http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

the "fuel meter" of the plane was defective and they checked the fuel with a dipstick. Then the did a mistake converting the volume into weight, by mixing up the conversion factors for imperial and metric units... like in most accidents, a chain of things that went wrong.

A german pilot  landed gliding in Vienna in 2000, he went out of fuel at the attempt to reach Germany coming from Greece with the landing gear out, probably to save repair cost and for "passenger convenience".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapag-Lloyd_Flight_3378