, and that guy Ben Dere, who I swear is Australian, have the correct answers as usual. Let me also reiterate one thing…NO airplane just falls out of the sky, unless it has its wings shot off or it explodes in the most noisy manner. There have been exceptions in history, such as Alaska flight 261, where a stuck stabilizer trim tab caused the airplane to pitch straight down and plummet into the ocean as if it forgot to take its mood stabilizers (no pun intended), but in this case it still didn’t “fall” out of the sky, it simply flew straight down.
The Avianca 707 was vectored around JFK at an altitude or 3 or 4,000 feet when it ran out of fuel, after having failed to advise approach control properly of the fuel emergency status – It is estimated that it glided for a distance of some 5 miles (8 km), because it was at a very low altitude – A 707 can glide with some 15:1 ratio – I have flown 707 for over 5,000 hours as pilot – Edit – If you want similar accident – was United DC8-61 running out of fuel PDX (UA 178) –
