Originally Posted by
grizzled
Not true at all. Read the report, especially with regard to the timeline from just before the "Pan Pan Pan" call until the turn to Halifax. Then read the transcript, from 1:14 to 1:16 UTC.
I suggest you do some research before posting something that casts aspersions on the crew that died in that accident. We all make mistakes and we should all learn from the mistakes of others but in this case your comment is incredibly disrespectful -- because it's false.
The point I was making is that western airlines also get things wrong and my comments about the Swiss MD11 were overly simplistic. I haven't read the report in a very long time, but from memory they first elected to turn back and subsequently accepted the nearer Halifax but didn't make it as they were dumping fuel to avoid an overweight landing. The lessons to learn were multiple including the use of flammable materials in aircraft and cockpit smoke procedures. The crew were certainly dealt a bum hand that day as the followed the checklists. All of this is thread creep. The final report will identify why the PIA crew got it so badly wrong just as the final reports in the Cross Air, Air France and Swiss 111 pointed out what went wrong.