PIA A320 Crash Karachi

[neilki]

lomapaseo

absolutely cowl crushing from impact could impart terminal damage consistent with the mishap.
//type rated and current A320 driver

[krismiler]

Not possible IMHO due to landing gear interlock

True if the aircraft had weight on wheels but the gear could have been retracted just prior to ground contact or just after becoming airborne again. Airbus procedure is not to retract the undercarriage during a wind shear encounter as the initial drag penalty is significant. I’m not suggesting W/S was a factor, just using the procedure as an example of the drag retracting gear creates on the A320.

[henra]

My 2 cents worth people,
Looking at those marks on the engines, there is no way those marks are due to contact with the runway/ground.
May I remind you of these words once the final report is out?

If there was contact, there would be some rather large obvious flat spots under those engines.

Those cowlings are only thin covers. Underneath is the massive structure designed to contain fan/turbine blades in case of separation.
The cowling material will probably tear away and the structure underneath will remain circular. I don't think what we see in those pictures contradicts a contact with the runway. Anyway the final report will tell us the truth.

The angle of those marks at the trailing edge of both engine cold stream ducts would indicate that not only half of the engine exhaust cones should be missing/ground away, BUT half of the rear fuselage as well !!! IMHO.

the black marks on the side towards the rear of the cowlings have not necessarily contacted the tarmac itself. That could be sooting from the heat or oil stain.

[giggitygiggity]

Not possible IMHO due to landing gear interlock.
Except if they did it during a bounce. Aircraft bounces, gear retracted, there isn't enough thrust to allow the aircraft to climb away and avoid a second bounce (crash?) without the gear.

[22/04]

The one thing I am really struggling with is whether they were 3500 feet 5 miles from touchdown - I just cannot see how anyone would continue an approach- crew incapacitation ( they certainly lacked capacity but couldthere be a reason)

[Dave Therhino]

Capt Quentin McHale

You can't just project the angle of those marks rearward. First, you cant distinguish oil/smoke marks from scrape marks, and second, if it scraped, the nacelles and struts would flex upward significantly resulting in the trailing edge areas having more damage than one might expect if they imagine the airplane as being perfectly rigid.

[LegiossTypeH]

Also possible that the gear was retracted before the flaps during the go-around. Standard procedure is “Go Around - FLAPS, retract one stage, positive climb - GEAR UP.

Perhaps it happened out of sequence by mistake, “Go Around” and the wheels went up first instead of the flaps.

In my opinion this is the most possible scenerio, but it can't answer why the landing gear doors are intact.

As a general technique to intercept glide slope from above, pilots would early lower the landing gear to increase drag to reduce speed when in high descent rate. So except the TOO LOW GEAR warning, over speed warning will remind pilots to lower the gears, too. It's less possible the pilots FORGET to make the gear down.

[meleagertoo]

Why would the ATC suggest a belly landing when the pilot reported both engines lost? There hadn't been any talk of gear issues. Or am I missing something?
Quite! I don't think you're missing anyting.

Something had put the likelyhood of a belly landing so firmly in ATC's mind that they actually included a question about it - most unconventionally - in their response to the g/a. They simply wouldn't say that without some very compelling reason. I can think of no other feasible compelling reason other than that they'd already witnessed one seconds before.
Very clearly there was severe damage to both nacelles but no sign of u/c deployed - there's only one way that can happen, ground contact with gear retracted.

The speculation on sink after go-around is called and gear prematurely retracted (perhaps mistakenly instead of flap) sounds by far the most feasible way to circumvent all the warnings - a severe impact on both pods disabling the generators and quite possibly hydraulics and even oil system (my 320 tech is largely forgotten now - perhaps the entire accessory drive system?) which could accont for the rapid loss of both engines. It would be relatively easy and quite credible to severely mishandle a g/a at the end of a high-anxiety unstable approach.

Why fly away from such an event? With TOGA or someting like it already applied, the pucker factor has PF instinctively pulling back on his stick as contact is made and they are flying again. After so much confusion in the preceeding couple of minutes it would surprise me if a crew in that situaton would have the capacity to close the thrust levers and reland, it would only take a couple of seconds of freeze, if that, and they're 15' nose up climbing fast and utterly committed to the g/a. They may not even have had room to reject from there but one suspects that level of cognition may not have been present.

But why no flap deployed in the photos though? Did they get high enough to retract them?

[Loose rivets]

It's a strange fuzz, but this explains a lot to an oldtimer that's used to metal.

and the cowls are carbon composite...

I wonder if the entire pod rotated/distorted jet pipe down just a tad as the front's impacted.

I was aware of the possibility of pod strikes before coming on this site. The BBC news had given some clue or another. For me it seems the best bet now the fuzzy surface might be explained.

[Dave Therhino]

May I remind you of these words once the final report is out?

Those cowlings are only thin covers. Underneath is the massive structure designed to contain fan/turbine blades in case of separation.
The cowling material will probably tear away and the structure underneath will remain circular. I don't think what we see in those pictures contradicts a contact with the runway. Anyway the final report will tell us the truth.

the black marks on the side towards the rear of the cowlings have not necessarily contacted the tarmac itself. That could be sooting from the heat or oil stain.


The structure at the bottom of the engine isn't "massive" relative to the weight and speed of the airplane. The transfer gearbox and the low end of the accessory gearbox are at or very near the bottom center line. The cowls are light weight structure not sized to support the airplane without damage. If you scrape the engines significantly you are likely to put holes in the accessory and transfer gearboxes, and will very quickly lose the engine oil. Bearing failure will then follow quickly if high power is commanded.

The regulatory requirements are for such an event are intended simply to not breach the fuel system for crash safety reasons (see 14 CFR 25.994).
Sec. 25.994

Fuel system components.

Fuel system components in an engine nacelle or in the fuselage must be protected from damage that could result in spillage of enough fuel to constitute a fire hazard as a result of a wheels-up landing on a paved runway under each of the conditions prescribed in § 25.721(b).


The requirements and design intent have never been to maintain ability to continue running the engine at high power following such a scrape event. They are simply intended to prevent post-crash fire in a wheels up controlled landing.

[MPN11]

Mil ATCO speaking. I was Local Controller when a Hunter performed a wheels-up ‘roller’ on the 230 gal drop-tanks. The pilot realised the error in the last second, applied full power and delicate stick, and wobbled a foot or so off the runway whilst regaining the right side of the drag curve. He scraped the paint off one tank, and split the seam on the other. Normal circuit, landing and interview followed. Ground contact is a variable quantity ... the report and other evidence will determine how hard and/or prolonged the A320’s encounter was.

BTW, I had seen his gear was up as he turned final, but my plaintive cries of “Overshoot” were jammed out by a 4-ship checking in and calling for taxt and departure clearance. Local controllers should look out of the windows at noth runway and aircraft ... at least, we used to in my day.

[GlueBall]

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/750x500/nrt_21_7_11_3fb2812db94e8cdebf70f46d846e61b23c24430d.jpg

You can "Kiss" the pavement without generating a significant flat spot. Enlarging the photo will show that the black streaks under both engine cowlings of the PIA jet likely appear to be reverted rubber deposits scooped from the touchdown zone of the runway with sufficient pressure to disrupt the IDGs to cut power to AC Buses which had then triggered auto deployment of the RAT.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/504x472/pia_a320_e5e20a3c98b01309a90f0a5cb2254479ec146d4a.jpeg

[krismiler]

Pilots are conditioned that once a go-around has commenced, that’s it forget about landing so the option of putting it back down may have been unconsciously rejected by the crew.

[fox niner]

AvHerald now reporting this:
On May 23rd 2020 Pakistani media are reporting quoting sources within the Civil Aviation Authority, that the aircraft touched down on the runway with retracted gear during their first approach, climbed again and positioned for another approach. Ground observers reported sparks from the aircraft when it touched the ground.

I know CRM is quite an important thing in aviation. But where does it end, and where does criminal negligence start? I am sure everyone has had their experience towards rushed approaches. Most end up in a go-around as they should. But this?

[andrasz]

To cut some of the speculation here, this is the kind of damage one would expect to see from a ground contact while the gears are in transit:

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/750x563/smartlynx_a320_es_san_tallinn_180228_2_b41b28816bf0860b25509 905f0de89c58e7abb3d.jpg

[PJ2]

. . .
I have a fair bit of time in various Airbus including the A320... it would be absolutely impossible to fly an approach and unintentionally land gear up.
. . . .
In accident investigation, one cannot describe anything in aviation as, "abolutely impossible", or "unbelievable" or other notions that dismiss certain scenarios with, "...no crew would ever do...", etc., and still get to the truth of what happened.

All scenarios must be considered until evidence rules them out. Experience may dictate how plausible one theory may be over another. Sometimes the simplest explanation is more or less what happened. The initial approach appears to have been unstable. Not unusual, but if it was unstable to the point of distraction & narrowed focus, most know what normal cognitive functions also narrow. The AF447 crew, for whatever reason, did not "hear" or process the visual and audible stall warnings when they were present.

So it is possible to miss warnings. For similar reasons, perhaps the PIA crew never heard the gear warnings and continued the approach, we don't know yet. What we think should have occurred in the cockpit never explains an accident or human behaviour. We just have to look at the available evidence, and we have that in the recorders.

It is not "absolutely impossible".
It can happen, anywhere, to anyone at any time.

This was not a rushed approach nor was it a surprise to the crew as they were dealing with a known emergency and it ended well.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/400x201/american_airlines_boston_touchdown_1_s_7608e775c29afecf3663f 962ffa13e3df275e988.jpg


https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/399x200/american_airlines_boston_touchdown_s_4a9221b707d05d1a116d49b 13eac694743412113.jpg
https://avherald.com/h?article=3f60198f/0013&opt=0
https://www.flightglobal.com/picture-american-eagle-erj-135-touches-down-with-landing-gear-up/74737.article

[SMOC]

Sent a pic of another chat saying it was a long landing - float, decided to go around however the gear was selected up prematurely (lack of positive rate) settled on the engines prior to lifting off again.

[FlyingAce77]

Also possible that the gear was retracted before the flaps during the go-around. Standard procedure is “Go Around - FLAPS, retract one stage, positive climb - GEAR UP.

Perhaps it happened out of sequence by mistake, “Go Around” and the wheels went up first instead of the flaps.
Yes, my thoughts as well, Retracted the gears before positive rate of climb was ensured.

[Nightstop]

But this was unlikely to be a standard GO AROUND from DH at 200’ AGL, this was a Baulked Landing. For a Baulked landing (also known as a c@ck up) on the A320 we used to have a procedure known as “TOGA 10” then, when safely climbing away, “GO AROUND, FLAPS” (as mentioned above). TOGA being the obvious Firewall of the Thrust Levers, followed by no more than 10 degrees of Nose Up pitch (to avoid tailscrape).

On introduction of the A321 this was no longer appropriate, due to the pitch angle of 10 degrees being more conducive to a tailstrike for that variant. The result is, a tailscrape is now far more likely in fleets operating multiple variants of the A320 family.

[Twitter]

Two things:

Carbon fibre is black. If you scrape the pod you will get through the paint to the black. No touchdown zone rubber required - and if they were fast and long the engines would probably have scraped after the touchdown zone - not in it.

Nr. 1 Engine doesn’t look straight - the exit cone isn’t in line with the centreline but hanging below it.

[Goldenrivett]

Yes, my thoughts as well, Retracted the gears before positive rate of climb was ensured.
I can’t see how you could rotate to a pitch attitude sufficient to get airborne again once the engines make contact with the runway.

[Toruk Macto]

I always felt the A320 was a tough little aeroplane, maybe if the nacelles and engine mounts have had folded and engines detached they would have slid off through the clearway ?

[Joejosh999]

I wonder if the witness reports of “2 or 3 attempts” plus the survivor noting they hit “thrice” might mean a bounced landing. Hit hard, bounce, hit again, TOGA...certainly being high and hot as they were is sometimes a precursor to a hard/bounced landing.

[Nightstop]

Classic Airbus A320 stuff, read the Airbus spoiler deployment logic modification for mitigation of that scenario.

[Magplug]

If there was a gear problem prior to the start of the first approach ATC would have been informed and the aircraft would have held while the cabin was secured for a full emergency landing. Survivors make no mention of any such alarming preparations. There is the mention of the words 'comfortable now' on the R/T suggesting to me they were previously too fast or high but now happy. You also hear the CRC ringing over the R/T suggesting the gear is not down below 700' RA... It's loud and you can't possibly miss it unless your SA is so maxed out trying to slow down for landing. The survivor reported that the first sign of anything wrong was when he saw sparks & flames on touchdown.

Landing on the engines is quite survivable but guess what?.... the engines are written off as a result. So lets just slide down the runway a little and then apply TOGA thrust and see how long those donkeys last. Apparently not very long. By the time they got downwind the RAT was out indicating AC BUS 1+2 offline which rather suggests a double engine failure. Had they carried on downwind there was some open space straight ahead to put the aircraft down rather more tidily than they did. If you look at the crash position it was close abeam the downwind end of the runway (remember 40secs +/- the wind) with absolutely zero chance of making a turn onto the runway axis with all engines.... let alone no engines. However, if their SA was so low that they went around having not noticed the gear was up, having scraped the runway with both engines, it seems unlikely they would have the SA to carry out a dead-stick landing to anywhere from downwind.

I read that the aircraft had not flown for 60 days. There is no suggestion yet the aircraft was unserviceable but how about the crew?.... I wonder what their Covid-19 Recency practice was like?

[Superpilot]

If the first attempt was a gear up landing, the master warning for LDG GEAR NOT DOWN may have been inadvertently cancelled by one of them as they were no doubt already smashing it repeatedly for the over speed. Thereafter, all eyes outside and occasionally at the PFD with no one glancing at the ECAM.

Also, the A320 is relatively new to PIA. I doubt most captains have more much more than 500 on the type given seniority and the fact they don't hire DEC.

Unfortunately, this may prove to be another example of a super dangerous ex military jockey pushing things to the limit.

[DaveReidUK]

I read that the aircraft had not flown for 60 days.

The aircraft was inbound from Muscat the day before the accident.

[Magplug]

That was reported by one of the airline execs. on interview. Perhaps he was referring to the last major service.

[DaveReidUK]

I can’t see how you could rotate to a pitch attitude sufficient to get airborne again once the engines make contact with the runway.

A quick back-of-the-envelope bit of geometry would suggest that about 5.5° of pitch attitude is achievable with the engines in contact with the runway, before the tail hits the deck.

[Locked door]

Just to clarify, people are talking about a master caution for the gear not being down.

The warning is a repetitive “TOO LOW, GEAR” in a loud, urgent voice over the speakers. IIRC it triggers at 500RA, it’s hard to believe they continued to land with that happening. You can’t cancel it unless you turn the GPWS off on the overhead panel.

A mishandled baulked landing after a high energy approach and deep landing is much more likely.

Very sad.

[pineteam]

https://youtu.be/yizMpXYHHrk

Even with a loud warning like in this video, if you are distracted for any reason it can still happen.
But I also believe it most probably happens during a baulked landing.

[Douglas Bahada]

"Unfortunately, this may prove to be another example of a super dangerous ex military jockey pushing things to the limit"

Or just generally incompetent crew regardless of background.

[Jetset320]

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1863x1314/pia6_3d4d2b05a6434e6d1e80be0894afbc4a29c34fab.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/448x208/pia100_44c5983af710166a3eef96fda4c1355d2eb4fa9d.jpg
Something with PIA and landing gears. Boeing 720 was a base training mishap ~1975 (no injuries/Aircraft returned to service). whilst in the 747-200 accident in1986 crew forgot to lower landing gear before landing. The aircraft made belly landing. Passengers and crew were evacuated through emergency escape slides. Some of the passengers received minor injuries during the evacuation process. Two engines of the aircraft were damaged beyond repair due to belly landing. The Boeing 747 returned to service after repair work.

[b1lanc]

Avherald now reporting the following:
"On May 23rd 2020 Karachi Airport reported based on CAA inspection report that the runway inspection revealed scrape marks of the left engine start 4500 feet down the runway, the right engine scrape marks begin 5500 feet down the runway. About 6000-7000 feet past the runway threshold the scrape marks end."

[Milvus Milvus]

Thats a couple of seconds on the ground, not just a quick touch.

[Jackonicko]

Unfortunately, this may prove to be another example of a super dangerous ex military jockey pushing things to the limit.

Mind that chip on your shoulder, SP.

Did the military reject you?

[Joejosh999]

So damage to gear doors might suggest they did have gear down on approach?

[sonicbum]

No, the gear doors are closed with a normal gear extension.

[DaveReidUK]

Thats a couple of seconds on the ground, not just a quick touch.

There are two 0' AAL points on the altitude plot, 8 seconds apart.

[mommus]

Two things:

Carbon fibre is black. If you scrape the pod you will get through the paint to the black.



Not necessarily. IIRC cowlings on A320s are honeycomb core of either aluminium or nomex, and the skins are often a weave of all kinds of different colours, from black to grey to orange, green to almost white.

Its not like all black carbon fibre on an F1 car

[champair79]

I don’t think I’ve seen it mentioned but my theory is possibly a false glideslope capture similar to the MyCargo 747 at Bishkek. That’s backed up by listening to the recordings when one of the pilots says “we can make it” which suggests the aircraft has nearly acquired the G/S ‘diamond’ (whilst forgetting to check to see if it’s a sensible glideslope indication using the 3x table). The controller clearly doesn’t feel comfortable as he reiterates they’re 3000-3500ft at 5nm but the pilots reply they’re established on the ILS.

They’d then become so task saturated trying to slow the aircraft down to Vapp that they’d develop tunnel vision and selective hearing, therefore both crew members completely fail to notice the overspeed klaxon sounding in the background plus the inevitable TOO LOW GEAR.

Then as others have said, a little float down the runway, a late decision to go around when they realise the gear isn’t down (or they’re running out of runway) and the engines then take time to spool up. This would then cause the engines to scrape the runway momentarily damaging fuel and oil lines. The engines would probably develop some or TOGA power initially allowing the aircraft to climb out but they then destroy themselves if the internal mechanisms have been damaged (or simply run out of fuel or operate at a limited power). The crew then attempt a tight circuit, lower the gear which drastically reduces the L/D ratio and the aircraft stalls into the urban area just short of the airport. It’s likely at this point the aircraft was probably in alternate law depending on what was damaged reverting to direct law when the gear goes down. This is a much higher workload situation requiring manual trim and a different feel in both pitch and roll and also doesn’t offer the same protections as normal or alternate law.

Causal factors include a lack of sense checking as to their current position in relation to the airfield and both pilots being a bit rusty due to a lack of flying because of COVID. This then lead to a high energy state. They may have been offered various shortcuts by ATC as well due to vastly reduced traffic levels which only exacerbated the situation. Then tunnel vision, selective hearing and a breakdown in CRM occur as both pilots go from a benign scenario in the initial descent to being totally overloaded in a short space of time but suffering from ‘get-thereitis’.

As I said, it’s all pure speculation but this would fit in with what I’ve read so far. What I can’t understand is why the flaps are retracted. Possibly the engines only quit as the aircraft had just cleaned up passing the acceleration altitude.

[eagle21]

Soon we will find out whether the landing gear was lowered at all on the first approach. That will be key in understanding the rest. Options are:

1. Gear was never selected down on the 1st approach
2. Gear was selected down on the 1st approach but a go around was initiated before touchdown with a premature gear up selection
3 Gear was selected down on the 1st approach but a go around was initiated after touchdown/bounce with a premature gear up selection

[LTC8K6]

The main gear doors look dirty/damaged on the section which would have been lowest halfway through their swing, and there seems to be something hanging out.

I think you are seeing the RAT and it's open door.

I can't see any gear door damage.

[Dan_Brown]

Calling in with established, on the ILS with the height and distance stated, reecks of a false G/S of course. 6degs and 1.5degs.

[sonicbum]

Yes, but if my interpretation of the picture is correct then the gear may have been down, and was in the process of retracting when ground contact was made.

(It could also have been on its way down, but that's most unlikely).

I'd been puzzled by the gear up pictures because the captions 'seconds before crash' implies that it was taken on approach. I suggest that it was 'minutes before' and that they were taken as it climbed away from the first attempt.

Oh ok, makes sense.

[QDM360]

The main gear doors look dirty/damaged on the section which would have been lowest halfway through their swing, and there seems to be something hanging out.


The gear doors are fine. The thing hanging out is the RAT. And the black area in front of it is the hatch, where the RAT is normally stowed. There is absolutely no doubt about it.

See here for comparison:
https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-00399c46430ead76cf566473d8aaad51-c

[Drc40]

Regardless of the gear situation and short of catastrophic failure, I still can’t fathom any attempt at landing when your high and hot at 5nm final! 3500’ at 5nm is almost double altitude so my brain is already in GA mode. If the aeroplane was that out of sorts you land on first attempt even if it’s belly first. Lots of real head scratchers here. That aeroplane got way ahead of those boys. How that happened remains to be seen but it’s bloody tragedy.

[donotdespisethesnake]

The main gear doors look dirty/damaged on the section which would have been lowest halfway through their swing, and there seems to be something hanging out.

Nope, you're looking at a deployed RAT and the "dirty/damaged section" is it's open access door.

[mommus]

The main gear doors look dirty/damaged


Thats the RAT, its forward of the gear doors. Look at the relative position of the trailing edge in both those pics for reference

[Down Three Greens]

Just to clarify, people are talking about a master caution for the gear not being down.

The warning is a repetitive “TOO LOW, GEAR” in a loud, urgent voice over the speakers. IIRC it triggers at 500RA, it’s hard to believe they continued to land with that happening. You can’t cancel it unless you turn the GPWS off on the overhead panel.

A mishandled baulked landing after a high energy approach and deep landing is much more likely.

Very sad.

You will also get a ECAM master warning.

Triggering conditions.

L/G is not downlocked and radio height is lower than 750 ft and both engines N1 lower than 75% (or if engine shutdown N1of remaining engine lower than 97%) or

L/G is not downlocked and radio height is lower than 750 ft and both engines are not at T.O power and flaps at 1, 2, 3 or FULL or

L/G is not downlocked and flaps at 3 or FULL and both radio altimeters are failed.


A useful reference other than the FCOM.

https://safetyfirst.airbus.com/app/themes/mh_newsdesk/documents/archives/a320-landing-gear-downlock.pdf

[lederhosen]

As has been discussed several times (some hours ago) not pushing the thrust levers all the way forward into the TOGA detent has been done multiple times and could well result in the aircraft wallowing along in ground effect, before the pilot flying realised and corrected his mistake. As a captain on type I cannot imagine them not selecting the gear down on the first approach particularly if they were hot and high, it simply makes no sense, never mind the warnings which are literally impossible to ignore. The most probable scenario so far is a late decision to go-around, selecting the gear up before being established in a climb and alternately bashing the engines into the deck at a relatively low deck angle. It is interesting to speculate that had the tail scraped at a higher pitch angle, they might have crashed on the airfield with much lower loss of life. But that is speculation as I doubt anyone has ever tried it and it would only apply before TOGA power was applied, because after that the aircraft would almost certainly power its way back into the sky.

[7AC]

Can anybody tell me what the rush is all the time to retract the gear ?

[jimjim1]

scrape marks of the left engine start 4500 feet down the runway, the right engine scrape marks begin 5500 feet down the runway. About 6000-7000 feet past the runway threshold the scrape marks end."

120kts, about 140mph, about 210 ft sec.
(ft/sec ~= 44/30 * mph, or about times 1.5)

Consistent with 8 secs at zero ft from ADSB mentioned recently.

[Airbubba]

There are two 0' AAL points on the altitude plot, 8 seconds apart.

Yep and looking at the data for the March 21 landing at KHI you can see the Mode-S altitude go to zero, not airport elevation when there is weight on the wheels:

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1033x189/pia_khi_mar21_ldg_58dd0a4b1707cc6df44b3babcc1864300bbb6173.j pg

On takeoff out of LHE on the day of the accident Mode-S altitude reads zero with weight on the wheels and then went to uncorrected baro altitude after liftoff:

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/704x454/pia_to_lhe_8f26d9daf59b868e10b4f017537728cdd0410e0d.jpg

On the first approach and go around at KHI PIA8303 never sent zero Mode-S altitude:

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/640x625/pia_1st_khi_0adadce03396a4c36a8e8f4519603f0a650880a5.jpg

That and the other evidence discussed above makes me believe that the gear was never down on the first approach. :eek:

Pan Am did a gear up touch and go at TXL in the 1980's on a B-737 checkride with the FAA onboard. They got lucky:

https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/632653-txl-closed-temporarily-june-15th-good-bye-eddt.html#post10788234

[b1lanc]

. As a captain on type I cannot imagine them not selecting the gear down on the first approach particularly if they were hot and high, it simply makes no sense, never mind the warnings which are literally impossible to ignore.

Not the same type, but it has happened before to PIA.

https://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/403390-pia-b747-gear-up-landing-1986-a.html

[boguing]

The gear doors are fine. The thing hanging out is the RAT. And the black area in front of it is the hatch, where the RAT is normally stowed. There is absolutely no doubt about it.

See here for comparison:
https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-00399c46430ead76cf566473d8aaad51-c

Nope, you're looking at a deployed RAT and the "dirty/damaged section" is it's open access door.

​​​​​​​Thats the RAT, its forward of the gear doors. Look at the relative position of the trailing edge in both those pics for reference

Apologies. It's so obvious when it's pointed out. I've deleted my comments.

[PJ2]

Can anybody tell me what the rush is all the time to retract the gear ?
The only time to rush might be in a rejected takeoff. Otherwise, there is no need to "rush" any time when flying a transport, especially when performing a go-around, but, like engine fail/fire drills, it should be done smartly, methodically & deliberately...as soon as the flaps are set and the "positive rate" (or some such similar SOP" call is made by the PNF, retract the gear. It's important to stay in sequence - set power, raise flaps then gear while achieving correct pitch. When completely settled, communicate with ATC, then the passengers.

The reasons to get the gear up are numerous - obviously the aircraft performs better without the drag! But go-around certification climb performance and where necessary, obstacle clearance, particularly with engine-out performance, are based upon the manufacturer's numbers which would include flaps set correctly, gear retracted and pitch attitude achieved, (normally at least >= 12.5deg).

Go-arounds are higher-risk maneuvers than many think. It's almost always unexpected and so is a surprise, (although I've never believed it should "startle" a seasoned well-trained crew). There are studies on this aspect of transport operation which examines both crew and aircraft performance; here's one (https://skybrary.aero/bookshelf/books/3808.pdf). Most FDM/FOQA Programs have events which help validate & improve the maneuver.

Hope this helps.

[DaveReidUK]

Not the same type, but it has happened before to PIA.

https://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/403390-pia-b747-gear-up-landing-1986-a.html

In the photo in post #284, it looks a real mess:

in the 747-200 accident in 1986 crew forgot to lower landing gear before landing

[Joejosh999]

Interesting stuff Bubba...could it just be they never hit WoW though?...

[metro301]

That and the other evidence discussed above makes me believe that the gear was never down on the first approach. :eek:



Your tables are the best argument yet for never being selected down in the first place.

[DaveReidUK]

Interesting stuff Bubba...could it just be they never hit WoW though?...

I think that's the point that's being made - the engines hit the runway, the wheels didn't.

[No. 2]

That and the other evidence discussed above makes me believe that the gear was never down on the first approach. :eek:..

It shows that the main gears never touched down (no wow). It's consistent with the theory that they mishandled the go-around and the gear was raised prior to making contact with the ground.

[Fawad]

If this was a planned belly landing or any sort of landing with known landing gear issues, wouldn't the ATC know about it exactly, and wouldn't there be emergency vehicles at the runway? It is certain that there was some sort of landing gear problem but what is unclear is to what extent and what they were trying to do. Here's an extract from a surviving (1 of 2) passenger:

"...Recalling the plane's sudden descent, he said that the pilot announced the landing, after which two sudden jerks were felt by passengers. He said the plane hit the runway momentarily before it was flown upwards. "People began to pray fervently...."

This is a third world county, so many "people with contact" can get inside information quickly and share it for "I have inside connections and I know it" ego, which is common since processes and rules aren't that strict. I am not sure how true it is, but one such person said that there were problems deploying the landing gear (I am assuming here the nose gear since main gears are easier to deploy due to gravity). As per his claim, the pilot attempted the landing hoping for a touch and go so that the "bump" would deploy the gear (I am assuming a missed landing touching the main gears to bump and deploy the nose gear), make a go-around, and come back to land again. Things got bad and they hit the engines which caused double engine failure and they were unable to gain enough altitude to make a complete go-around.

I am not sure if this sounds crazy or plausible but it is what it is.

[b1lanc]

In the photo in post #284, it looks a real mess:
And wasn't scrapped until 2010.

[Stillapilot]

Yep and looking at the data for the March 21 landing at KHI you can see the Mode-S altitude go to zero, not airport elevation when there is weight on the wheels:


Good work Airbubba, the question remains why the gear was apparently not down, like many I do not think it possible to ignore the GPWS TOO LOW GEAR and master Warning even in a rushed approach which leaves my earlier idea that they may have had an LGCIU 1 fault and switched the GPWS off to prevent the spurious warnings as prompted by ECAM, the rushed approach then allowed them to miss the gear.

[No. 2]

Your tables are the best argument yet for never being selected down in the first place.
No they're not as mentioned above. Unlikely to miss the gear down in an Airbus due to a the reasons given in a previous post.

[Joejosh999]

I meant does it show wheels were never down? Or merely that they never got weight? I.e. they were down, never landed, and upon TOGA were retracted (early) thus scuffing both engines and gear doors?

[No. 2]

Exactly. It doesn't imply they never lowered the gear.

[metro301]

No they're not as mentioned above. Unlikely to miss the gear down in an Airbus due to a the reasons given in a previous post.

We shall see soon enough once the FDR is read. I have seen guys get so fixated that yes... It could be missed even in a 320. (I am current 320)

[donotdespisethesnake]

120kts, about 140mph, about 210 ft sec.
(ft/sec ~= 44/30 * mph, or about times 1.5)

Consistent with 8 secs at zero ft from ADSB mentioned recently.

That also suggests they were at 200 ft AGL at threshold, and made a TOGO decision with over 7000 ft of runway available.

The CVR will be quite revealing, but I have a hunch they never had gear down at all on first attempt, incredible as that sounds.

[metro301]

It is also my experience that once TOGA is initiated, FO's tend to freeze and delay bringing the gear up rather than moving it too early.

[No. 2]

We shall see soon enough once the FDR is read. I have seen guys get so fixated that yes... It could be missed even in a 320. (I am current 320)
The data doesn't indicate at all that the gear was never down (which is what you suggested), merely that it never contacted the ground (i.e. no wow). It's possible it was never down, but I'd say less probable given the CRC at 750ft.

[metro301]

Helps to rule out the bounce scenario.

[clark y]

Need to see the whole approach data. The first 2 lines of Airbubba's data- 800' to 475' in 11 seconds appears unstable though not enough data to prove it.
I also think the CVR will be quite revealing.

[lederhosen]

Well the FO in Dubai certainly raised the gear too early. We will find out soon enough what happened in Karachi. But I am unclear why if the gear was selected up prior to the unintended ground contact you would expect to see anything different on the table Airbubba posted. The fact that PIA landed previous generations of jets wheels up is not really relevant to the warning systems on modern aircraft. I would be interested if anyone else typed on the A320 thinks forgetting the gear is a likely scenario.

[Sailvi767]

Well, maybe they had a scrape. But apparently their engines were able to spool up and provide TOGA thrust. So why schould they both, quite simultaneously, suddenly cut out? Why no APU start? (RAT deployed). To me, (layman!!!) all this points to problems with fuel supply. And the landing gear? No hydraulic pressure? And even when that, is there to a grav-assisted lowering of the gear? Nothing here seems to make sense.

The touchdown probably destroyed oil lines and perhaps the pumps. Jet engines will run for several minutes without oil.

[metro301]

Well the FO in Dubai certainly raised the gear too early. We will find out soon enough what happened in Karachi. But I am unclear why if the gear was selected up prior to the unintended ground contact you would expect to see anything different on the table Airbubba posted. The fact that PIA landed previous generations of jets wheels up is not really relevant to the warning systems on modern aircraft. I would be interested if anyone else typed on the A320 thinks forgetting the gear is a likely scenario.

Fair points. But... Factor in almost no flying for two months. This part of the world the narrow body FO's are relatively green. An obviously messed up approach. Fixation on catching the profile. Startle effect from TOGA. My gut says never down in the first place as opposed to being early on raising gear. Just my opinion as to most likely factors.

As for the Airbubba table. It helps to rule out a bounce which was one scenario brought foward.

I never brought up any past PIA incident.

[PJ2]

We shall see soon enough once the FDR is read. I have seen guys get so fixated that yes... It could be missed even in a 320. (I am current 320)
Precisely.
I think the gear was missed in the rushed approach. I think that this is unfolding as a human factors accident.

[clark y]

What PJ2 said.

[voiceinurheadset]

[QUOTE=Bluffontheriver123;10790640]This video nails it pretty well.

3500’ at 5nm (over 2x the normal path), overspeed warning on recording, pod strike in the pictures and ATC mention “a belly up landing”.

Looks like high energy unstable approach, leading to a crash landing bounce, go-around into the circuit. Essentially crashed the jet then tried to fly it.
Hi all

I would like to throw my 2 cents on the video recording which I must say is a very nicely made one . m an atc

1.

at a time 2:25

C: you have to be turning left

P: we are proceeding direct we lost both engines

C: confirm belly lending

My opinion . It indicates To me that a controller didn’t quite understand the message that pilot transmitted and he was clarifying the message itself it does not mean that the controller was expecting or was aware of belly landing from the pilots and he was just digesting the transmitted message and not contemplating a belly landing itself. But both engines sound similar to belly landing . Add stress and distortions.
The second thing that came into my mind is that just on the climb upon going around there is no unusual messages from the ATC it’s quite obvious that if there was something happening the controller must have seen it and informed the pilot immediately let’s say if they saw them having gear issues and scratching the runway they should have immediately informed the pilot. Theres so many reports of marks on RW and people seeing first attempted landing with no gear m really surprised theres no mention of anything from ATC side . Triggers tons of questions.

The third thing is that if they had some problems with the gear just before the first landing attempt they should have also informed the controller about it and that would have triggered alerting certain services to a local standby/ emergency immediately as gear problems on the runway can result in very many unpleasant things for everybody so it’s never taken casually by an ATC. But that again might depend on the part of the world .
Looks like they are quite reserved in RT over there i have million questions as for ATC -pilot interaction, phraseology and all, not to mention a gear up 3500’ 5 mile thing...quite nasty .

[DaveReidUK]

Need to see the whole approach data. The first 2 lines of Airbubba's data- 800' to 475' in 11 seconds appears unstable though not enough data to prove it.

Posted earlier in the thread. Probably best to read it from the start.

[Iron Duck]

Precisely.
I think the gear was missed in the rushed approach. I think that this is unfolding as a human factors accident.

The accident started with whatever caused them to be high energy at 3500ft 4km out. It was made much more likely by whatever caused the crew to reject the ATC offer of delaying vectors to lose height. After they bashed it on the ground, it was made more likely again by the tight circuit rather than the life-saving Smartlynx teardrop. And then it was sealed by bringing them back in over a built-up area.

I think ATC has a bit of a case to answer here, as well.

[Superpilot]

Can anybody tell me what the rush is all the time to retract the gear ?

This annoys the heck out of me too. I've seen it on the line way too many times. Trigger happy PMs (in both seats), who are more concerned about going through the song/dance than looking for the real cues. Training for positive rate/climb identification is based on teaching pilots to recognise a positive V/S trend and increasing RA. You can both of those parameters (momentarily) without engine power. The FMA for a go around and dealing with the lack of it is way more important than raising the landing gear.

[PJ2]

Iron Duck, how do you see ATC being involved?

[Drc40]

The accident started with whatever caused them to be high energy at 3500ft 4km out...*snip*

4K. No way. That would be even worse. Where are you getting they were 4 “k” out at 3500’?

[gearlever]

What was the aural warning on the ATC recording?

Flap overspeed?

[Drc40]

Pass the blame to ATC never mind PIC/PF is responsible. Sheesh.

[markfelt]

I would be interested if anyone else typed on the A320 thinks forgetting the gear is a likely scenario.

Different scenario but another recent A320 gear up approach in which human factors played a large part. Fortunately, a far different outcome.

https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2018/aair/ao-2018-042/

[Winemaker]

For those saying that the landing gear was retracted too early I would disagree. It never happened.
When the gear is selected up the gear doors open. They hang down below the level of the nacelle until the leg has retracted. If they had contacted the runway they would have been substantially damaged but in the photo of the aircraft showing the rat extended the door looks intact, so in my opinion the gear was never extended on the first approach.
You can watch a gear swing here-
https://youtu.be/vfGn_1shZAs

Further, if the gear was down, the aircraft bounced, and the gear was raised the gear doesn't instantly retract. The gear doors would have to open, the gear retract, then the doors close, all of this happening during a bounce. Retraction takes approximately 8± seconds; that is some bounce.

[CanadianAirbusPilot]

What was the aural warning on the ATC recording?

Flap overspeed?
Waster warning. Likely a Flap Overspeed though given the profile on approach and attempt to salvage it....

[Iron Duck]

I've not heard the entire ATC recording, but from first spotting they were high and fast, and offering delaying vectors, ATC should have paid particular attention to this approach. An observer with binoculars should have seen the ground strike and climb-away trailing smoke. I would at least have expected ATC to have warned them that they'd hit the ground, were smoking, and probably had engine damage. I would then have expected ATC pro-actively to have vectored them clear of built-up areas either by suggesting a tear-drop return or an approach that avoided the Model Colony, which is built up almost to the runway threshold.

[Iron Duck]

No, not passing the blame, but recognising that it appears ATC could have done a bit more than it seems they did.

[Lonewolf_50]

I'd like to take this conversation back to when the aircraft was 10-15 miles out.
If we consider that at about 6 miles out (depends on if you are using RNAV or ILS and which runway as the basis of your GS and intercept point) you want to be at about 2000' . They are reported to have been at 3500' at about 5 miles out.
Granted, I am not familiar with PIA's SOPs, so this is a bit of a guess based on what I observe when I am (on a rare occasion) in the back of an aluminum tube.
When they were 15 miles out (or so) my thought is that the crew should either be in the process of configuring the aircraft for landing, or already be configured, depending on the situation at hand. Gear / flaps / various checklist items, etc.

What happened in the intervening ten miles?

Last time I was in the back end of a passenger jet, they had the gear down about 10 miles or a bit more from the airport. What was going on in this case from 15 miles out to them arriving at 5 miles out well above profile?

Will be interesting to see the FDR info, and see where and when configuration changes actually occurred. (Or if they did)

PJ2 alluded to a human factors element, and I am thinking through a CRM problem: in the past three months, how often have the two pilots flown and have their habits/processes gotten rusty due to the curtailment of flying in general. The old currency/recency thing has me wondering.

True confessions time: more than once I had either a crewman, co pilot, or a tower ask me to check my gear on short final. With good reason. :eek: It can happen to anyone if a particular habit pattern, or rhythm, gets disrupted as one gets into the terminal area.

[PJ2]

...
. . . .
It can happen to anyone if a particular habit pattern, or rhythm, gets disrupted as one gets into the terminal area.:ok:

Hi Lonewolf_50 - that statement is SO true; right there, just ahead of "airspeed, altitude & ideas"!

[tdracer]

Waster warning. Likely a Flap Overspeed though given the profile on approach and attempt to salvage it....

It's pretty much established from the ATC recordings that the overspeed warning was going off during their first, rushed, approach.
As I noted in a previous post, humans have an incredible capability to block out various noises/sounds - particularly in high work load situations where concentration on the task at hand is high. If they were getting repeated overspeed aural warnings, it's likely that they were either just ignoring them and didn't notice that a new aural warning for the gear had been added to the ruckus.
- OR -
They were repeatedly hitting the 'cancel' button when the overspeed warning went off and failed to notice that the warning had changed to landing gear before it too was cancelled. Someone brought up this scenario several pages ago and was brushed off - but it seems perfectly reasonable to me.
What boggles my mind is not that the flight crew could miss the warnings that the gear were not down - it's that they continued with the initial approach when it was so obviously flawed. Particularly in the current environment where there is so little air traffic - aborting the approach and doing it again wouldn't take much time.

[PJ2]

tdracer, I haven't listened to the ATC recordings, but for clarity for others who may not have flown or know the A320/Airbus products, likely the aural warning would have been a flap overspeed not an airframe overspeed. A minor point I know but it adds to understanding I think. PJ

[autoflight]

Further google search indicates that substantial RAT deployment takes 2 seconds. If they destroyed the AC bus 1 & 2 sources on the engine scrapes, there might be a chance that the RAT was also destroyed before becoming airborne again. If the crew were stressed enough to land gear up (rated as impossible by some), imagine the additional stress if this was immediately followed by battery backup and two failing engines!
Morales of this story might be remain alert following a good night's sleep, be well hydrated, be really sure to lower the gear for landing or start the APU if you think you might do a gear up touch and go.

[wishiwasupthere]

It's pretty much established from the ATC recordings that the overspeed warning was going off during their first, rushed, approach.

That’s purely speculation. The only fact is that you can hear the Continuous Repetitive Chime during one of the transmissions, which is associated with the Master Warning. As to what triggered it, at this stage, nobody knows.

[dash34]

... What boggles my mind is not that the flight crew could miss the warnings that the gear were not down - it's that they continued with the initial approach when it was so obviously flawed. Particularly in the current environment where there is so little air traffic - aborting the approach and doing it again wouldn't take much time.

Particularly since, if they were high and fast on approach, they would be looking to add as much drag as possible, which the gear would help with. Cockpit workload at that point, though, may have been an issue...

[Havingwings4ever]

No. there is no such protection

Thats funny....I have flown jets for 25+ years and this never crossed my mind, maybe a thing in the future.

[FlyingAce77]

Magplug

He was coming in Hot & High, Established at 3500feet, that’s high, he did miss the touchdown zone and initial touchdown was 4300 down the runway - seems like Landing Gear issue wasn’t there or something close to this happened!

[Airbubba]

I meant does it show wheels were never down? Or merely that they never got weight? I.e. they were down, never landed, and upon TOGA were retracted (early) thus scuffing both engines and gear doors?

It does mean they never got weight on the wheels as you say. I don't think the gear doors were scuffed from the photos I've seen.

I agree that you really have to work hard to ignore visual and aural warnings in a modern airliner. But history has shown time and time again that some folks work really hard at it. :ugh:

Need to see the whole approach data. The first 2 lines of Airbubba's data- 800' to 475' in 11 seconds appears unstable though not enough data to prove it.

The FlightRadar24 data for PK8303 is in this .csv file:

https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/PK8303_granular_data.csv

It will open with most spreadsheet programs like Excel or Google Sheets.

DaveReidUK posted a quick plot of the altitude data earlier in this thread, no positions were included in this granular .csv file.

Here's the altitude plot from FR24:

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1408x959/pk8303_calibrated_altitude_1_0eeb563be0f3860cb70c2fdccb7ec96 f38c80293.png

Here's another section of the tabular data from the .csv file:

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/683x680/pia_8303_at_marker_9d296394bc6ca0db6d42ebe86c8cc2ab83a1f363. jpg

As you can see, PK8303 sent the uncorrected baro altitude of 2450 feet at 09:32:54Z. From the previously posted go around data they transmitted 275 feet at 09:34:26Z. They descended 2475 feet in 92 seconds on the final segment, about 1400 fpm, a little fast for stable approach criteria at most places.

This .csv file has data merged from multiple receivers and the data packets may be received more than once so many of the altitudes are duplicated and do not necessarily indicate a level off.

[tdracer]

That’s purely speculation. The only fact is that you can hear the Continuous Repetitive Chime during one of the transmissions, which is associated with the Master Warning. As to what triggered it, at this stage, nobody knows.
OK, fair enough - perhaps I should have said "It's pretty much established from the ATC recordings that a warning was going off during their first, rushed, approach." It still means basically the same thing - they were either ignoring or silencing an audible warning - which would have made it much easier to miss the new warning for landing gear.

[Havingwings4ever]

This annoys the heck out of me too. I've seen it on the line way too many times. Trigger happy PMs (in both seats), who are more concerned about going through the song/dance than looking for the real cues. Training for positive rate/climb identification is based on teaching pilots to recognise a positive V/S trend and increasing RA. You can both of those parameters (momentarily) without engine power. The FMA for a go around and dealing with the lack of it is way more important than raising the landing gear.

Agree very much, except the 'annoy' part. I cannot stress enuff how important it is to check the FMA AND Commanded thrust setting/throttle position during the initial GA phase. I learned this the hard way(on the A320 as a very junior cap)during a GA in a downburst/windshear and 0 vis just b4 the flare, the co forgot to advance the throttles and I initially missed it, but few seconds later realized we weren't accelerating and climbing, I slammed the throttles pretty much into the firewall...we are all human

[Dropp the Pilot]

"Training for positive rate/climb identification is based on teaching pilots to recognise a positive V/S trend and increasing RA."

Two wrong statements in less than twenty words - pretty impressive even for a thread which is wanna-bee infested to a degree not often seen.

Neither of these things are "positive rate". A V/S trend is a measure of vertical acceleration. It will happily read a positive vertical rate with both main gear planted on the runway with say, a gross error in take-off performance calculations or wind shear. RA is valueless for rate as the reading which the pilots see is a product of an algorithm of pitch attitude and gear tilt and is by no means a direct reading of actual height.

The ONLY measure for positive rate is a sustained and progressive increase in the altitude displayed on the altimeter.

Should you doubt any of this, consult any FCTM from a company called Boeing. They've been doing this stuff for quite some time.

[krismiler]

Now reported that the CVR and FDR have been recovered so there should be some preliminary findings fairly soon. The CVR should be quite interesting as it will reveal the crew awareness of the situation, was the F/O shouting at the Captain to go-around or sitting there afraid to speak up ?

The ATC recording suggests that the controller was aware of the excess height and was vectoring them around for another approach to give them time to descend. An approach controller handles more arrivals then a pilot does and usually just into one airport, so he would have been well aware of what position an aircraft should be in at a particular point. He sounded a bit surprised at the Captain but accepted the decision to continue with the approach.

It would be reasonable to assume that the ATC equipment in Pakistan isn’t state of the art but now we are opening up another issue. The Captain is the final authority as to the operation of the aircraft however any Captain in a western airline who ignores legitimate input from the F/O on safety matters is putting his head on the block. Ignoring an F/Os call to go around from an unstable approach will be taken very seriously and likely result in anything from a CRM course to termination.

Whilst a controller isn’t a pilot and can’t be expected to know stabilised criteria for every type of aircraft and airline, the issue of permitting an approach which is obviously so far out of tolerance that a safe landing is in doubt comes into question.

Perhaps there should be a “gate” that an aircraft has to be able to pass through unless a “MAYDAY” has been declared. It shouldn’t be necessary but it would add another layer in the “Swiss cheese model”

[Ollie Onion]

It seems to me that there is a pretty clear picture of the events here. Extremely Unstable Approach with 3,500' at 5 nm (if ATC points out how high you are then you need to worry), Overspeed warning was sounding in the background during Landing Clearance, deep touchdown as evidenced by the data. GO AROUND was commenced but as per EMIRATES and JETSTAR is wasn't executed properly and the Gear was selected up prior to a confirmed positive climb, JETSTAR and AIRFRANCE have both done this and got away with it when the aircraft got to below 50' RA with the wheels up before climbing away. EMIRATES did not get away with it and ended up with a Belly Landing and subsequent destruction of the aircraft. These two ALMOST go away with it with just the engine cowls making contact with the runway before the aircraft climbed away, might have been better if they had crashed on the runway. Sadly with TOGA selected and damage from the 1st impact both Engines have likely been starved of either Fuel or OIL and have give up during the climb out. This is going to be one very interesting accident report as it would appear the whole sequence started with a rushed approach. I don't know what happened prior but the fact that the ATC contact at the start of the tape said 'we are now ready to continue the ILS' would suggest they were out of shape a long way out and an extra couple of minutes sorting it here may have prevented a needless accident. All conjecture of course but it fits the sequence and we have seen a few near misses in the past. The last safety course I went on as an Investigator had an entire presentation on how mishandled approach and go-arounds are emerging as one of the most deadly occurrences up there with excursions.

[clark y]

Airbubba thanks for reposting the radar data. For the approach it would appear the aircraft was about 8000' 3 minutes from touchdown. 2 minutes later it about 1300'. That would give a rate of descent down the ILS initially at over 3000FPM. The last minute works out to over 1000FPM. even without knowing the airspeed/configuration involved it was never going to be pretty.
As for the "gate" that Krismiler mentions, most people have personal ones that vary between individuals and comfort factors. Manufacturers and Airlines have mandatory ones. 1000' and/or 500'. If you do not make the requirements- go-around.

[LTC8K6]

Ollie Onion

Given how low the MLG doors swing, below the engine nacelles, a gear cycle anywhere around the time the engines were very close to or scraping the ground seems unlikely. The MLG doors would be badly damaged, I think.

[junior.VH-LFA]

The accident started with whatever caused them to be high energy at 3500ft 4km out. It was made much more likely by whatever caused the crew to reject the ATC offer of delaying vectors to lose height. After they bashed it on the ground, it was made more likely again by the tight circuit rather than the life-saving Smartlynx teardrop. And then it was sealed by bringing them back in over a built-up area.

I think ATC has a bit of a case to answer here, as well.

Bull****. Don’t pass the buck. The pilot in command has responsibility for the safety of their aircraft and those on it. High on energy late in a approach? Go around. Dealing with an emergency and not ready to commit to an approach, ask for vectors or let the box hold for you.

Being rushed by ATC (not saying that’s what’s happened here but it seems to be implied by others) it’s a **** excuse for poor decision making.

[unworry]

Thanks to Airbubba for the data, which I subsequently de-duplicated and harmonized

A closer look at the final ten minutes, starting from the transition at FL100 - altitude (orange) and inferred ROD (blue histogram)

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1231x791/ipypchu_4a5bb6b23147a451faf88fa0d6b659870a63635f.png

Clarky, clearly a steep plunge (4 ~ 6,000+ fpm) to capture the ILS gs. At no point did this resemble a stable approach :suspect:

P.S. Exactly four minutes from FL100 to "touchdown", 90 secs from FL80 to 2,000' (= 4,000 fpm).

Brisk.

[Teddy Robinson]

The Smartlynx A320 incident at Tallinn 28th Feb 2018 has been mentioned previously on this thread.
Whilst an underlying technical issue led to the main event (aircraft contacted the runway once the gear had been selected up), both engines subsequently failed shortly thereafter.

Well worth a read : https://avherald.com/h?article=4b57c3dd/0000&opt=0

[voiceinurheadset]

I've not heard the entire ATC recording, but from first spotting they were high and fast, and offering delaying vectors, ATC should have paid particular attention to this approach. An observer with binoculars should have seen the ground strike and climb-away trailing smoke. I would at least have expected ATC to have warned them that they'd hit the ground, were smoking, and probably had engine damage. I would then have expected ATC pro-actively to have vectored them clear of built-up areas either by suggesting a tear-drop return or an approach that avoided the Model Colony, which is built up almost to the runway threshold.
m an ATC and that’s exactly my point .
if theres any mention of gear issues there will be at least 1-2 ppl up in the Tower immediately with binoculars holding their breath for safe landing being on a high alert ready for emergency response if needed.
but listening to the recording ATC seems quite reserved ... not proactive at all.
if they failed first attempt to land and scratched like that thats already an emergency to me without even pilot declaring Mayday on the freq .
But in many third countries they would await the pilot to initiate anything before they do and proactiveness and suggestions are sometimes frowned upon .

[DaveReidUK]

and the Gear was selected up prior to a confirmed positive climb

Unless I've missed something, we don't actually know yet whether the gear was lowered at all prior to the GA.

[arvindasija]

I totally agree.
The scraping of the runway was probably observed by the tower controller and conveyed to the approach controller, and is not heard in the audio clip.
It was the approach radar controller in the audio clip who made the query about the 'belly landing'. I sensed a hesitation in the query and probably he intended to inform the pilot of the observation made by the tower controller.
Another observation is that the radar controller appeared to be a trainee.
He suggested a heading even when the pilot was established on final, during the first approach.
Also, the voice that has pointed out the observation of 'turning left' from the assigned heading of 110, appears to be that of the supervisor.
The trainee, with whatever limited wits ( and vocabulary) repeated the availability of both runways. The availability of the runways had probably been conveyed to him by the tower controller and the trainee radar controller has repeated the same twice.

[PAXboy]

This may be of interest:
Video of scrape mark recorded by Pakistani CAA, shown by @92newschannel

PIA flight #PK8303 (https://twitter.com/hashtag/PK8303?src=hashtag_click) scraped left engine on runway at touchdown on 4500 feet mark, then right engine scraped runway. Then the plane took off briefly, then both engines scraped the runway at 5500 feet mark.

[Ollie Onion]

I think the chance of continuing below 750’ RA with the TO LOW GEAR warning sounding down to a height low enough to impact the engines is almost to hard to believe. It is more likely with those rates of descents and speeds that the gear was out early to even make it onto GS.

[Bluffontheriver123]

Just had a scan, the pervading view seems to be that there is no way they could have missed the gear not being down. ECAM, EGPWS etc. I call BS on that. Until you have actually been affected by startle you are astounded how useless you can become.

The first thing to go when overloaded and startled is hearing. Been there in military flight training, also seen it on occasion in civil aircraft, it’s a bitch, your brain drops to fight or flight and stops processing data effectively. Having trained on the Airbus for 20 years, I have seen crews fail to lower the gear, fail to retract it even above 10,000’. It’s all about their mental model disagreeing with the actual situation.

The data from Air Bubba is pretty compelling, over 2000fpm at 1000’. With the overspeed warning and that altitude profile there is no way they could have achieved a sensible energy by the runway. Moreover, thrust would have been irrelevant in achieving a climb in the initial stages of the Go-around, they would have had plenty of kinetic energy.

The data shows 275’ and the QNH was 1006 so about 210’ error for pressure and the runway is what 100’. It all ties up, particularly with scrapes marks on the runway.

When you have removed the probable, the improbable however unlikely can be true. It doesn’t mean they were “bad” pilots but I bet they weren’t current, were probably fasting (yes many pilots do) and got themselves into a situation that overloaded them.

The lesson for us all, irrespective of the final cause, is look after yourself, accept you will be nowhere near your normal skill level and fly as conservatively as possible once released to fly again.

Blue skies to all. Eid Mubarak.

[lomapaseo]

Airbubba
I agree that you really have to work hard to ignore visual and aural warnings in a modern airliner. But history has shown time and time again that some folks work really hard at it

I've seen it happen more than once like this

Get aural warning, PNF takes action to silence warning but action changes state of aircraft unrecognized by crew. Later in time when the aircraft does something not expected, escape action causes crew confusion.

[PAXboy]

Having read every msg in the thread and considered the information in the runway marks, and the distances between them (as I posted above) there seems little chance that the gear was down.

There would not appear to be enough time for the sequence of doors open / gear swing / doors closed. The lack of damage to the doors - as clearly seen - indicates the gear was stowed throught the first attempt.

For me, the most significant factor of the ATC recording is the shock in the voice from the flight deck, as they struggle to reach 2,000. They start with a routine readback of the GA and 3,500 and then begin to realise what the instruments (and ATC) are telling them.

Hopefully, FDR and CVR will, once again, tell the truth.

[Sillert,V.I.]

Here is a link (https://safetyfirst.airbus.com/control-your-speed-during-descent-approach-and-landing/) to an article giving a detailed description of the recommended procedures for descending an Airbus, from cruising altitude to the threshold.

It's published by the folks who built the thing, so should be accurate.

Hope some of you find it interesting - I certainly am better informed after reading it.

[lederhosen]

Ollie Onion described very well (probably better than I can) what I believe may have happened. There are some things we know for sure and some things which are less certain but plausible. What is undisputed is that they made a first approach intercepting way above the glide slope. The ensuing approach was unstable and at some point they went around. For some reason the engines (but apparently nothing else) made contact with the runway. It seems both engines were damaged before the aircraft then climbed away and made another approach resulting in it crashing with the gear down into a built up area some way short of the runway. Whether the gear was down and selected up prior to making contact with the runway or they never lowered the gear is not yet known. Why the aircraft did not initially climb away as expected on the missed approach is also net yet certain. Some of us with experience on the aircraft have referred to previous events where TOGA was not properly engaged. It is quite different to Boeing TOGA triggers and whilst it seems incredible that something as easy as firewalling the thrust levers could be got wrong, people continue to do so. As for the gear we will no doubt find out soon enough, but either way it doesn't change much, a bit like choosing between plague and cholera as we say in Germany, both are just as bad.

[fab777]

"Training for positive rate/climb identification is based on teaching pilots to recognise a positive V/S trend and increasing RA."

Two wrong statements in less than twenty words - pretty impressive even for a thread which is wanna-bee infested to a degree not often seen.

Neither of these things are "positive rate". A V/S trend is a measure of vertical acceleration. It will happily read a positive vertical rate with both main gear planted on the runway with say, a gross error in take-off performance calculations or wind shear. RA is valueless for rate as the reading which the pilots see is a product of an algorithm of pitch attitude and gear tilt and is by no means a direct reading of actual height.

The ONLY measure for positive rate is a sustained and progressive increase in the altitude displayed on the altimeter.

Should you doubt any of this, consult any FCTM from a company called Boeing. They've been doing this stuff for quite some time.

Should you doubt any of the above statements, I suggest you consult any FCOM from a company called Airbus. They also have a bit of knowledge on the matter, and we are not discussing Boeing here.

[Cloudtopper]

2 captain operation on this flight.

[fox niner]

2 captain operation on this flight.

Interesting. Do you have a source?
Let me guess: Management pilots? After a long period of inactivity due to the covid crisis?
So how exactly does one captain, in Pakistan, tell the other captain, that he is a tad high on approach?

This accident is starting to be just as unbelievable as the LATAM accident a few years back. I clearly remember us discussing that on Pprune: “No way they ran out of fuel. That would not be possible!” Turned out is was true after all.

[andrasz]

Having read every msg in the thread and considered the information in the runway marks, and the distances between them (as I posted above) there seems little chance that the gear was down.

I would adjust that to zero chance. Lack of WOW signal while at zero field altitude shows that there was no touchdown with gear extended, and lack of damage to gear doors indicate that the gear was not in transit while making ground contact. The sequence of events does not provide enough time for the gear to have been cycled at any point from down and locked to fully retracted with doors closed (unless a good 8 seconds or more before first touchdown). The first touchdown looks consistent with an "Oh sh*t" moment, with an instinctive pull up on realising that the gear is not down, and the second one would have been made as the engines were spooling up for a g/a. By the time of the second touchdown they were mentally committed to going around.

Someone mentioned earlier that it was a two captains operation? As several smoking holes in the past taught us, that is probably the most risky setup from a CRM perspective.

[double_barrel]

The thing I find surprising about the emerging hypothesis, is that it seems to require equivalent damage with almost identical consequences to two engines/systems following a double pod impact. I wonder if there will be lessons in improved redundancy?

The thing that has struck me as surprising was the apparently symmetrical damage to both engines with near identical consequences/timelines following a bang on the rwy. But I think the latest Broncolirio update offers some insights into this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFhGnCOtcc8

Broncolirio focuses on the accessory gearbox (AGB) which powers all fuel, oil, hydraulics for/from each engine. It looks like a hard bang could displace this unit which is mounted in a vulnerable area and represents a common point of failure. Any displacement would likely shear the drive shaft from the engine or cause sufficient misalignment for the entire unit to seize. I had previously imagined a maze of plumbing and pumps couldn't understand a perfectly symmetrical set of consequences from an arbitrary whack on the rwy. The AGB seems to provide a credible mechanism for this.

[sonicbum]

I would adjust that to zero chance. Lack of WOW signal while at zero field altitude shows that there was no touchdown with gear extended, and lack of damage to gear doors indicate that the gear was not in transit while making ground contact. The sequence of events does not provide enough time for the gear to have been cycled at any point from down and locked to fully retracted with doors closed (unless a good 8 seconds or more before first touchdown). The first touchdown looks consistent with an "Oh sh*t" moment, with an instinctive pull up on realising that the gear is not down, and the second one would have been made as the engines were spooling up for a g/a. By the time of the second touchdown they were mentally committed to going around.

Someone mentioned earlier that it was a two captains operation? As several smoking holes in the past taught us, that is probably the most risky setup from a CRM perspective.

Sounds like a plausible sequence of events, but what leaves me puzzled is the fact that TWR did not speak a word while seeing the aircraft about to land with no landing gear ?

[DaveReidUK]

From what I have been told it was much as written previously here, aircraft 3500' at 3 miles, inevitable long landing, (gear down), a/c bounced several time.

That explanation would require that, while airborne during just one of those bounces, the MLG doors opened, gears retracted and doors closed again without any contact between the doors and the runway.

Hmmm.

[Dan_Brown]

2 captain operation on this flight.

Probably a contributing factor in itself. Sure it wasn't 2 trainers together?

[Rossair]

Unless I have missed it, there is an important Safety Management issue here that has not been mentioned :

WHAT ABOUT O F D M. ?

Is there a culture of consistent monitoring of OFDM in PIA ?

I am sure that if crews were aware that all unstable approaches would be subject to a subsequent review, this type of flying would be extremely rare.

A simple short training video to be shown to pilots explaining why unstable approaches are dangerous and that the Safety Department will find out about every one. You cannot hide them.

Such a video would cost very little to make.

In my book, the senior flight operations management are just as culpable as the crew. They should have made OFDM effective.

Monitoring frontline operations is a key part of Safety Management Systems. in many different industries. Most organisations doing this have avoided fatal accidents for many years.

Incidentally, these organisations have also found that their monitoring systems have made them more efficient as well as safer.

[Ollie Onion]

No, both the Air France and Jetstar aircraft previously commenced the GA procedure above DA. Pilot selected TOGA and didn’t check FMA’s. Positive Climb and Gear up called do to the initial pitch up with application of thrust. Since GA mode wasn’t engaged in both instances the aircraft then pitched down and accelerated towards the ground with GEAR UP as the aircraft tried to get back onto the G/S, the pilots realised something was wrong and manually took over selecting TOGA and pulling up, they both came within 38’ RA of a wheels up landing, in this case if the pilots were slow in deselecting TOGA they would have pitched up manually the speed would of bleed off and they would have floated down the runway and possibly touched down like the EMIRATES did, at some point TOGA was selected and the aircraft did commence a climb but only after scraping the pods. To believe ANY crew. could fly an approach with no gear and be so unaware of the warnings they continued it all the way to the ground is just too much of a stretch.

[etrang]

Because ATC just watched them do a belly landing and may have assumed a problem.

And why would the pilot confirm?

[voiceinurheadset]

Because ATC just watched them do a belly landing and may have assumed a problem.
approach controllers do not necessarily have a RW view . They can be located in the same building as Tower or can be miles away . I dont know how it works in Karachi.
A Tower controller has RW view from beginning till end and saw whatever happened on the RW . After going around Crew switches to an APP controller freq who may be sitting in a different building and have not yet been informed of what has just happened on the RW. All depends how quickly info was passed .
I would really like to know what was happening 5-10 min before * being established at 3500’ 5 miles gear up ‘ to paint a better pic .

[silverstrata]

"Training for positive rate/climb is based on a positive V/S trend and increasing RA."

Two wrong statements in less than twenty words. Neither of these things are "positive rate".

The ONLY measure for positive rate is a sustained and progressive increase in the altitude displayed on the altimeter.
.

Well said.
And yet there are STILL airlines out there, that call positive rate instead of positive climb.

In addition to your reasoning, inertial vertical speed indicators will show a false positive rate of climb, on rotation.

Silver

[andrasz]

...at some point TOGA was selected and the aircraft did commence a climb but only after scraping the pods. To believe ANY crew. could fly an approach with no gear and be so unaware of the warnings they continued it all the way to the ground is just too much of a stretch.
From the posted video (that was apparently released by Pakistani CAA) it is clear that there were two brief ground contacts with the engines, roughly 8 seconds apart. If the G/A would have been initiated before the first touch-down, there would have been only one. The evidence strongly suggests that TOGA was only selected after the first ground scrape with the engines. To repeat the famous quote, once the impossible had been eliminated, what remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth...

[Dan_Brown]

Unless I have missed it, there is an important Safety Management issue here that has not been mentioned :

WHAT ABOUT O F D M. ?

Is there a culture of consistent monitoring of OFDM in PIA ?

I am sure that if crews were aware that all unstable approaches would be subject to a subsequent review, this type of flying would be extremely rare.

A simple short training video to be shown to pilots explaining why unstable approaches are dangerous and that the Safety Department will find out about every one. You cannot hide them.

Such a video would cost very little to make.

In my book, the senior flight operations management are just as culpable as the crew. They should have made OFDM effective.

Monitoring frontline operations is a key part of Safety Management Systems. in many different industries. Most organisations doing this have avoided fatal accidents for many years.

Incidentally, these organisations have also found that their monitoring systems have made them more efficient as well as safer.

What are ICAO Doing about certain issues that may or may not relevant to this accident. When i operated in an A**** country years ago, we had to be cleared by the company Dr. to fly. For example, If someone hadn't been taking on water for a long period during the stifling heat of the day, they would often have a breath the could peel paint. This was ignored in most cases.

ICAO people are put in these countries to monitor these situations. What are they doing apart from enjoying their big fat UN salaries?

Not rocking the boat, thats for sure.

[EDLB]

Hope we get soon a good accident report. This does boil down to a CRM failure we should learn from. The picture from the cockpit window under Cavoc conditions must have been so wrong on the approach, that there has to be an interesting story, why they continued the approach. A few minutes more on a circle or go abound would have saved all lives. So what is it, that has prevented this course of action? My suspicion is, that human, cultural, and airline management factors play the main role here.

[Homebrew1]

I think the chance of continuing below 750’ RA with the TO LOW GEAR warning sounding down to a height low enough to impact the engines is almost to hard to believe. It is more likely with those rates of descents and speeds that the gear was out early to even make it onto GS.

I'm on the bus and should probably know this but would the Master Warning sounding due to flap overspeed from the unstable approach, over ride the "Too low gear" from the EPGWS? In other words, could there have been no "too low gear" warning sounded as the Ding ding ding Master warning got aural priority?

[voiceinurheadset]

He suggested a heading even when the pilot was established on final, during the first approach.
......
The trainee, with whatever limited wits ( and vocabulary) repeated the availability of both runways. The availability of the runways had probably been conveyed to him by the tower controller and the trainee radar controller has repeated the same twice.
1. At 3500’ ~ 5 miles gear up one can hardly be properly established. Thats why he offered heading to lose that altitude which should have been around 2000’. Even with pilots report of “established“ I'd be somewhat alert tbh
2. it doesn't take a trainee to repeat smth after a Sup or a Tower controller. Easily happens to many controllers under stress . Yes , even to most skilful ones. Saw it many times in different radar rooms around the world. People’s reactions to a stress can be unexpected at time. I once saw a person 30+ years of experience putting the headset down in emergency and getting up from working position.

[macdo]

I'm on the bus and should probably know this but would the Master Warning sounding due to flap overspeed from the unstable approach, over ride the "Too low gear" from the EPGWS? In other words, could there have been no "too low gear" warning sounded as the Ding ding ding Master warning got aural priority?
Entirely plausible that the crew were overloaded by the multiple warnings aural and visual in addition to the mounting stress of the cocked up approach. And being received by people who are not native English speakers. Amazing what humans can filter out in extreme circumstances. Aural inputs being one of the first to go.

[Superpilot]

Two wrong statements in less than twenty words. Neither of these things are "positive rate".

The ONLY measure for positive rate is a sustained and progressive increase in the altitude displayed on the altimeter.


No where did I say they were "positive rate". I said most training I've seen in the simulator teaches the PM to look for those two parameters before calling the words. I completely agree, they're not the ONLY criteria.

[mr ripley]

Re Belly landing quote from ATC?
How about, because the pilot has just announced both engines have failed, thus ATC thinks they are going to do a crash landing.

[metro301]

I'm on the bus and should probably know this but would the Master Warning sounding due to flap overspeed from the unstable approach, over ride the "Too low gear" from the EPGWS? In other words, could there have been no "too low gear" warning sounded as the Ding ding ding Master warning got aural priority?

Too low gear will have priority. Will an over loaded non native english speaker hear it?

[AmarokGTI]

Pilots are conditioned that once a go-around has commenced, that’s it forget about landing so the option of putting it back down may have been unconsciously rejected by the crew.

check out VH-ODI report from this week

[krismiler]

Even one warning during an approach is bad enough and suggests that a go-around would be a good idea.

Multiple warnings would surely remove any doubt about continuing to land and are best prioritised and delalt with once a safe flight path has been established and the missed approach procedure complied with.

Fear of loss of face from going around may well have played a part, culturally it may only be acceptable for the senior pilot to decide whether to continue, and unsolicited advice from a junior would be regarded unfavourably. When CRM is really bad it might even cause the senior pilot to feel he has to prove a point and establish his authority.

With engine bypass ratios becoming higher and ground clearance being reduced, has adequate consideration gone into the location of vital components such as pumps, gearbox’s and supply lines ? Whilst space is obviously constrained, having vital systems in a vulnerable position should be avoided.

[Greek God]

With regard to this particular event and many more I have long wondered why Towers (especially at major airports) do not seem to have continuous CCTV coverage of every approach and threshold.

Also, in the absence of any notified emergency, should it not be SOP that the ATCO called a GA for a commercial airliner on short final with no gear?

[Right Way Up]

An approach with the gear possibly left up from 3500 ft at 5nm. Would be very interesting to see their speed over the threshold.

[DaveReidUK]

With engine bypass ratios becoming higher and ground clearance being reduced, has adequate consideration gone into the location of vital components such as pumps, gearbox’s and supply lines ? Whilst space is obviously constrained, having vital systems in a vulnerable position should be avoided.

The ability to go flying again immediately after you have scraped all your engines along the runway with no gear down probably isn't very high up the designer's list of "what if" scenarios.

[RVF750]

With regard to this particular event and many more I have long wondered why Towers (especially at major airports) do not seem to have continuous CCTV coverage of every approach and threshold.

They probably do but being official would be for the investigation and not released into the public domain. (unless someone leaks them). Or the system was broken.

[ozbiggles]

You only need to watch and hear the Air Niugini crash video to understand what can be ignored by a crew under pressure. Well ignored or disregarded.

[asdf1234]

Re Belly landing quote from ATC?
How about, because the pilot has just announced both engines have failed, thus ATC thinks they are going to do a crash landing.

It is more likely that the controller is asking the PM to confirm that what just happened was a belly landing, and not to confirm the intention to perform a belly landing on the second attempt.

[xetroV]

The last Aviation Herald update adds some more indications that the first landing attempt was made with landing gear up:

On May 24th 2020 Pakistan's media quote a CAA official speaking on condition of anonymity that the aircraft made two attempts to land. During the first approach it appears the landing gear was still retracted when the aircraft neared the runway, the pilot had not indicated any anomaly or emergency, emergency services thus did not respond and did not foam the runway as would be done in case of a gear malfunction. The marks on the runway between 4500 feet and 7000 feet down the runway suggest the engines made contact with the runway surface, it is possible that the engines were damaged during that contact with the runway surface leading even to possibly fire.

On May 24th 2020 a spokesman of the airline said, the landing gear had not been (partially or fully) lowered prior to the first touch down. The crew did not call out the standard operating procedures for an anomaly and no emergency was declared. Most likely the crew was not mentally prepared for a belly landing and went around when they realized the engines were scraping the runway.

Crash: PIA A320 at Karachi on May 22nd 2020, impacted residential area during final approach, both engines failed as result of a gear up touchdown (http://avherald.com/h?article=4d7a6e9a&opt=0)

[Greek God]

They probably do but being official would be for the investigation and not released into the public domain. (unless someone leaks them). Or the system was broken.
RVF750
That would make sense but I have to say I have yet to see any evidence of such either in the narrative of any official accident report or any screenshots etc. I would have thought such evidence would be invaluable to investigators.

[etrang]

Re Belly landing quote from ATC?
How about, because the pilot has just announced both engines have failed, thus ATC thinks they are going to do a crash landing.

Why would a dual engine failure make the ATC think that the undercarriage is not working? They are completely separate systems.

[Fly-by-Wife]

Is it possible that the gear could have been lowered early, out of normal sequence, to increase drag, then retracted instead of lowered at the point where it would normally have been lowered?

FBW

[EFHF]

The Smartlynx A320 incident at Tallinn 28th Feb 2018 has been mentioned previously on this thread.
Whilst an underlying technical issue led to the main event (aircraft contacted the runway once the gear had been selected up), both engines subsequently failed shortly thereafter.
That's accurate if the main event is considered to have been the EFCS pitch control failure. If with main event you mean the wheels in transit ground contact, then the report makes it quite clear that the EFCS failure led to the crew failing to control pitch proparly for 36 seconds as they didn't understand at all that pitch was in manual reversion through the THS control with the trim wheel. The report also speculates (altough doesn not test that hypothesis) that ground contact would still have been avoided without the unexplained selection of idle thrust for 4 seconds before the ground contact.

None of that probably has anything to do with the thread accident, but it's important to note that a “technical issue” was not even close to the only cause of the Tallinn accident you linked.

[scotbill]

Why has there been so little comment on the fact that they were offered a 360 degree orbit to lose height on the original approach. "Turn left onto 330 ..." (i.e attacking heading to regain the localiser )?

[Joejosh999]

There’s mention that they might have lowered gear levers at too high a speed, such that protections did not allow gear to go down. Lever would have to be recycled and speed reduced first.

So they thought they had gear down, but didn’t. Possible?

[FatPilot]

Two wrong statements in less than twenty words - pretty impressive even for a thread which is wanna-bee infested to a degree not often seen.

Neither of these things are "positive rate". A V/S trend is a measure of vertical acceleration. It will happily read a positive vertical rate with both main gear planted on the runway with say, a gross error in take-off performance calculations or wind shear. RA is valueless for rate as the reading which the pilots see is a product of an algorithm of pitch attitude and gear tilt and is by no means a direct reading of actual height.

The ONLY measure for positive rate is a sustained and progressive increase in the altitude displayed on the altimeter.

Should you doubt any of this, consult any FCTM from a company called Boeing. They've been doing this stuff for quite some time.

Numerous wrong statements in that post including a misunderstanding of the RA system AND the IVSI.
Boeing do not refer to rate; they refer to climb - on the altimeter.
Yes, yes, feel free to check any Boeing manual however if you want relevant information on this event may I suggest you try something written by Airbus.

[henra]

Here's the altitude plot from FR24:

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1408x959/pk8303_calibrated_altitude_1_0eeb563be0f3860cb70c2fdccb7ec96 f38c80293.png


Wow!.
From 35k to 10k ft in <13minutes. And then from 10k to 2k in less than two minutes. Somehow this f*ck up bgean to start already back at 35k. And from 10k on it became worse. How on Earth did they think they would dissipate all that energy?! OK by putting out the flaps above VFE. But surely can't have been the plan!?

[metro301]

Why has there been so little comment on the fact that they were offered a 360 degree orbit to lose height on the original approach. "Turn left onto 330 ..." (i.e attacking heading to regain the localiser )?

Because the PF ignored the offer and conitinued to chase the profile. It was commented on previously.

[A0283]

Some notes taken from various Pakistani press sources:

Both recorders were found on Friday. The FDR will be read in France by the BEA.

There will be at least three independent investigations. The first by the Pakistani AAIB. The second by the Pakistani military. The third by Airbus (Note A0283: that would be unusual, they probably mean that Airbus will be a party to the safety investigation - but they focus on the independence).

There are 2 certain survivors from the plane, both named males. There is one note of a named female survivor (Note A0283: which was on the published passenger list, and not being the named female model which was mentioned in earlier reports).

One official source shows 1 dead and 4 injured on the ground.

About the aircraft: Aviation authorities on Saturday released an executive summary of the aircraft, revealing certain facts about its maintenance and operations history. According to the summary, the Airbus A320-214 aircraft was 16 years old and up till now, had flown for 47,124 hours. The aircraft’s last flight before Friday’s ill-fated one between Lahore and Karachi, took place just a day ago when it ferried Pakistani citizens stranded in Muscat to Lahore. The aircraft last underwent a routine check on March 21 of 2020 and major check on October 19 of 2019. Although it was grounded between March 22 and May 7, this was on account of Covid-19 and not for any airworthiness issues. The summary stated the aircraft suffered from no engine, landing gear or major aircraft systems defects and had operated 6 flights since being pressed back into service on May 7. Both of the aircraft’s engines were installed last year in February and May. Its landing gear was installed in October 2014 and was due for removal and overhaul in October 2024.

[Milvus Milvus]

From elsewhere...

"If you lower the L/G above 260kts, the L/G Safety valve will prevent the Green HYD from lowering the gear, but the L/G Lever will go down. Now once below 260kts, will the L/G come down on its own? Or does the Lever need to be recycled?"

That's a very good question. If we believe an old FCOM, the lever has to be recycled to get the gear down below 260kts. The valve won't open if the lever just stays down when the speed goes below 260kts.
That would be a very good explanation for the gear up landing (lever down at high speed to increase drag, but gears stay up). Then the alarm priority kept the "too low gear" off until flare, to late to avoid contact...

[donotdespisethesnake]

If the airline spokesman quote is accurate, the pilots are being hung out to dry. There must be very limited circumstances where the gear was still up but no warnings sounded.

[lomapaseo]

Even one warning during an approach is bad enough and suggests that a go-around would be a good idea.

Multiple warnings would surely remove any doubt about continuing to land and are best prioritised and delalt with once a safe flight path has been established and the missed approach procedure complied with.

Fear of loss of face from going around may well have played a part, culturally it may only be acceptable for the senior pilot to decide whether to continue, and unsolicited advice from a junior would be regarded unfavourably. When CRM is really bad it might even cause the senior pilot to feel he has to prove a point and establish his authority.

With engine bypass ratios becoming higher and ground clearance being reduced, has adequate consideration gone into the location of vital components such as pumps, gearbox’s and supply lines ? Whilst space is obviously constrained, having vital systems in a vulnerable position should be avoided.

Best to keep future aircraft designs out of this preliminary cause discussion

presumptive design is typically based on historical experience. Things to do with oil loss or maintenance errors are mitigated by placing the gearbox and other accessories under the engine.
Severe pod scrapes followed by continued flight are relatively rare in comparison

[atakacs]

That would be a very good explanation for the gear up landing (lever down at high speed to increase drag, but gears stay up). Then the alarm priority kept the "too low gear" off until flare, to late to avoid contact...


​​​​​​Interesting scenario. But they surely would not get three greens?

That being sais in the confusion they might also have missed that cue

[Milvus Milvus]

​​​​​​Interesting scenario. But they surely would not get three greens?

That being sais in the confusion they might also have missed that cue

True.
Also, even with the Gear Up they would get the ECAM WHEEL PAGE at 800ft on the Lower Ecam along with six Red Triangles to show wheels up.
It would mean no Landing Checks carried out either.
In the Circumstances, although all this seems remote it could just happen.

[andrasz]

None of that probably has anything to do with the thread accident...
While the reasons for the ground contact in the case of the Smartlynx accident were indeed very different, I think you will find that the causes for the dual engine failure after the ground scrape will be very similar, most likely mechanical damage to the AGB and the consequent loss of engine oil. I would consider it very relevant to the accident under discussion.

[Teddy Robinson]

That's accurate if the main event is considered to have been the EFCS pitch control failure. If with main event you mean the wheels in transit ground contact, then the report makes it quite clear that the EFCS failure led to the crew failing to control pitch proparly for 36 seconds as they didn't understand at all that pitch was in manual reversion through the THS control with the trim wheel. The report also speculates (altough doesn not test that hypothesis) that ground contact would still have been avoided without the unexplained selection of idle thrust for 4 seconds before the ground contact.

None of that probably has anything to do with the thread accident, but it's important to note that a “technical issue” was not even close to the only cause of the Tallinn accident you linked.

To be fair, I have used the term "main event" perhaps incorrectly in context with the set of circumstances we are discussing at the moment. I fully concur, the ELAC failures and loss subsequent loss of pitch control in the Smartlynx accident have no direct relation to this accident, however, the runway contact itself to the point of dual engine failure does seem worthy of further discussion.


TR

[CaptainMongo]

From elsewhere...

"If you lower the L/G above 260kts, the L/G Safety valve will prevent the Green HYD from lowering the gear, but the L/G Lever will go down. Now once below 260kts, will the L/G come down on its own? Or does the Lever need to be recycled?"

That's a very good question. If we believe an old FCOM, the lever has to be recycled to get the gear down below 260kts. The valve won't open if the lever just stays down when the speed goes below 260kts.
That would be a very good explanation for the gear up landing (lever down at high speed to increase drag, but gears stay up). Then the alarm priority kept the "too low gear" off until flare, to late to avoid contact...

ECAM L/G GEAR NOT DOWNLOCKED will appear if gear sequence is not completed after 30 seconds. (for any reason)

FCOM says to recycle gear handle in that situation. The CRC can be silenced and the ECAM can be cleared purposely or inadvertently.

A few years back I had an airplane where the safety valve stuck in the closed position. To say the least it was quite a shock when I called for Gear down to the FO and it failed to come down. I don’t know how any pilot could miss that cacophony and light show. At the time the procedure was to recycle the gear handle up to five times. On the third try it came down.

i don’t think in this case that happened.

[giggitygiggity]

Wow!.
From 35k to 10k ft in <13minutes. And then from 10k to 2k in less than two minutes. Somehow this f*ck up bgean to start already back at 35k. And from 10k on it became worse. How on Earth did they think they would dissipate all that energy?! OK by putting out the flaps above VFE. But surely can't have been the plan!?
The second half of that aside. Is 35k to 10k in 13 mins that incredible? 25,000 ft to lose in 13 mins, ~2000ft/min?

[learner001]

Numerous wrong statements in that post including a misunderstanding of the RA system AND the IVSI.
Boeing do not refer to rate; they refer to climb - on the altimeter.
Yes, yes, feel free to check any Boeing manual however if you want relevant information on this event may I suggest you try something written by Airbus. Very sad what happened...
Hopefully, we may learn some things...

IMHO the ONLY RELIABLE INDICATION

that should be looked at and followed

is an INCREASE in ALTITUDE ON the ALTIMETER,

which confirms a ”POSITIVE CLIMB !”

So, forget the VSI (and all others…) and look at the ALTIMETER !

It’s a paradox…

Just ask a pilot: ”Where do you see that you are climbing?”

And 9 out of 10 will reply: ”On the vertical speed indicator!”

Hence: That’s where most are looking… At the VSI.

(However, the VSI is used for establishing or maintaining a certain rate of climb or descent…)

Whilst it is that simple,

Still nowadays it takes me numerous briefings and sessions,

and almost every half year I have to repeat it,

to try to really ’delete’ the call: ”positive rate !” from the brains of experienced pilots,

coming from everywhere and from different established airlines,

flying Airbus and Boeing and others...

Even when they ’seem’ to understand all the issues involved.

It’s just because for many ’rate’ has been ’slammed into’ their minds during their very first flying lessons,

(as was done to me in the early ’sixties’)

their eyes are looking at the wrong instrument…

(A totally different, but similar issue is 'deleting' the "Ready for take off !" call, to be replaced by: "Ready for DEPARTURE !" ...)

Just always learning, learner . . . ;)

[krismiler]

That's a very good question. If we believe an old FCOM, the lever has to be recycled to get the gear down below 260kts. The valve won't open if the lever just stays down when the speed goes below 260kts.

The FCOM isn't too clear on this, and of course we don't have access to the manual for that particular aircraft. Current info is that "Below 260 kt, the hydraulic pressure supply remains cut off as long as the landing gear lever is up." I can't find any reference to having to recycle the lever in the PRO or SYS sections in recent FCOMs, a system chart shows that an indication of speed < 260 kt from ADR 1 or 3 and the lever selected down should open the safety valve and allow gear extension. The procedure may call for recycling the handle but I doubt they had time to refer to the QRH.

If they were 5nm out and going so fast that the landing gear couldn't extend it's unbelievable that they continued, even if they had been on the correct vertical profile they were around 100kts too fast.

With the recorders available and being read by French investigators, together with the marks on the runway we should have an accurate sequence of events fairly soon and won't have to speculate on what happened. We can instead look at WHY it happened.

[jumpseater]

Reference the 1st approach, allowing to get hot and high by whatever means at five miles, could the crew have decided to ‘chase the profile’ by converting to a visual approach?

Yep they should request/advise ATC That’s what they’re doing, but already behind the curve would that change of procedure mean an increased cockpit workload. I’m thinking in terms of cancelling alarms and warnings possibly already active from the position if the aircraft was being flown assuming an ILS. Would a gear up warning Gpws be cancelled in that scenario? If so and target fixated, working hard to achieve what they already know will be a challenge to complete a ‘hot’ landing, could a gear warning be overlooked or misheard in that scenario?, and the gear subsequently not selected.

[deltahotel]

From the Boeing FCTM:

‘Retract the landing gear after a positive rate of climb is indicated on the altimeter.’

So if my company wants me to say ‘positive rate’, that’s fine by me. Yes, I do know that I need to look at the big white needle going clockwise or the alt tape numbers scrolling upwards.

Out of interest, as a non Bus driver, what does their FCTM equivalent say?

[fox niner]

Nah. Semantics really.
”positive rate” as said in many SOP’s around the globe, simply means that a positive rate of climb has been established. It is the abbreviated form of “positive rate of climb”.
Same as: “gear down, flaps 20”, which means “select the gear lever down and subsequently select flaps 20, please”
Let’s not get into this. Just make sure you do a go-around when too hot and high.

[esscee]

So far then, appears aircraft approach was not ideal yet decided a bit late to go-around. By that time aircraft engine cowls had "touched" the runway, too much speed and not enough runway left so decided on a second approach not realising that the AGB's were not functioning normally. Moral of this may be - get your approach criteria correct including flap position and gear extended before decision height. Two captains and they could not get this right.

[henra]

The second half of that aside. Is 35k to 10k in 13 mins that incredible? 25,000 ft to lose in 13 mins, ~2000ft/min?
It is surely on the high side. Would have been OK if they had space to dissipate the energy for the final approach. But with that descent rate even with engines at idle you will arrive at 10k on the high side of the speed range. And in this case at 10 kft they were so close to the airport that they had to even further steepen the approach. So looking at that graph it indicates that they probably started the descent a few minutes too late for the given circumstances. For whatever reason. Possibly they were expecting a holding pattern or a much wider circuit?

[henra]

If they were 5nm out and going so fast that the landing gear couldn't extend it's unbelievable that they continued, even if they had been on the correct vertical profile they were around 100kts too fast.

Maybe they tried to lower the gear even earlier, e.g. already during the steep descent from 10k? At that altitude and looking at the general descent profile, 260kts would not appear completely unconceivable. It is at least an interesting theory. The recorders will tell the story.

[giggitygiggity]

It is surely on the high side. Would have been OK if they had space to dissipate the energy for the final approach. But with that descent rate even with engines at idle you will arrive at 10k on the high side of the speed range. And in this case at 10 kft they were so close to the airport that they had to even further steepen the approach. So looking at that graph it indicates that they probably started the descent a few minutes too late for the given circumstances. For whatever reason. Possibly they were expecting a holding pattern or a much wider circuit?
It might perhaps be slightly on the high side but calling it incredible is somewhat sensationalist.

This is not a boast and I'm sure you'll label me as an accident waiting to happen, but I looked up the last flight I did on the A320 to Tenerife (sadly back in march), I descended from 39,000ft to 10,000ft in 11 mins after getting a very nice (and requested) short cut from ATC - 2,600ft/min average. I managed to land without crashing into Las Americas. There was however just (again sadly) 6 of us on board.

[Airbus Unplugged]

Thanks Aviation Herald.

So it did do a double pod scrape with the gear up, that will very probably have destroyed the IDGs and hydraulic engine driven pumps. AC1 and AC2 probably lost, hence RAT deployment. B HYD system only.

Since the gear is down, we're straight into direct law, protections lost. That would be a very challenging configuration for a good crew to fly on their lucky day, for the initial baulked landing and of course the subsequent approach.

Apparently high nose attitude in the final video would suggest an attempt to stretch the glide, with obvious results.

[Rednerib]

From the point of view of 'Human Factors'
1. The first is observed when the crew says that they are comfortable at 3500 feet at 5 miles. Here the crew is getting self trapped into being committed for landing
2. Second is when they announce that they are established on ILS, which they are not. Making such announcements would put lot of pressure on the crew to somehow push through the landing.

Ego could also have been triggered here. Still, the landing could have been hacked but for the fact that the gear was missed. This resulted in irretrievable situation.
Tunnel vision and get homeitis have a role.

Such mistakes though not common do happen. Here the crew were unlucky to have additional and overlooked problem of gear.

[henra]

It might perhaps be slightly on the high side but calling it incredible is somewhat sensationalist.
This is not a boast and I'm sure you'll label me as an accident waiting to happen, but I looked up the last flight I did on the A320 to Tenerife (sadly back in march), I descended from 39,000ft to 10,000ft in 11 mins after getting a very nice (and requested) short cut from ATC - 2,600ft/min average.
No I won't call you an accident waiting to happen. It is fine as long as you have got enough space and time left for the final approach to dissipate the energy and stabilise and don't have to rush things. This is what was obviously missing here. Even after this rather quick descent from 35k the equation didn't add up. They had to steepen the aproach further and apparently couldn't get rid of the energy which in turn may have occupied them so much that it may have contributed to them making a very basic and stupid mistake. Moreover due to the high state of energy they only touched the runway after ~5000ft, which might have contributed to them trying to go around instead of putting it down. The choice of a tight curcuit over congested terrain was also obviously not the best choice in the given circumstances. It appears they got behind the airplane and never managed to catch up again. This appears one nice example of the holes in the cheese lining up and will probably be a shining example in future training/CRM curriculae.

[procede]

They had to steepen the aproach further and apparently couldn't get rid of the energy which in turn may have occupied them so much that it may have contributed to them making a very basic and stupid mistake.

Not having the gear down would have also made it difficult to slow down and stay on the glideslope.

[ManaAdaSystem]

3500 ft at 5NM is not doable in an A320. If you want to try, you need to start with gear down and flaps full. Still you will end up with an increasing speed. More so if you do this without gear down.
Every professional pilot knows this.
So, why did they try? What caused such a major breakdown in common sense?

And why are we not allowed to talk about the elephant in the room (or cockpit)?

[Airbubba]

Wow!.
From 35k to 10k ft in <13minutes. And then from 10k to 2k in less than two minutes.

From the FR24 .csv file linked earlier, looks like they left FL340 at about 09:15:47Z:

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/517x367/pia_8303_leaving_340_a122cd2d3001c8e5c65dd018b0e92bdb311bdb3 2.jpg

They descended through FL100 at 09:30:18Z:

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/513x273/pia_8303_fl100_8d0117f08c68b5a07f31c9906ec6b1dd18493dc6.jpg

Descending 24000 feet in 14:31 gives a little under 1700 feet per minute, fairly reasonable I would say. Check my math(s), like timezones, this stuff is easy (for me) to mess up.

On the other hand from FL100 to FL19 (these Mode-S altitudes are all referenced to QNE so the differences should be right even though corrections need to be added for QNH and QFE altitudes) looks like 162 seconds to lose 8100 feet or about 3000 fpm.


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/517x300/pia_8303_passing_2000_47fd8ab3613170047e93b38e69559d0b245b6f ef.jpg

DaveReidUK posted this plot of the altitude data for the last few minutes of the flight:

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/907x713/pk8303_3f8f3696bf67f38d6c5a8f5fd9955af68cf7cf6d_7b7f28d9a585 a64d4d8649a138ee25caa3d77a16.jpg

And unworry posted this plot with a derived rate of descent:

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1231x791/ipypchu_4a5bb6b23147a451faf88fa0d6b659870a63635f_8615152c1d3 41e4fd59e939cd9dcd06e8c164eb6.png

[Dan_Brown]

IMHO the ONLY RELIABLE INDICATION

that should be looked at and followed

is an INCREASE in ALTITUDE ON the ALTIMETER,

which confirms a ”POSITIVE CLIMB !”



So, forget the VSI (and all others…) and look at the ALTIMETER !

Totally agree. You watch the VSI at rotate. Disturbed static air. The VSI gives erroneous readings, albeit momentarily. . Watch the VSI when the gear doors open and close. If you saw that you wouldn't rely on a vsi again, for positive climb. Notice i stated positive CLIMB, not rate.

[Out Of Trim]

With regard to this particular event and many more I have long wondered why Towers (especially at major airports) do not seem to have continuous CCTV coverage of every approach and threshold.

Also, in the absence of any notified emergency, should it not be SOP that the ATCO called a GA for a commercial airliner on short final with no gear?

Good Call, It wouldn't cost much to set up. :ok:

[henra]

Descending 24000 feet in 14:31 gives a little under 1700 feet per minute, fairly reasonable I would say. Check my math(s), like timezones, this stuff is easy (for me) to mess up.

No, looking at the discrete data your maths do look correct. It is easy to misjudge the timings from the graphs a bit, which I obviously did.
OK, 1700fpm seems reasonable. That should be roughly what an A320 does in flight idle.

[giggitygiggity]

Good Call, It wouldn't cost much to set up. :ok:
What will that really achieve except allow us to speculate on what happened at an earlier stage if the video is leaked rather than wait for the report to come out. The CVR and FDRs were both recovered. It is exceedingly rare for one not to be read properly. Some are never recovered, but those are not the ones that crash in view of a tower.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t speculate though, just that it might add little value to the investigation beyond fodder for the daily mail et al to broadcast.

[Fawad]

There appears to be a complete lack of any credible information on the first landing attempt:
- Why pilots were too high at this distance?
- Did Pilots announce any problem onboard (landing gear or otherwise)?

Surely, if there was a serious problem, ATC would have been informed and emergency services would be at the runway. Given the number of people that work in an airport, this would have leaked within minutes to media if not even prior to touchdown. Survivor says nobody knew about anything onboard which suggests there was no problem serious enough to let passengers know or brace for landing. Passengers first clue was when the plane "jolted 3 times", possibly engines scraping the runway incident, before taking off again. Pilots again announced to passengers that they are coming in for another landing (again no emergency, brace, evacuation procedure). ATC certainly mentions belly landing but it could be because they saw the first attempt.

[Fursty Ferret]

to try to really ’delete’ the call: ”positive rate !” from the brains of experienced pilots,


That's a Boeing-ism anyway. The Airbus call is "positive climb" which I've always taken to mean VSI, altimeter, and radio altimeter all showing a climb.

[champair79]

I’m not sure why everyone has ignored my theory but I’m betting false glide capture (a la Bishkek 747 a few years back) with no sense checking using their 3x table. Then target fixation, get-there-itis, steep cockpit gradient and selective hearing due to overload. The rest seems obvious once the aircraft scraped down the runway. What a shambles.

[what next]

That's a Boeing-ism anyway. The Airbus call is "positive climb" which I've always taken to mean VSI, altimeter, and radio altimeter all showing a climb.

It doesn't reall matter what you say: "Rate", "climb", whatever. The important thing is that things don't need to be rushed when it comes to clean up the plane. There is absolutely no need at all to retract the gear at the earliest possible moment, especially not during the (now mostly practised) noise abatement climbouts, which are done at V2+10kt (or 20). There is no danger of exceeding the gear retraction speed during that kind of initial climb, and the drag of the extended gear is no big factor at low speeds either, even in an engine-out scenario. So just wait as long as it takes to see all needels/tapes (altimeter, VSI, radio altimeter) pointing upward, wait another second or two or three (sometimes things change...) and then stretch out your hand towards the gear lever.
But I don't think that premature raising of the gear is a factor in this accident. It rather looks as if it was never down.

[dmba]

Could anyone post a comparison with the same flight on previous days, with the same graphs?

[Mgggpilot]

Airbus driver here.
Our Company SOP dictates we call "positive climb". ...announce PM
announce positive climb, when the vertical speed indication is positive and radio height has increased.

[PJ2]

Current info is that "Below 260 kt, the hydraulic pressure supply remains cut off as long as the landing gear lever is up." I can't find any reference to having to recycle the lever in the PRO or SYS sections in recent FCOMs, a system chart shows that an indication of speed < 260 kt from ADR 1 or 3 and the lever selected down should open the safety valve and allow gear extension. The procedure may call for recycling the handle but I doubt they had time to refer to the QRH.
Once below 260kts, the valve opens and the gear extends as per the gear handle selection. It's a trap if it doesn't work that way.

[Superpilot]

Once below 260kts, the valve opens and the gear extends as per the gear handle selection. It's a trap if it doesn't work that way.

This was demonstrated to us as part of initial training, I'm pretty sure you're correct.

Here is the text from the FCOM and a logic diagram. Nothing suggests a recycling is required. It would be mentioned here if it was.


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/960x2000/20200525_051231_8a103582ea0944f966c2a39084d4fb76ae6a1db6.jpg



NB: This FCOM covers MSN 5xx all the way to 45xx

[learner001]

Nah. Semantics really.
”positive rate” as said in many SOP’s around the globe, simply means that a positive rate of climb has been established. It is the abbreviated form of “positive rate of climb”.
Same as: “gear down, flaps 20”, which means “select the gear lever down and subsequently select flaps 20, please”
Let’s not get into this. Just make sure you do a go-around when too hot and high.

The change of just one little word, or in the sequence of words or items, in SOPs (all areas…) could make tremendous progress on safety…
Unfortunately, I see that ignored in many companies…

”Nah, Semantics really” IMHO is inviting ’room for error’…

Despite the different SOPs several DOFOs or companies may have printed, let’s very briefly try to talk basic semantics.
But then, correctly… They are applicable for all phases of flight...

There are several ways to confirm that an aircraft is climbing. Each way has its own shortcomings/restrictions/conditions. Out of all these ways, the altimeter has virtually none…
The actions of a pilot usually follow ’mindset’ and ’input’, unless otherwise ’drilled’… Hence, in the startling phase of a go around or wave off, during the preparation to confirm and subsequently call out: ”Positive rate” the ’mindset’ and ’input’ will pull the pilots attention and eyes towards the VSI in the first place. (Solely, because of the word: rate…)

Even whilst the pilot should know better, (s)he keeps staring at and waiting for a needle to go up, at an instrument that is useless in those moments. And the pilot is wasting her/his precious energy whilst unnoticed the altimeter probably has already slowly started going up…)

Had the pilot been looking with the same intensity at the altimeter in the first place, (s)he would have instantly grabbed the precious information about climbing or not by just looking at one spot...
Just a plain, simple example of basic semantics kept simple…

(A great deal of my training is done at high elevation airfields in mountainous regions, where room for error diminishes very rapidly.
That’s also an environment where you really find out things which you would normally, during years of flying, never notice !)
learner . . . ;)

[LTC8K6]

That's a Boeing-ism anyway. The Airbus call is "positive climb" which I've always taken to mean VSI, altimeter, and radio altimeter all showing a climb.

"Positive Climb" seems redundant.

"Positive Rate" makes a little more sense to me.

Maybe everyone should just call out "Climbing"?

[FlightDetent]

I’m not sure why everyone has ignored my theory but I’m betting false glide capture (a la Bishkek 747 a few years back) with no sense checking using their 3x table. Then target fixation, get-there-itis, steep cockpit gradient and selective hearing due to overload. The rest seems obvious once the aircraft scraped down the runway. What a shambles. I did not. Also g.g.'s 2500 fpm from well above the changeover level to 10k on average sounds - like a quiet day in the office.

It's been a few times already when the 1000 ft stable rule failed the crew and perhaps a little questioning is due. Not the crew, questioning of the rule.

FWIW my employer says when you land from unstable at 500, the PIC is fired. When you go-around from unstable at 500, the PIC is demoted for 6 months before being allowed an attempt to regain the second half of the salary.

[meleagertoo]

The Airbus call is "positive climb" which I've always taken to mean VSI, altimeter, and radio altimeter all showing a climb.
Quite.
Much more comprehensive and much more specific.

The (many other companies, not just Boeing) 'positive rate' call infers only a reference to the VSI whch is, as any thinking pilot knows, only tells part of the story...

'Positive climb' encompasses all that is required.

Still, what matters is SOPs. The mouth music on your type is scripted, so stick to it!

[Joejosh999]

Interesting wording on the LG “the hyd system remains cut off as long as the gear lever is Up” when <260 knots,
But it doesn’t say explicitly that if lever is down and speed reduces from above 260,to below 260, that hyd is automatically restored and gear will drop.
i wish the wording was clearer.

[DaveReidUK]

Interesting wording on the LG “the hyd system remains cut off as long as the gear lever is Up” when <260 knots,
But it doesn’t say explicitly that if lever is down and speed reduces from above 260,to below 260, that hyd is automatically restored and gear will drop.

Doesn't Superpilot's schematic show exactly that ?

[deltahotel]

Come on guys/girls. I refer my honourable friend to my previous answer:

From the Boeing FCTM:

‘Retract the landing gear after a positive rate of climb is indicated on the altimeter.’

So if my company wants me to say ‘positive rate’, that’s fine by me. Yes, I do know that I need to look at the big white needle going clockwise or the alt tape numbers scrolling upwards.

If an airline (&/or Airbus) wanted me to look at three things - baro,radio,vsi I’d do that too. (Do Airbus say that?)

As it is my bunch say ‘When a positive rate of climb is seen on the barometric altimeter, call: “Positive Rate”’ which is pretty clear as to which instrument I need to look at to make sure the houses will be getting smaller.

rgds, stay safe

[Flyingmole]

Posters,

Remarks about race and religious rituals have no place here. We're here to discuss aviation, not race and religion....
With respect, a key issue in aviation incidents is human factors, and where such rituals can affect human factors they are relevant to identifying possible causation of incidents and accidents. I say that as someone who has worked in the Middle East for 20 plus years, has a huge respect for the customs and religion, but is acutely aware of the detrimental effect on operational effectiveness of prolonged fasting. The crash was, I believe, around 14.40 local and the Al-Fajr prayer call, when fasting begins, is around 03.25 in Lahore at the moment. If - and it is a big 'if' - the pilot had been fasting then given the timings I have just quoted, it is relevant to consider this in an analysis of the crash.

[EFHF]

I fully concur, the ELAC failures and loss subsequent loss of pitch control in the Smartlynx accident have no direct relation to this accident, however, the runway contact itself to the point of dual engine failure does seem worthy of further discussion.
There are parallels indeed, like how both flights impacted terrain within a couple hundred meters from the threshold. Because the Smartlynx training flight was returning to the reverse runway from where it had the scrape instead of trying to fly a circuit, it came down on the runway centerline and hit the approach lights and then the RESA.

Here the impact location was off to the left of the runway centerline where there unfortunately were a group of buildings instead of flat terrain.

In both cases (due to RAT deployment), APU was not started before total engine failure, which contributed to further airframe damage in the Smartlynx accident and could easily have contributed here as well. In the A320 APU start is delayed for 45 seconds following dual IDG failure (I believe this is to maintain battery voltage during RAT deployment and emergency generator connection). When the Smartlynx crew lost their last engine, they also lost nominal hydraulic power to their only remaining pitch control (THS), relying on minimal Y system pressure from the windmilling engine 2.

Flying with just B hydraulics and the emergency buses is certainly more demanding than with the APU running and most hydraulics and electrics intact.

[Joejosh999]

Dave - only suggesting the wording is not as clear as could be. Not going to presume to read the schematic, which does seem to combine conditions such as speed < 260 comb8ned w Gear lever Down, but doesn’t show a Gear Lever Down over a changing speed condition.

[LegiossTypeH]

Is there any airspeed data during the first approach ?
Since speed break extention will increase VLS significantly, especially during approach (The aircraft is in low airspeed state that VLS is always close to you), pilots won’t be able to use full speed break when airspeed is at or below green dot speed, then the only way to increase descent rate is to lower the landing gear. Or pilots have to increase airspeed in OPN DES mode combined more speed break extention. In my personal experence, when airspeed is 250kts without speed break extention in OPN DES mode, the descent rate won’t be more than 3000 fpm. But according to the data above in 0932Z, decent rate is unbelivably more than 6000 fpm, and METAR shows WX is good that moment. So the airspeed information can be a clue to know the gear is lowered or not during the
first approach.

[retired guy]

It doesn't reall matter what you say: "Rate", "climb", whatever. The important thing is that things don't need to be rushed when it comes to clean up the plane. There is absolutely no need at all to retract the gear at the earliest possible moment, especially not during the (now mostly practised) noise abatement climbouts, which are done at V2+10kt (or 20). There is no danger of exceeding the gear retraction speed during that kind of initial climb, and the drag of the extended gear is no big factor at low speeds either, even in an engine-out scenario. So just wait as long as it takes to see all needels/tapes (altimeter, VSI, radio altimeter) pointing upward, wait another second or two or three (sometimes things change...) and then stretch out your hand towards the gear lever.
But I don't think that premature raising of the gear is a factor in this accident. It rather looks as if it was never down.
Quite correct What Next. You can add on pitch attitude 15 degrees and stable. So often see after EFTO wild pitch oscillations causing secondary unwanted descent. And add in stable flight. Not thrashing around. So , everything’s in place. Pointing up, flying up, stable, all instruments indicate sustained climb including ALT and RADALT. IVSI is helpful but only one of many. Count to three- nice and slow CALL “GEAR UP “. PNH Crosschecks and confirms and repeats GEAR UP. Some airlines do it the other way. PNH calls “Pos Rate” having confirmed all of the above. PF checks too and calls GEAR UP.
RETIRED GUY

[M68]

I have a question regarding the reports of the scrape marks from the engines starting at about 4,500 feet from the begin of the runway. (I am not a pilot)
Had both pilots been completely unaware of the landing gear not being down, wouldn't the scrape marks have started slightly after the normal touchdown zone or even still within it?
On the other hand, had the pilots become aware of the gear not being down just seconds before touchdown and initiated countermeasures, would the plane really have continued gliding downwards for so long until it finally made ground contact so far down the runway?

[DaveReidUK]

Is there any airspeed data during the first approach ?

The aircraft, though equipped with ADS-B, did not send any velocity or positional data whatsoever during the accident flight.

[turbidus]

Not going to presume to read the schematic, which does seem to combine conditions such as speed < 260 comb8ned w Gear lever Down, but doesn’t show a Gear Lever Down over a changing speed condition.

Well, yes the schematic does inexplicably show this...

LESS than 260 KTS on the ADR AND Lever down....

There is no wording one way or the other ...a combination of less than 260 KTS on both ADR's AND the lever down will open the hyd valve....

[jimjim1]

Some stills of the runway marks.
https://www.airlive.net/breaking-new-photos-confirm-engines-of-pia-a320-pk8303-touched-the-runway-before-the-go-around/

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1200x662/d_may24b_73e95998bd1547cce77073d492d578eec1dd4a29.jpg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/698x385/d_may24d_9de266a4ed635655b41a3b6d341f2b9886ab8a3b.jpg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/695x380/d_may24g_b5f7977d8e0f3a1d2022a2ded86e40ab00be88e8.jpg

[learner001]

But I don't think that premature raising of the gear is a factor in this accident. It rather looks as if it was never down.

We did/do not know for certain,
wether or not the gear was actually down
during the initial landing and wave off. (different than go around…)
Thereafter we saw pictures of damaged engines during the subsequent approach.

That’s why I posted this…

As I had crews scraping the engines,
whilst prematurely raising the gear,
because, instead of looking at the altimeter,
they were looking at the vsi
that showed a positive rate, which in reality we had not...

Indeed: Relax and no rush…
learner . . . ;)

[tdracer]

With engine bypass ratios becoming higher and ground clearance being reduced, has adequate consideration gone into the location of vital components such as pumps, gearbox’s and supply lines ? Whilst space is obviously constrained, having vital systems in a vulnerable position should be avoided.
There are numerous design considerations that going into the design and location of the gearbox and other accessories (cross-engine debris, cooling, fire protection being just a few) - and as DR noted I don't think doing a go-around after a wheels up landing is one of them.
Many larger engines (larger than a CFM - e.g. PW4000, GE90, GEnx) have the gearbox located on the core instead of the fan case - but that's done for aerodynamic drag reasons (smaller diameter nacelle), not any consideration of wheels-up damage. On CFM sized (and smaller) engines there simply isn't enough room to make a core mounted gearbox practical. Similarly the 3 spool RB211 and Trent engines have a relatively fat core that also makes a core mounted gearbox impractical. The 737 engines have 'split' accessories on the fan case - instead of at ~six o'clock, they're moved to ~4 and 8 o'clock - but that's done for ground clearance - not for any consideration of a wheels up landing - furthermore there is a great deal of plumbing and wiring crossing the six o'clock so I doubt it would fare any better in a similar scenario.

[T28B]

With respect, a key issue in aviation incidents is human factors, and where such rituals can affect human factors they are relevant to identifying possible causation of incidents and accidents. I say that as someone who has worked in the Middle East for 20 plus years, has a huge respect for the customs and religion, but is acutely aware of the detrimental effect on operational effectiveness of prolonged fasting. The crash was, I believe, around 14.40 local and the Al-Fajr prayer call, when fasting begins, is around 03.25 in Lahore at the moment. If - and it is a big 'if' - the pilot had been fasting then given the timings I have just quoted, it is relevant to consider this in an analysis of the crash.But since you don't know, any harangue on this as the causal factor - that is the problem we are dealing with in trying to keep this discussion professional - is a case of jumping to conclusions.

With respect to your experience, there is a chance that the forensic based investigation may or may not prove this consideration to be valid.
And we still don't know whether or not they put the gear down before the first approach.
FFS, how about we work with the basics and then climb up the causation tree. (And for all I know, you may be right!)

To put this in perspective: I had a pilot in our multi crew aircraft (a great many years ago) who - a pilot who was not Muslim nor observing Ramadan - get a bit strange on me during a night flight due to him being mildly hypoglycemic.
Negligence on his part for not taking care of an issue (diet) that he knew about ahead of time.
Different root cause, same result: he was useless to me. (Yes, he got a piece of my mind once we got back to terra firma)

How may accident investigation boards have you been on?
It's bloody hard work.

[turbidus]

We did/do not know for certain,
wether or not the gear was actually down
during the initial landing and wave off. (different than go around…)
Thereafter we saw pictures of damaged engines during the subsequent approach.

That’s why I posted this…

As I had crews scraping the engines,
whilst prematurely raising the gear,
because, instead of looking at the altimeter,
they were looking at the vsi
that showed a positive rate, which in reality we had not

You cannot raise the gear with weight on wheels.....

Looking at the engine skid marks,,,they bounced it down the runway for a bit...

[gulfstream650]

I think it is possible that the crew were unaware they had contacted the runway, the GO around was probably initiated during the flare when they noticed the unusual attitude from the lack of gear, by the time the engines had spooled up the nacelles just touched the runway, hard enough to damage them and the IDG's but not hard enough to be catastrophic or even erode the fan cowl latches (Fan cowls stayed on). This could be why they don't mention it or call a mayday until the IDG's and engines start to fail later in the go around due to the damage sustained.
SAP
Another logical assumption emerges by one A320 pilot:-
L/Gs were down during 1st attempt. G/A was opted to avoid runway overshoot due to high altitude approach from very beginning, Flaps selection to position 3 from 4 and Gears Up selection was too early, which caused acft to sink and engines rubbed the runway, got damaged and packed up during GA to 3000 ft, acft couldn't hold 3000 ft due to dual engine failure,
RAT deployed automatically to provide emergency elect and prssurise Blue Hyd circuit to power Flt Controls, but due thrust loss acft descended to 2000 ft, that's the time pilot reported Mayday Myday--- aircraft crashed short of Runway by 1300 meters on residential area.

[giggitygiggity]

I did not. Also g.g.'s 2500 fpm from well above the changeover level to 10k on average sounds - like a quiet day in the office.

It's been a few times already when the 1000 ft stable rule failed the crew and perhaps a little questioning is due. Not the crew, questioning of the rule.

FWIW my employer says when you land from unstable at 500, the PIC is fired. When you go-around from unstable at 500, the PIC is demoted for 6 months before being allowed an attempt to regain the second half of the salary.

Blimey, demoting someone for going around is hardly a just culture. Maybe that might be a necessary if the same thing keeps happening time after time, but that behaviour is a failure of the FDM, safety department and the training (re-training) system if they can't put the guy right.

Landing unstable at my outfit would result in a temporary withdrawl from flying duties until an quick investigation and subsequent retraining package is provided (if deemed necessary). They often put send the guilty party to a room or a videochat and play back the FDM and ask you for your opinion, it's an open and inquisitive discussion rather than a dressing-down. I haven't had this personally but friend did for a bit of a rushed approach where they forgot the gear (a bit of swiss cheese due to ATC pressure requesting a 1200ft platform and a 4-5nm final for an ILS), they went around at 750ft with the master caution and landed safely 5 mins later. The facts and FDM were the sum of his debrief - food for thought, not a punitive slap on the wrist, but demonstrating the findings of the investigation. For most normal pilots, that should be a bit of a kick up the backside to get you to slow it down and tell ATC unable. Obviously if the pilot still thinks they did nothing wrong, questions will have to be asked.

On the other hand, a pilot going around at 500ft because they're unstable here will probably result in the award of a bottle of champagne. This works well in the Europe and we don't crash planes due to unstable approaches. Your milage may vary elsewhere in the world.

[learner001]

You cannot raise the gear with weight on wheels.....
Looking at the engine skid marks,,,they bounced it down the runway for a bit...
Apart from the fact that many, many landing gears have already been unintentionally raised with weight on wheels,
the game is not necessarily over yet, after humbly just having been able to manage to only get your aircraft airborne,
you could still bounce back onto the runway…

Better not rely on ’cannot’… learner . . . ;)

[1.3vso]

What do you guys think is the significance of the exchange during the 1st approach.where they say they are established on the localizer for 25L, ATC says 'turn left heading 280', they then repeat that they are established on the localizer with no further comment from ATC ? If they were truly on the localizer and flying 250, then 280 would require a right turn. This seems odd.

I heard the instruction as fly heading 180. I figured the controller realized the were high and close and tried to vector them but they said they were established. Also the ATC observation of being 3,500 FT and 5 miles was likely a polite way of saying "do you guys know what you are doing".

[maddog2872]

Speculation 2.0 PF is expecting "Sink rate" warning, so he calls for EGPWS/TAWS off(not standard but management pilots can justify anything). Of course checklist was either not done or rushed through without xchecking. We know the rest.

[bud leon]

But since you don't know, any harangue on this as the causal factor - that is the problem we are dealing with in trying to keep this discussion professional - is a case of jumping to conclusions.

With respect to your experience, there is a chance that the forensic based investigation may or may not prove this consideration to be valid.
And we still don't know whether or not they put the gear down before the first approach.
FFS, how about we work with the basics and then climb up the causation tree. (And for all I know, you may be right!)

To put this in perspective: I had a pilot in our multi crew aircraft (a great many years ago) who - a pilot who was not Muslim nor observing Ramadan - get a bit strange on me during a night flight due to him being mildly hypoglycemic.
Negligence on his part for not taking care of an issue (diet) that he knew about ahead of time.
Different root cause, same result: he was useless to me. (Yes, he got a piece of my mind once we got back to terra firma)

How may accident investigation boards have you been on?
It's bloody hard work.

And it is the unfortunate thing on this forum that happens every time there is an aircraft incident in a non-western country that culture is always raised as a cause, with the barely concealed bias that the culture is inferior when it comes to safety. Not only do people start making baseless assumptions that there is a cultural reason for the accident they start proselytising based on that assumption. But when pilots in the west nearly land on taxiways it's a matter of fatigue and poor situational clues, for example.

There are potential culturally-influenced dietary risks all over the world, such as alcohol and drug consumption or dieting for cosmetic reasons in the west. The issue of saving face is always raised, like a mantra that every asian person is obsessed with saving face, and there are never people in the west who want to save face. You don't have to look very far to see some very prominent western leaders spending most of their public life trying to save face. And the other issue that is always raised is power gradient in the cockpit, when we know some of the most significant disasters in western cultures involved causal factors that were the result of power gradient problems. Some or all of these factors may have played a part in this instance, but none of us know if any of them are relevant.

[mnttech]

There is no wording one way or the other ...a combination of less than 260 KTS on both ADR's AND the lever down will open the hyd valve....
I kind of read it slightly differently
How about "A combination of less than (260 KTS on #1 ADR OR less the 260 KTS on #3 ADR OR WOG) AND the lever down will open the hyd valve."
As shown, once the ADR went under 260, the valve should have opened, unless there is some other input, or the lever switch is a Momentary (which I would doubt)

[asdf1234]

Blimey, demoting someone for going around is hardly a just culture. Maybe that might be a necessary if the same thing keeps happening time after time, but that behaviour is a failure of the FDM, safety department and the training (re-training) system if they can't put the guy right.

Landing unstable at my outfit would result in a temporary withdrawl from flying duties until an quick investigation and subsequent retraining package is provided (if deemed necessary). They often put send the guilty party to a room or a videochat and play back the FDM and ask you for your opinion, it's an open and inquisitive discussion rather than a dressing-down. I haven't had this personally but friend did for a bit of a rushed approach where they forgot the gear (a bit of swiss cheese due to ATC pressure requesting a 1200ft platform and a 4-5nm final for an ILS), they went around at 750ft with the master caution and landed safely 5 mins later. The facts and FDM were the sum of his debrief - food for thought, not a punitive slap on the wrist, but demonstrating the findings of the investigation. For most normal pilots, that should be a bit of a kick up the backside to get you to slow it down and tell ATC unable. Obviously if the pilot still thinks they did nothing wrong, questions will have to be asked.

On the other hand, a pilot going around at 500ft because they're unstable here will probably result in the award of a bottle of champagne. This works well in the Europe and we don't crash planes due to unstable approaches. Your milage may vary elsewhere in the world.
I think the original poster was emphasizing that his airline has a strict adherence to initiating a GA if not stabilized at 1,000ft. No doubt they too get champagne for a GA initiated at 1,000ft. Pushing on with an unstabilized approach below 1,000ft has disciplinary consequences. Just Culture has its place when dealing with unintentional errors whereas deliberately breaking company SOP at such a critical phase of flight requires disciplinary action.

[YankeeDelta]

I kind of read it slightly differently
How about "A combination of less than (260 KTS on #1 ADR OR less the 260 KTS on #3 ADR OR WOG) AND the lever down will open the hyd valve."
As shown, once the ADR went under 260, the valve should have opened, unless there is some other input, or the lever switch is a Momentary (which I would doubt)

Yes I confirm that if lever is down and speed is below 260kts, L/G will extend, no need to recycle the lever; Actually if you try and lower the L/G above 260kts you will get an master warning and ECAM alert L/G NOT DOWNLOCKED

[b1lanc]

I heard the instruction as fly heading 180. I figured the controller realized the were high and close and tried to vector them but they said they were established. Also the ATC observation of being 3,500 FT and 5 miles was likely a polite way of saying "do you guys know what you are doing".
That's why the response of 'we are comfortable' immediately followed by 'we can make it' really raises suspicions as it isn't exactly clear whether that last sentence was meant for ATC or the PM. Have to wonder who that was intended for. Earlier in the thread there was an unconfirmed report that two captains were at the contols. Don't know if that's true or not but PF and PM but either way CRM was an issue.

[b1lanc]

There are potential culturally-influenced dietary risks all over the world, such as alcohol and drug consumption or dieting for cosmetic reasons in the west. The issue of saving face is always raised, like a mantra that every asian person is obsessed with saving face, and there are never people in the west who want to save face.

Cultural impact to CRM isn't unique to geographic regions. Would you not agree that Tenerife was in part cause by culturally-influenced CRM (or lack of)? Perhaps United 173 also?

[Airbubba]

Earlier in the thread there was an unconfirmed report that two captains were at the contols. Don't know if that's true or not but PF and PM but either way CRM was an issue.

That was also the case in the 1990 crash of Indian Airlines 605, a dual-bogie A320 doing route training. Knobology issues led to an unstable approach without a timely go around.

[ZAGORFLY]

Apart from the fact that many, many landing gears have already been unintentionally raised with weight on wheels,
the game is not necessarily over yet, after humbly just having been able to manage to only get your aircraft airborne,
you could still bounce back onto the runway…

Better not rely on ’cannot’… learner . . . ;)
so were are the tires marks?

[giggitygiggity]

I think the original poster was emphasizing that his airline has a strict adherence to initiating a GA if not stabilized at 1,000ft. No doubt they too get champagne for a GA initiated at 1,000ft. Pushing on with an unstabilized approach below 1,000ft has disciplinary consequences. Just Culture has its place when dealing with unintentional errors whereas deliberately breaking company SOP at such a critical phase of flight requires disciplinary action.

I disagree. You say ‘pushing on’ but there may be a million reasons why this error wasn’t noticed; and consequently trapped at the appropriate gate. Swiss cheese and all.

I’m sure the PIC didn’t set off to work that morning with a explicit plan to disregard SOPs. It is incumbent on an airline to investigate why this gate might not have enabled the trapping of an error, rather than just fire the PIC involved. I’m not saying that in this case it’s excusable, but that it should be investigated fairly and a just culture applied rather than an immediate escalation to disciplinary proceedings and the assumed cover-up applied for the sake of the share price.

If you fire people based solely on the FDM, your crew will get very good at flying the FDM rather than the aircraft.

[krismiler]

All we can say for certain at this stage is:

1. They were high and fast.
2. The approach was unstable.
3. The engines scraped the runway.
4. They became airborne again and tried for another approach.
5. They aircraft crashed.

Once the FDR is read we will know what the position of the landing gear was:

1. Selected up the whole time.
2. Selected down but did not extend.
3. Selected down but retracted too early before the aircraft was positively climbing away resulting in ground contact.
4. Which systems were lost and what was the aircraft state afterwards.

Crew actions seem to be the major factor here, and the CVR should prove vital in determining:

1. Were they aware of the height/distance situation in the first place ?
2. Was there a CRM breakdown ?
3. Were they aware that they had a damaged aircraft or if they had contacted the runway at all ?

I was questioning the location of critical components underneath the engine with the Sioux City DC10 in mind, a turbine failure managed to sever all the hydraulic lines due to them being concentrated in a small area. Standard military doctrine is to spread things out, be it soldiers not bunching up whilst on patrol or aircraft parked close together. Unfortunately it appears that aircraft engines don't offer too much freedom in this area.

[ZAGORFLY]

That's why the response of 'we are comfortable' immediately followed by 'we can make it' really raises suspicions as it isn't exactly clear whether that last sentence was meant for ATC or the PM. Have to wonder who that was intended for. Earlier in the thread there was an unconfirmed report that two captains were at the contols. Don't know if that's true or not but PF and PM but either way CRM was an issue.


Absolutely! They were tragically 1400 ft above the path therefore trying the “capture Above” the sound reported (din din din ) was not associated in my opinion to unsafe gear but to overspeed. Flaps auto retracted for load relief. Tunnel vision aural alarm at that point “too low gear” was another sound over the mess in which pilots behind the plane forget also they’re own name. The go around was the tragic mistake.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/640x763/786f8377_6022_46a9_87a6_a2c7c3917691_88a1b34d4bc687d879e113d aa918db38516bba4d.jpeg

[b1lanc]

I’m sure the PIC didn’t set off to work that morning with a explicit plan to disregard SOPs.
But after a month or two of non-flying (if that was indeed the case yet to be determined), memory fades quickly. Not all SOPs or memory items remain in short term memory.

[krismiler]

Flaps auto retracted for load relief.

The only auto retract on the A320 is from CONFIG 1+F (slats + 1st stage) into CONFIG 1 (slats only) and generally occurs in turbulence after a max weight take off. Once you go beyond that stage you will be explaining the exceedance, and possibly damage as there is no further protection.

At 5nm from the threshold, any sane A320 crew would want to would want to be in at least flaps 2 with the gear down and a sensible speed, most would be more comfortable with flaps 3. Doing 250 kts the aircraft should be clean and even with speed brakes and configuring as soon as the speed fell below each limit there is no way you could be stable at 1000' even if you went for a flaps 3 landing. You might get it onto the runway and stopped if it was long enough but you could kiss goodbye to your job and probably your licence as well.

[Cloudtopper]

Those referring to a ”Just Culture” here, bear in mind it is not practised in some areas of the world. Pakistan being one!

[BFSGrad]

Worth reviewing the 1996 gear up landing of Continental 1943. Gear horn blaring up until touchdown at 193 kts, no 3 green, GPWS chirping away, yada, yada, yada…

Never underestimate the capacity of the human being to ignore/block prominent visual and aural alerts when under stress.

[Cloudtopper]

But since you don't know, any harangue on this as the causal factor - that is the problem we are dealing with in trying to keep this discussion professional - is a case of jumping to conclusions.

With respect to your experience, there is a chance that the forensic based investigation may or may not prove this consideration to be valid.
And we still don't know whether or not they put the gear down before the first approach.
FFS, how about we work with the basics and then climb up the causation tree. (And for all I know, you may be right!)

To put this in perspective: I had a pilot in our multi crew aircraft (a great many years ago) who - a pilot who was not Muslim nor observing Ramadan - get a bit strange on me during a night flight due to him being mildly hypoglycemic.
Negligence on his part for not taking care of an issue (diet) that he knew about ahead of time.
Different root cause, same result: he was useless to me. (Yes, he got a piece of my mind once we got back to terra firma)

How may accident investigation boards have you been on?
It's bloody hard work.


If it was a factor, it would be considered contributory not causal, Mr investigator. His point is relevant. You might refer to the previous Air blue accident in 2013 where the report referred to same..( occurred during Ramadan)

[learner001]

so were are the tires marks?IF you would be able to recognize and distinguish ’fresh’ tire marks,

they should have been way back, behind the position

from where the video of the engine scratch marks started.

learner . . . ;)

[Cloudtopper]

With respect, a key issue in aviation incidents is human factors, and where such rituals can affect human factors they are relevant to identifying possible causation of incidents and accidents. I say that as someone who has worked in the Middle East for 20 plus years, has a huge respect for the customs and religion, but is acutely aware of the detrimental effect on operational effectiveness of prolonged fasting. The crash was, I believe, around 14.40 local and the Al-Fajr prayer call, when fasting begins, is around 03.25 in Lahore at the moment. If - and it is a big 'if' - the pilot had been fasting then given the timings I have just quoted, it is relevant to consider this in an analysis of the crash.

Interesting taught process and I am glad you brought it up. Highly relevant

[tdracer]

I was questioning the location of critical components underneath the engine with the Sioux City DC10 in mind, a turbine failure managed to sever all the hydraulic lines due to them being concentrated in a small area. Standard military doctrine is to spread things out, be it soldiers not bunching up whilst on patrol or aircraft parked close together. Unfortunately it appears that aircraft engines don't offer too much freedom in this area.

The focus on engine component separation is 'engine to engine' isolation - i.e. any single mechanical failure will only affect one engine. Separation wise, this is mainly applied to cross engine debris - it's not possible to completely eliminate the risk (if that theoretical infinite energy 1/3 fan disc impacts the other engine, there isn't much you can do about it) - the emphasis is to minimize the risk.
I suppose one might argue that a wheels up landing is a 'single failure' - it would take multiple failures or mistakes to get there, with the further mistake of attempting a go-around after impacting the runway with the engines.
There is only so much the designers can do to protect against bad or suicidal piloting.

[giggitygiggity]

Those referring to a ”Just Culture” here, bear in mind it is not practised in some areas of the world. Pakistan being one!
I appreciate/realise that. But I assume that FlightDetent wasn’t working in Pakistan.

Still, we must hold each operator up to/towards our own national standards. Just saying a lesser standard is acceptable because of local religious/political/cultural/(whatever loaded idealism you can think of) is not enough. We should all be aspiring to 100% safety. I realise the reality is different, but if FlightDetent is based in the west (which I assume he is), the the lack of a just culture at his airline is shameful.

[Cloudtopper]

If it's true that RW 07 was set up in there FMGS, therefore this would explain why they were above profile continually from the TOD after having being offered a straight in approach for 25

[jolihokistix]

Re 'single failure'. Something to be said for the tri-jet engine configuration. Or small outer-rim permanently exposed load-bearing high-tolerance metal wheels (think Thrust/Bloodhound SSC) to obviate/ameliorate both engine strike in case of gear failure. For future consideration.

[Toruk Macto]

Both captains ? , where they both military and how many hours on the bus ? I read somewhere Airbus only new to airline . Taking a straight in when setup for overfly can take a few seconds to process before committing to it . Having to do a quick orbit on final when it did not quite work is sometimes required . ( I know as I’ve had to it and only good thing is it’s usually done in silence )

[T28B]

If it was a factor...You might refer to the previous Air blue accident in 2013 where the report referred to same..( occurred during Ramadan) As there are no facts to work with aligning those two accidents - as yet - why are you leaping to this conclusion?
You don't start assigning causal or contributory factors unless you have evidence to support them.
Follow the evidence as you uncover it.
If - yes let's do this IF thing, shall we? - there had been a thunderstorm, there may have been other potential contributory causes.
If, if, if ... in a few days there may be more to work with.

[tdracer]

Re 'single failure'. Something to be said for the tri-jet engine configuration. Or small outer-rim permanently exposed load-bearing high-tolerance metal wheels (think Thrust/Bloodhound SSC) to obviate/ameliorate both engine strike in case of gear failure.
Anything "exposed" that is capable of absorbing a wheels up landing while protecting the engines is going to have a huge weight and drag impact - which of course turns into a large fuel burn impact.
There are a lot of things that become doable when costs and fuel burn are not a consideration... Heck, we could go back to fixed gear - that would solve the problem...

[Lonewolf_50]

Those referring to a ”Just Culture” here, bear in mind it is not practised in some areas of the world. Pakistan being one! Your post about culture got me thinking a bit here. One of the things about FOQUA and Metrics is what those tools incentivize. For example:
If your reward/punishment scale is "who uses the least fuel per mile" you will incentivize creative ways to either save fuel or appear to be saving fuel.
If your reward punishment scale is "who gets off on time and lands on time" you will incentivize creative ways to get to the gate on time.
If your reward punishment scale is "fewest complaints about firm landings" you will incentivize (perhaps) an extraordinary effort towards greasing one on ...

And so on. Which makes me wonder: what do this company's SOPs and rules and metrics incentivize? Did those incentives play into whatever it was that this crew did during this (apparently) routine flight from Point A to Point B?

Sometimes you can write a policy and discover, months later, maybe years later, that what people are doing to appear to be adhering to that policy isn't quite what you wanted them to do.
(I have a vague memory of a story about 727 pilots being clever with the flaps in flight from years ago that would illustrate that point, but can't find a reference at the moment).