PIA beats Ryan Air

[paperHanger]

Years ago, Ryan Air ran a marketing campaign that it was going to allow standing passengers in the aisles, with straps to hold, like bus passengers. Obviously this idea never got off the ground, for equally obvious reasons.

PIA seem to have beaten them to it though, reports of a PIA flight on 20th of Jan to Medina with 7 extra pax, standing in the aisles, unseated, on hand written tickets ...

[Piltdown Man]

Possibly... But many years ago a close friend of mine was landing in Luanda and she with half a dozen other passengers stood by the front door during landing. The cabin crew recommended that they should run for their connecting flight and this would give them a head start. But she need not have worried, the connecting flight was running on African time. Another colleague was flying for an A8 national airline and was rather concerned with his poor climb performance. A retrospective calculation indicated he was rather overweight. Part of the problem were the 118 people on a 101 seater aircraft. 15 year old children were checked in as infants. But to be honest, this thing is to be expected in any country where corruption is rife. God the poor EU when they let Albania in.

[gearlever]

Many moons ago I watched a TV show like "candid camera" on a German TV Channel.

They had a B737 for maintenance at Hamburg, all seats removed. So the TV team installed a pair of handrails at the ceiling of the 737.

At the gate they offered a fare reduction of DM 50.- to fly almost two hrs to Mallorca, no seats, standing up in the cabin.

Only three of about 140 pax refused.
All others got on board, laughing.

[sitigeltfel]

hand written tickets ...

Cash in the back pocket for someone?

[KRviator]

Dunno what all the hoopla is about...Qantas (http://www.qantas.com/travel/airlines/history-jumbo-jet/global/en) was doing that kind of stuff back in the 70's!

In 1974 Qantas established a then world record for carrying the most passengers when it evacuated 673 people on a 747 flight from Darwin after the city was devastated by Cyclone Tracy.Apparently on a -200 that had a max capacity of something like 420 people!

[Helix Von Smelix]

El Al B747 with 1122 passengers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Solomon

[WHBM]

In a community where people hang on to the outside of buses when there is no more room inside, or on the roofs of trains, or four to a bicycle, travel seatless in an aircraft is probably one of the safer forms of transport.

[barit1]

In 1974 Qantas established a then world record for carrying the most passengers when it evacuated 673 people on a 747 flight from Darwin after the city was devastated by Cyclone Tracy.

According to a contemporary AW&ST note, The flight was relatively short (to Perth?) so hardly over-fueled nor overweught. And perhaps a 747-100 by the date. So except for evac time, QF claimed the flight met cert requirements.

PS I once rode (1979)) an All Nippon 747SR on a domestic intercity run with 500 paying pax plus babes-in-arms.

[Magna]

QANTAS never had 747-100s, same event C5A carried a lot more

[Swedishflyingkiwi]

In 1990 I was pax on an Aeroflot flight ARN-RIX with three passengers more than seats.
Back in those days.... Swedish security gave up on telling them. One sat in the cockpit and two squeezed in seats with kids.

Just sometimes, you do not hear about it. See no evil, hear no evil...

[Ancient Mariner]

Happened to me on a couple of domestic flights in China. Someone had put toilets where our seat were supposed to be on B737s.
CC unable to solve before airborne.
Much sucking of teeth and blushing of face.

[bateleur]

I knew their food was supposed to be pretty bad, but ...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/26/pakistan-airliner-flew-with-seven-extra-passengers-standing-in-aisles-report

[StainesFS]

And here:

http://www.pprune.org/spectators-balcony-spotters-corner/591430-pia-beats-ryan-air.html

[Heathrow Harry]

Pah!!

Any haj flight before about 1995 (people brewing up on a spirit stove half way to Mecca), anything involving Bouraq in Indonesia (goats) and the all out lifetime winners were Air Zaire who filled the isles on a regular basis week in, week out..............

[DIA74]

I recall back in the 70's a cabin crew member walking the aisle at night, feeling a warmth as she passed one point. Investigating, she did indeed find pax preparing their own food. I suppose our veg curries, catered by "Intercontinental Food Poisoning" out of STN were not up to much !

[DaveReidUK]

Saudia 163.

Jetliner fire first started by stove; death toll set at 301 (https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=RPJcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=5VkNAAAAIBAJ&pg=1583,3006837=en)

[Bigpants]

Culture kills. This kind of criminal stupidity exists on ferries, buses and commercial flights all over Asia.

[Heathrow Harry]

well.... not just in Asia - it was a British crew that left the front door open on the "Herald of Free Enterprise..." IIRC

I have a bit of sympathy with carrying goats - after all it's the only way to get around - and many goats are a damn sight better behaved than a lot of LCO passengers to/from the UK

[KelvinD]

Regardless of what the newspaper says, it wasn't a cooking stove that caused the demise of SV163. The fire began in the cargo space and the CAA, among others, came to the conclusion it was due to a tiny hydraulic leak, causing a very spray of hydraulic fluid to spray onto the "S" bend in the centre engine exhaust trunking. I know because I was there and marginally involved in the aftermath. (I am sure I wrote about this elsewhere on here).
Having said that, I was working one night on Navaids at Taif (Saudi Arabia) and was having a fag and a cup of tea with the duty controller when a Saudia B707 went down in the mountains not too far north of us. This was caused by a primus stove starting a fire which got out of hand. The passengers all rushed forward, presumably hoping to get into the flightdeck, upsetting the aircraft C of G and resulting in a nosedive into the ground.
HH: How abut that for a coincidence! Having heard part of a BBC play yesterday about that disaster, I spent a couple of hours reading the court of inquiry report. It seems this was a common occurrence with that company's vessels. Not only was it a British crew that caused the disaster, it was also a British company that pooh poohed the concerns of all of their Captains when they had demanded door open/closed indicators for the bow doors. These ferries had "clam shell" type doors which opened horizontally and there were invisible to the bridge (unlike the traditional vertical raising doors which can be seen from the bridge when open. Add to that the fact that the Captains had no way of knowing the vessel's draught or even the actual number of passengers carried on each trip, sometimes sailing with more than 1,200 passengers when they were licensed for 630! A horrible read!

[DaveReidUK]

You're right, you shouldn't believe everything you read in the newspapers. :O

the "S" bend in the centre engine exhaust trunking

That sounds a novel arrangement. I must confess I never noticed it in all the years I spent working on TriStars. :O

Or did you mean the intake ?

[KelvinD]

Dave: Not sure if it was the intake or the exhaust. Whichever it was, it was covered in lagging and theory went this lagging was soaked by the fluid. There was a documentary on TV years ago in which a clever chap from CAA explained how it all worked.
The bit in the newspaper about the doors jamming was nonsense too. The Captain had refused to allow the doors open once the fire service had reported they could see no flames from outside. What finished them off was the Captain's decision to trigger the oxygen supply to the cabin. This can be seen from the photographs. From below, the aircraft looked lovely; from above it was as if someone had taken a torch to the roof. Many passengers dies still strapped in to their seats. The fire must have been very intense and brief (relatively) as, rather than being cinders, many of them looked like overdone roast chickens. Horrible!
The Tristar used to be one of my favourite airliners. One thing I remember about them was the ceiling in the cabin. I believe some airlines took a rigid version of the cellular ceiling while BA had a version with what seemed independent suspension and they moved about, creaking, all the while.

[DaveReidUK]

At the risk of getting off topic, the PCA final report on the investigation into the SV163 accident concluded that although the fire had probably originated in the C-3 (bulk) cargo compartment, the source of ignition remained undetermined.

There is no reference to the passenger oxygen masks being deployed, which is the last thing you'd want to do in the event of a suspected fire.

[Ancient Mariner]

Kelvin D: It seems this was a common occurrence with that company's vessels. Not only was it a British crew that caused the disaster, it was also a British company that pooh poohed the concerns of all of their Captains when they had demanded door open/closed indicators for the bow doors. These ferries had "clam shell" type doors which opened horizontally and there were invisible to the bridge (unlike the traditional vertical raising doors which can be seen from the bridge when open. Add to that the fact that the Captains had no way of knowing the vessel's draught or even the actual number of passengers carried on each trip, sometimes sailing with more than 1,200 passengers when they were licensed for 630! A horrible read!

I was on a RoRo ship that always berthed next to those ferries and we called them a disaster waiting to happen. They always left port with their bow visir open, always. And they never cared about the speed limits inside the breakwater. It was full speed astern, then normally narrowing avoiding fishing vessels during starboard turn followed by full speed ahead before they passed the mole.
On our humble RoRo we never released one rope before we had all green on the bridge, meaning all gates and ramps were closed and secure and that the locking bolts had actuated the micro switches in a locked position.
A terrible tragedy, unfortunately to be expected.
As for the vessel's draught. Go ashore, walk along the length of the ship, there are painted foot/meter marks bow, stern and frequently center. They could not be bothered.

[ahmetdouas]

Really? Insane if true that the PIA 77W took off with 8 more passengers than seats!
https://www.rt.com/news/378661-pia-flight-standing-passengers/

[KelvinD]

Per: I am not surprised by what you say, since reading that report. Did you know that when these RoRo were used on the Zeebrugge run, the port only had single ramps so they coule unload only one deck at a time. So they used to flood ballast tanks in the bow to drop the nose and make the angle between ramp and deck more acceptable. Trouble was the ballast tanks to a little over 2 hours to flood. The trip from Dover was a little over 4 hours, so half the journey was made with the ballast tanks in the process of flooding. Worse yet, when they sailed from Zeebrugge they were still trimmed bow down That bow down trim meant the rules re max loading etc changed and they were basically overloaded every time they left that port.
If you have not seen the report, it is here:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/54c1704ce5274a15b6000025/FormalInvestigation_HeraldofFreeEnterprise-MSA1894.pdf

[KelvinD]

Dave: The formal report was an attempt at a whitewash. My office at the time was in the base of the tower at Jeddah's new airport, working very often alongside the ICAO contingent, some of whom were friends. One of the tasks they asked me to carry out was the transcription of Riyadh tower voice tapes to cassette for onward transmission, along with what I presume was cockpit CVR tapes, to Washington. I have heard virtually the whole conversation from the flight deck. Trust me, the Capatain ordered the oxygen. The flight engineer (an American) said words to the effect of "don't be so bloody stupid!". The response of the Captain was to the effect of "My aircraft. I am the Captain. Those people in there are choking in the smoke.". I think they were his last words in fact.

[DaveReidUK]

I don't think you can really class the report as a whitewash. It makes it clear that the accident was survivable were it not for a catalogue of wrong decisions on the part of the crew, combined with poor training of the ARFFS.

I stand corrected on the pax oxygen deployment , though I'm very surprised that this fact has never emerged in the public domain, given that the CVR went to the NTSB for analysis.

[Sillert,V.I.]

Historically there have been a number of examples of planes departing in extremis with many more passengers than seats; the final evacuation of Saigon certainly gave rise to a few well-documented examples during Operation Frequent Wind.

What is different in this case is that it happened in peacetime during normal ops, and from some of the other posts here, appears to have become an accepted de facto solution to overbooking. Worrying.

[Flingwing47]

As I recall,
The fire burnt through the wiring to the air con pack controls and/or engine controls.
The cockpit crew could not shut down the engines or packs so the aircraft remainder pressurised.
That's why the doors couldn't be opened.
Also there were more than 20 bodies in the cockpit which would prevent any crew doing anything

[DaveReidUK]

The cockpit crew could not shut down the engines or packs so the aircraft remainder pressurised.
That's why the doors couldn't be opened.

No. The doors didn't open because nobody tried to open them.

The cabin crew were specifically commanded by the captain not to initiate an evacuation, and the ARFFS were so uncoordinated that they didn't attempt to enter the aircraft until it was too late.

From the investigation report:

"Consideration of all available evidence indicates that there was little or no pressurization differential between the cabin and ambient pressure at the time of touchdown and that the doors could have been opened immediately after touchdown."

[reefrat]

Two items come to my attention in this thread
Many years ago I flew into Beijing from the Tibetan Plateau after a 9 week working hitch. First leg was in an AN2 Antonov ??? Bi plane rotary russian crop duster/pax/ bomber, a real blast from the past wearing airline supplied leather flying Suits and helmets and having had to give the aircraft a bit of a push to unstick it from the apron, pretty cold up there.
Changed aircraft somewhere in central China, age has erased the name..The new A/c was a jet. We boarded and kept an eye out for any spare seats,, unhappilly the A/c was full, waiting for the doors to close I saw a bus load of pax park near the stairs,, wrong A/C I thought,, no way, a full bus load of pax trooped on board and proceeded to squat in the aisle,, or rather sit in the aisle on little stools they had carried on board. My interpeter remarked that this was CAAC standard practice. Once airborne the Tsingtao made its presence felt, climbing over and around our extras I got to the loo. There was no plastic structure on the out board side of the cubicle and there was ample eviidence that one was expected to urinate onto the alloy A/c skin. GLAD to get off.

Before this I was in Saudi. I was a regular in and out of Riyadh. It was very unnerving to say the least, to see that famous A/c parked beside the runway for months, looking as if some one had taken an oxy torch to the cabin and trimmed if off neatly at the window line Apart from no roof the A/c was intact , even the tyres were still inflated.

[El Bunto]

What is different in this case is that it happened in peacetime during normal ops, and from some of the other posts here, appears to have become an accepted de facto solution to overbooking. Worrying. The PIA aircraft departed over 100 passengers fewer than the certified escape limit of a 777-300ER. Hardly much concern.

I'd be more concerned about getting out of an Air Canada -300ER with 458 seats, personally.