Robert Piché

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.

As of February 2025[update], this remains a record glide length for a commercial aircraft in non-powered flight.

After being laid off, he worked odd jobs, which consisted of smuggling marijuana to the United States by plane.

[1] Beginning in November 1983, Piché served 16 months of a 5-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 glided the Airbus A330 longer than any commercial aircraft in history, and he landed at an airport on a remote island with limited navigation instruments.

[2][4] In a response to a reporter's question regarding heroism, Mr. Piché stated: "I don't consider myself a hero, sir.

However, the final investigation also assigned the flight crew partial responsibility for failing to detect the fuel situation earlier.