OK - my 'beef'
1) PPrune has always 'expected' those in the media, especially those who write for newspapers and cut and past PPrune forum comments on other fora to declare themselves.
2) All through Meekal's post we have the 'hint' that he might have operated as an airline pilot (in PIA) and knows how to fly these procedures - I see Meekal has also been active (moderating?) on a flt sim forum too which may explain some of this. Even 'examiner.com' has been confused
Airline pilot Meekal Ahmed described it this way.
An example of a 'Walter Mitty' experience is here
There was this one guy who really terrified me.
Coming in to land at AMS from the south he kept saying "he is bringing us in from the north" as if to enlighten me.
Talk of spatial/situational unawareness.
When I asked if he wanted the automatics on for the ILS he said "no, I failed my last check-ride", or something to that effect. He was all over the place, weaving back and forth, hand-flying and the controller asked us "Pakistan XXX, are you established"?
All I could say was "Sir, we are establishing right now".
Well, his actual touch-down was featherlight with no excessive flare and probably the best I have experienced!
3) Seeds of confusion have been planted thereby
If he was doing a back-course to 12, he would be nowhere near the hills either. They would be well to his left.
So, since he did hit the hills, he must have been executing the circle-to-land DME arc for 12. I have done that at least 20 times from the front and the back of the bus.
It is not unsafe per-se but you need to stay alert because you need to approach on 30 and then break away and fly parallel downwind to the Margalla hills and swing around for a back-course landing on 12. No margin for error though.
From his Tribune articles:
or if the hills are shrouded in low clouds as they were that fateful day, he stays within an arc (which is drawn from a point at the airport). This arc is clearly displayed on the navigation display (ND) as a curved line. I do not recall the distance of the arc from the airport but obviously the arc is calculated to keep the plane clear of the surrounding high terrain.
I know the ILS is on 30 while 12 has the “back-course” approach which is non-precision.
It would now appear that Meekal used the wrong words through lack of understanding of the correct ones, but in so doing has not helped to cast any light on this accident here.
As for
I write and gently try and correct them. Inevitably, someone will come back all aggressive and ask "Where YOU in that cockpit? If not, how do YOU know"?
he obviously has a short memory because the comment was NOT addressed to him as he conceded to the poster ('temporal' on another forum) "OK, fine. Sorry I misunderstood."
Now - you may have a large axe to grind against the current government of Pakistan, and therefore Mr Blogg's suggestion "you may be in the best position to institute a proper inquiry into the ED accident" would be a bit of a non-starter.
'Leave' if you must. Personally I would rather see all contributors continue in an open and honest manner, contributing facts or 'reports' to this puzzle in line with the excellent work of others.
Lastly,
dragging his father into all of this perplexes me - it is irrelevant.
On the subject of the accident, I read that the a/c crashed in a left turn and was thought to have impacted at 3000'MSL.