If the plane runs out of fuel does it "glide" for a certain period of time or nose dive in ?
Assuming the pilot doesn’t push the stick “over” it will glide for miles, depending on your starting altitude and sink rate. The crew of a Canadian 767 had to dead-stick their jet into an abandoned CFAB base back in 1983, due to a malfunctioning fuel management system and poor “by hand” calculations. As a result, they took off with barely half the fuel needed for a flight from Ottawa to Edmonton.
The incident has become known as the Gimli glider, after the former Canadian AFB facility where they landed. It was also made into a fairly entertaining TV movie starring William Devane.
http://hawaii.hawaii.edu/math/Courses/Math100/Chapter1/Extra/CanFlt143.htm
Of course, the pilots of the Canadian 767 were trying to get their aircraft—and its passengers—on the ground in one piece, unlike the Malaysian pilot who flew that 777 into the Indian Ocean.
Depends on lots of things at that point.
When the main engines fail, there’s an APU (aux. power unit) that’s a little turbine/genset that is supposed to start to maintain electrical and hydraulic power for the flight control systems. Eventually, that’s going to run out of fuel as well.
In the Boeing heavies, then a RAT (Ram Air Turbine) drops out of the underside of the jet to provide emergency electrical and hydraulic power for the control systems and surfaces. Even with no fuel, the plane’s engineers planned for allowing control of these “fly by wire” systems.
The problem is that the optimum glide speed is “moving right along” in these heavy jets. We’re talking over 200 knots - perhaps as high as 240 knots airspeed. Their glide ratios are over 15:1 (typically) and they’re losing altitude at a pretty good clip (3000 to over 4500 feet per minute) to maintain an optimum glide speed and flight profile.
This ain’t like losing the engine in a Cessna 172 and gliding it down to the airstrip, flaring in the ground effect and kicking in a little crosswind rudder to line ‘er up on the runway. Pilots can and have glided Boeing heavies into a successful landing on even improvised airstrips - so Boeing heavies do glide successfully. In this case, however, we don’t know if there was a pilot at the controls, or a pilot who wanted to live, or what. All I meant with the above comment is that if the 777 went into the sea at a high speed and high angle, the debris field is likely to be quite limited. Look at what happened to the hijacked Flight 93 that was deliberately flown into the ground at a high angle in PA - there was actually little surface disturbance and a very small amount of debris above ground:
http://www.slimyfish.net/images/blog/flight93.jpg
I just now saw a report on TV that said this plane would be able to glide for quite a distance - and also - the pilot could attempt a “landing” on the ocean surface, trying to keep the plane intact and afloat for a limited amount of time.
