BOAC;
PJ - I think that image would be of great interest but I fear the 'obscuration' you have applied is a bit too effective
Do I take it from your 'theory' that we have a definite crash location and direction of travel at impact? It is the '330-340' track I cannot understan
Yeah, the obscuration is almost total, as it may very well be if one encounters a local rain shower or cloud while maneuvering in poor weather. One can barely make out the roads in this graphic, but of course that is the point.
I don't have a crash elevation or a ground track. On the location, using a lat/long and other info from
aterpster and
BrooksPA-28, I worked from the photographs that
Machaca posted and using Google Earth, came up with an approximation given the mountain profiles, road, city and horizon. It is a very rough approximation, especially the G.E. Terrain feature, and is therefore not reliable - but I think it is close.
On the level of obscuration/road-for-runway, in order to explain the comment from the aircraft published in the Pakistani newspaper as part of the ATC communications, that they, "have the runway in sight", I chose the right turn of about 30 to 40 degrees because of ground witnesses who were in or near the area where, by the chart note aircraft were restricted from flying, (to the NE of the airport), saying they saw the aircraft flying low overhead and heard the crash a few minutes later. A right turn, not straight ahead or a left turn off the approach to 30 made sense.
The theory behind all of this is
confirmation bias in mistaking roads for runways, having likely lost sight of the airport for whatever reason. While to me the track made most sense, to my knowledge none of us know what track the aircraft took.
The entire theory could be very wrong.
But we know they were circling for 12 and hit the hills, perhaps even after being warned by ATC and possibly the TAWS. What factors that we all pay close attention to in such circumstances made sense to the crew, (particularly the captain) that permitted acceptance and therefore continuance of their current flight path and altitude for the maneuver they were executing? Why did they consider what they were doing successful in relation to their goal, which was (visually) lining up with 12?
PEI_3721;
411A suggests that judgement of ability is a factor “if you can’t bear the heat”. I disagree; how your personal performance can vary is a more realistic consideration. “It’s often the best pilots who make the biggest mistakes” (James Reason)
Exactly. Let's explore Truman's statement; While I think most of us understand the intent of the statement, ("get stronger..., or let those better than us do the heavy lifting"), I think it is being used here incorrectly to goad rather than teach.
Harry Truman was a politician, not an airline pilot. The phrase was intended to lead others politically, not to describe oneself in a cockpit.
The notions of "heat" and "kitchen" are not fixed nor are they one-dimensional or universally applicable to all at all times. Truman's demand that someone stand aside while another who is deemed "more competent" doesn't have a lot of currency in commercial aviation. In politics one only gets voted out - not so in aviation.
In aviation, one constantly chooses one's "heat" and the kitchens out of which one will stay while making a perfectly reasonable decision regarding more heat and other kitchens one might accept and do very well in, and at different times.
The decision about how much heat one will take on is always on the move depending upon many factors, most of them human, including one's experience, training and innate abilities. Even the best and most iron-clad of us may wisely choose another place, another day. That many did not is not proof that the kitchen was too hot. If it was, Accident Investigation Boards would be redundant. On any one day, it could be "us".
But if the idea behind Truman's statement becomes a fixed, prescriptive formula by which judgement is made either of one's own capabilities or of others' then at some point it will fail oneself and others should they take the statement seriously. As a "lesson", the statement should be set aside.
Would that more had made such a decision according to their own varying levels of training, skills, personal fatigue levels and other continuums which are always changing and of which one must constantly be aware in order to stay alive.
Neither excellence nor competency, which are both required for safe flight, is set aside here. What is set aside here is a peculiar attitude.
PJ2