PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - 'Plane crash' at Nepal's Kathmandu airport
Old 12th Mar 2018, 18:51
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Escape Path
 
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That's a whole mess right there. Quite the confusion about the runway to land. May I point out that it is the pilot who switches runways back and forth; ATC is trying to help by approving their requests, IMO. Pilot makes/requests at least two runway switches, which ATC approves.

The fact that the pilot voice changes from female to male (early on and it doesn't change back) may be that PF/PM duties were transferred as a means to cope with a high workload situation due to whatever reasons (weather, the ensuing confusion, circling to land, etc). As a mere speculation I think male voice is PIC and female voice is SIC. Could be that PIC was PF and as soon as things start to get murky, SIC is now PF to enable PIC to dedicate his mental capacity to making decisions instead of flying the airplane, which is now SIC's job, under PIC directions. As I said, take it with a grain of salt, it's mere speculation.

Nevertheless, quite astounding the runway switching (out of the blue, since transmissions from other aircraft were quite normal until 211 came along)
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