Robert Piché
| Robert Piché | |
|---|---|
| Born |
November 5, 1952 Quebec City, Québec |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Occupation | Pilot |
| Known for | Air Transat Flight 236 |
Robert Piché (born November 5, 1952) is a Canadian pilot. On August 24, 2001, he was captain of the Airbus A330 flying Air Transat Flight 236 and managed to land the aircraft safely in the Azores after it lost all power due to fuel exhaustion. This remains a record glide length for a commercial aircraft. Piché and his co-pilot were later assigned partial responsibility for the incident.
Piché grew up in Quebec's remote Gaspé Peninsula and learned to fly as a teenager. In 1973, he graduated from CEGEP de Chicoutimi with a college diploma in aircraft piloting.
After graduation he worked for regional airlines until he was laid off by Quebecair. After being laid off, he worked odd jobs which consisted of smuggling marijuana to the United States by plane.
In 1983, Piché served 16 months of a 10-year sentence in prison after a plane he landed solo at a small airfield in the state of Georgia was found to be full of marijuana smuggled from Jamaica. He was pardoned in 2000 and is considered fully rehabilitated.
In 1996, at the age of 43, Air Transat hired Piché. He rose rapidly from co-pilot to captain on the Lockheed L-1011 Tristar, and transitioned to the Airbus A330 in the spring of 2000.
Piché is best known for performing a dead-stick landing of an Airbus A330 in the Azores in 2001. He glided the Airbus A330 longer than any commercial aircraft in history, and landed at an airport on a remote island with limited navigation instruments. He was able to successfully land the plane (with only 8 blown tires) with no injuries among the crew and 306 passengers. In a response to a reporter's question regarding heroism, Mr. Piché stated I don't consider myself a hero, sir. I could have done without this. Canada's other successful landing of a fuel-starved aircraft was Air Canada Flight 143 (the "Gimli Glider") in 1983, and Vanity Fair mentioned Piché's flight when it covered the successful water landing of US Airways Flight 1549.
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