Captain Robert Piché, 48, an experienced glider pilot, and First Officer Dirk DeJager, 28, glided the plane to a successful emergency landing in the Azores, saving the lives of all 306 people (293 passengers and 13 crew) on board.

[3]: 12  The aircraft was a two-year-old Airbus A330-243 registered as C-GITS[4] that had first flown on March 17, 1999,[5] configured with 362 seats and placed in service by Air Transat on April 28, 1999.

Consequently, Captain Piché suspected they were false warnings and shared that opinion with Air Transat maintenance control centre in Montreal, which advised them to monitor the situation.

After 2 minutes Santa Maria Oceanic air traffic control radioed "Transat 236 heavy maintain 230 magnetic heading".

They declared a fuel emergency with Santa Maria Oceanic air traffic control three minutes after the heading was corrected.

[3] Thirteen minutes later, at 06:26 UTC and about 65 nautical miles (120 km; 75 mi) from Lajes Air Base, engine no.

Maximum emergency braking was applied and retained, and the plane came to a stop after a landing run that consumed 7,600 ft (2,300 m) of the 10,000-foot (3,000 m) runway.

[9] The investigation revealed that the primary causal factors of the accident were crew actions in mishandling a fuel leak in the no.

[9] The conclusions reached in the accident report revealed that: Nevertheless, the pilots returned to a heroes' welcome from the Canadian press as a result of their successful unpowered landing.

[12] Following the accident investigation, the French Directorate General for Civil Aviation (DGAC) issued F-2002-548B, requiring a detailed fuel-leak procedure in the flight manual and the need for crews to be aware of this.

[14] The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued AD 2006-02-01, effective February 3, 2006, requiring new airplane flight manual procedures to follow in the event of a fuel leak for Airbus Model A330 and A340 aircraft.

[15] The accident led to the DGAC and FAA issuing an airworthiness directive (AD),[16] requiring all operators of Airbus models A318, A319, A320 and A321 narrow-body aircraft to revise their flight manuals, stressing that crews should ensure that any fuel imbalance is not caused by a fuel leak before opening the cross-feed valve.

[17] The aircraft was repaired and returned to service with Air Transat in December 2001,[citation needed] with the nickname "Azores Glider".

[citation needed] On October 18, 2021, the aircraft made its last flight with Air Transat and was subsequently returned to the lessor AerCap.

[citation needed] Margaret McKinnon, a postdoctoral psychology student at Baycrest Health Sciences in Toronto at the time, was a passenger on her honeymoon on Flight 236.