Originally Posted by
Airbubba
Here's a report from ARY News:
On another forum it was claimed that Captain Gul was the senior pilot at PIA.
Captain Gul was a very experienced pilot. He is claimed to be the only (or amongst a few) with more than 1000hrs/yr experience. In my experience, it is very dangerous in a place like Pakistan when you pair such a person with a young FO. The same was the case with AirBlue and (now defunct) Bhoja previously.
There's was an article published by his daughter in a local paper. It's mostly how great and helpful her dad. I can understand the pressure the family is going through since the media is portraying the crew with suspicion. But in the flow, she also wrote how he would call his junior colleagues "Beta" or "Beti" (son or daughter). That might sound very affectionate and caring which she wrote to emphasize how good her father was, but it also means imposing your seniority on your colleague. No "beta" or "beti" would dare challenge your actions even when you mess up due to the atmosphere in the cockpit. We saw similar reasons in previous air crashes in Islamabad where FO would only give a slight suggestion in a weak voice to his "senior" captain (addressing him as sir) even when faced with imminent doom.
There are lots of factors at PIA that make senior pilots particularly dangerous even though they have so much experience.