PIA A320 Crash Karachi [Archive] - Page 3

bud leon

25th May 2020, 04:28

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.

I'm sure Peter Burkill would agree with you.

I don't see anyone saying a lesser standard is acceptable due to cultural differences, the problem is thinking that cultural differences by default result in lower safety standards. It's a simplistic way of looking at things.

A37575

25th May 2020, 04:31

his would explain why they were above profile continually from the TOD after having being offered a straight in approach for 25

Same old story. Blind adherence to what the flight director is telling you. A common habit among those brought up on automation dependency as well as the cultural trap of 'real men don't go around.'

lomapaseo

25th May 2020, 04:37

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.

You don't have the Sioux city lessons learned correct.

The hyd lines were separated apart but so were the high energy bits of the fan. It wasn't so much that the lines were completely severed but more to them bleeding out due to no check valves This stuff is now addressed in the cert rule advisory which also allows design leeway for the stuff Tdracer mentioned above

OK, we may learn something new in this accident, but I prefer to wait for the on-site reports

Wannabe Flyer

25th May 2020, 04:39

“With a 24-year experience in the airline industry, Gul had flown over 17,000 hours, including 4,700 hours of Airbus A320. He is survived by his wife and four children.” Extract from Khaleej Times. He seemed to be in his early 50’s

vilas

25th May 2020, 04:58

[QUOTE][Heck, we could go back to fixed gear - that would solve the problem.../QUOTE] Instead of piecemeal solutions the technology is moving towards removal of the elements itself that have too many limitations. They already have technology for one pilot aircraft. Not far from none pilot aircaft.

krismiler

25th May 2020, 06:23

https://youtu.be/OZ0LY7ma1cA

double_barrel

25th May 2020, 06:57

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".

You are right, ATC does say turn left to 180, that's a wrong transcription on the video. That makes much more sense rather than a confusing attempt to request a left orbit.

In fact, that was a moment at which they could have halted the entire spiral into disaster. Had they simply complied with ATC's request, almost certainly they would have got back on top of the situation and it would have been a non event.

DaveReidUK

25th May 2020, 07:07

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."

Yes, that's a correct reading of the schematic.

Dan_Brown

25th May 2020, 07:17

[QUOTE][[color=#333333]Heck, we could go back to fixed gear - that would solve the problem.../QUOTE] Instead of piecemeal solutions the technology is moving towards removal of the elements itself that have too many limitations. They already have technology for one pilot aircraft. Not far from none pilot aircaft.

The technology is there now, for no pilots. However it doesn't have much passenger appeal at present. After this, pilotless aircraft may have more appeal.

A pilotless a/c was flown direct, from the USA to Australia. Landed, refuelled and flew back home. No crew rest or preceived cultural imfluence either.

SquintyMagoo

25th May 2020, 07:23

Reports are there is a preliminary report. Can anyone find a link to it?

tdracer

25th May 2020, 07:23

Built into the fuselage somehow?
How is that going to help, when on nearly all 'low wing' installations the engines extend well below the bottom of the fuselage? What you're proposing is not meaningfully different than the fixed landing gear arrangement that was abandoned for commercial transports ~80 years ago.
Better to figure out a way to keep the pilots from attempting wheels up landings. Since aural alerts can (and have been) be ignored, I keep thinking about an old James Bond movie: There was some 'game' that shocked the player when they were losing. Maybe we need a system like that - if the pilot is doing something really stupid such as landing wheels up or CFIT - it's starts shocking the PF to get their attention.

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
There is considerable controversy about this incident: It happened in 1979, TWA Flight 841, Hoot Gibson was the PF (I remember this because I met a different Hoot Gibson - Space Shuttle Astronaut - with the associated name confusion). Anyway, the story was you could get lower cruise drag/better fuel burn on a 727 by extending the trailing edge flaps - except to make it work you needed to disable the leading edge devices first. Allegedly, Hoot and company did this while the flight engineer was in the toilet - when he returned to the flight deck he noticed that the leading edge device CB's were out so he restored them. One side extended, the other side jammed due to the aero loads and the asymmetric lift rolled them into a dive. They were only able to recover when the extended leading edge ripped off. The controversy was (short story) that the flight crew claimed they were scapegoats - that the leading edge device extended uncommanded, while the official report basically says what I described.
It didn't help the flight crew's story when they erased the voice recorder after they landed :sad:

ManaAdaSystem

25th May 2020, 07:44

Are the engine cowlings on the A320 made of composite material? Is that why the scrape marks are black?

Cloudtopper

25th May 2020, 08:09

Reports are there is a preliminary report. Can anyone find a link to it?
It's not a prelim, rather a 20 page PDF document put together by an insider of PIA stating a number of grievances and also pass accidents where management failed to respond to the lessons learned with the appropriate response.

You will find it shared on whatsapp

retired guy

25th May 2020, 08:21

It's not a prelim, rather a 20 page PDF document put together by an insider of PIA stating a number of grievances and also pass accidents where management failed to respond to the lessons learned with the appropriate response.

You will find it shared on whatsapp
I have that one. As stated it has grievances but so did many Boeing employees so I wouldn’t discount it on those grounds! It’s very well put together as a timeline of the events unfolding. Looks like a perfectly serviceable plane until the runway contact.
Retired Guy

henra

25th May 2020, 08:27

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.

Hmmm, dunno. Are we really discussing about making airliners tolerant against landing on the engines and still being able to fly away afterwards???
How about not landing on the pods in the first place and if you can't help the urgency to land on the pods then simply leave it on the ground afterwards?
What other 'interesting' ideas do we want to make the planes idiot- proof against?!

DaveReidUK

25th May 2020, 08:45

Are the engine cowlings on the A320 made of composite material? Is that why the scrape marks are black?

Discussed earlier in the thread, IIRC, probably worth a forum search.

Fawad

25th May 2020, 08:50

Local news update
- Pilots were warned 3 times regarding altitude
- ATC was never informed the plane has any kind of troubles (including landing gear) on the first approach.
- Karachi approach was handling the plane and did not transfer to Tower.
- The plane had fuel for 2hrs30mins while the total flying time was 1hr30min.
- At 2:30 (PST), the plane was 15nm at MAKLI, flying at 10,000ft instead of 7,000ft. ATC gave the first warning. The pilot said he is comfortable. At 10nm, the plane was at 7,000ft instead of 3,000ft. Second warning by ATC. The pilot responded that he is satisfied and can handle it.
- During 1st attempt, engine scraped runway at 3 points - 4,500ft, 5,500ft, and 7000ft.
- Only during second attempt, the pilot informed of a landing gear problem.

H Peacock

25th May 2020, 08:52

Those black 'scrape' marks look more like staining from a liquid - perhaps even engine oil!

compressor stall

25th May 2020, 08:53

Paint and probably the aluminium vaporises on contact between aluminium and concrete at speed. Footage from 20 years ago of a SAFAIR C130 belly landing into YPDN. Lots of smoke and a flash of flame for a few seconds.
found a link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CdkUuGdjJU

Toruk Macto

25th May 2020, 09:21

10 miles 7000 ft and response is I’m comfortable ! Sorry I must have stepped into a twilight zone or logged into a different industry’s chat site ?

FlightDetent

25th May 2020, 09:31

Blimey, demoting someone for going around is hardly a just culture.

[...]

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. Correct, horses for courses.

It was bait. Full story
1) SOP is to be stable at 1500'. And it is enforced with FDM, i.e. not a SOP to "please plan to be stable by 1500" but rather "we pay you to be stable by 1500, no "pleases", "buts" or "ifs";
2) 1000 is OM-A and NAA hard limit;
3) if you go around 1000-500 you will be processed (in a similar manner you have described above with allowances for the cultural differences, i.e. more public shaming);
4) if you go around but only as late as below 500 - demotion;
5) if you land from unstable at 500 - termination.

My point is whether the "standard" 1000 ft rule is sufficient. Somewhere I've read about a trial with the gate set as low as 300' and it worked better than 1000.

kit344

25th May 2020, 09:46

I have searched this thread thoroughly, but I can only find 2 references to "ground effect".

How significant is this to an A320 with the gear retracted ?
Does the flap position affect it ?

It could explain how the aircraft managed to scrape the runway for around 8 seconds without more deceleration.

Capt Scribble

25th May 2020, 09:55

Likely carrying a tad extra speed over the threshold, a light aircraft and no drag from the undercarriage, 8 secs sounds conservative!

DaveJ75

25th May 2020, 10:09

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.

Oh no, you've gone and ruined it now! You can't come on here posting common sense like that! We're supposed to stick to tried and tested blame game. It's so much more comfortable that way - we can enjoy thinking of reasons why WE are different from the accident pilots.

If only they were ex military
Typical ex-military
If only they'd been glider pilots
Clearly Morons
Foreign
Obviously intended to crash
Too much automation
Not enough automation
Foreign
Should have been fired prior to crashing

I think I've got almost a full house here?

Flying_Scotsman

25th May 2020, 10:25

Correct, horses for courses.

It was bait. Full story
1) SOP is to be stable at 1500'. And it is enforced with FDM, i.e. not a SOP to "please plan to be stable by 1500" but rather "we pay you to be stable by 1500, no "pleases", "buts" or "ifs";
2) 1000 is OM-A and NAA hard limit;
3) if you go around 1000-500 you will be processed (in a similar manner you have described above with allowances for the cultural differences, i.e. more public shaming);
4) if you go around but only as late as below 500 - demotion;
5) if you land from unstable at 500 - termination.

My point is whether the "standard" 1000 ft rule is sufficient. Somewhere I've read about a trial with the gate set as low as 300' and it worked better than 1000.

Having watched a number of 'entertaining' approaches during the recent storms in UK then you could easily be stable at 1500', 1000' and 500' but then find that it all gets a bit exciting in the final stages. How does this set of SOPs cope with that?

Check Airman

25th May 2020, 10:36

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.

Demoted for doing the right thing at 500ft? Who thought up that policy?

Capt Scribble

25th May 2020, 10:37

SOPs do not cover everything. Sometimes you have to think for yourself, it used to be called airmanship and a consideration as to whether you can defend your decision. You could even cover it in the brief if you knew the weather was unstable on approach.

CDG1

25th May 2020, 10:42

Source: Plane Spotters Pakistan
(translated)
Pti plane accident,
French experts team will investigate 16 hours in Pakistan for investigation,
French experts team will leave France tonight at 11 pm tonight,,
The special plane of Airbus experts will land on 26th may at 6 am at 40 am.
French experts flight " will reach the ABB 1888,
Karachi airport flight time from France is zayed for 7 hours.
French experts team will visit model colony instead of pti plane accident,
French experts team will provide technical support to investigating team,
The team will take the black box engine France with them, which will get more important evidence in the investigation of the accident,
The French experts team will complete all their investigations in karachi in 16 hours and go to 10th may 26 pm -

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/670x960/aib_pak_ae209e3ada4335df6075eb8e32c87c7a83bcef79.jpg

Toruk Macto

25th May 2020, 10:43

Sacked below 500 ft ? Can you say who you work for ? How about hitting wake turbulence below 500 ? Late wind shear or junior flaring to high to late or wrong rudder ?

Alwaysairbus

25th May 2020, 10:49

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.

The designs of pod mounting engines are fine and with the A320 provide adequate clearance even with a high g landing with relevant strut compression. The issue here is that the aircraft for an unknown reason landed with out it gear extended, either in norm config or alternate. You can build as many safe guards as you like to mitigate landing with gears still retracted but why would anyone want to design a plane purely for crash landings when multiple failures (either of systems or system overides) would look to be the likely cause.

procede

25th May 2020, 11:00

Source: Plane Spotters Pakistan

It looks like they took the prototype A330-800 to get there with 4 crew and 8 passengers.

Busbert

25th May 2020, 11:27

The designs of pod mounting engines are fine and with the A320 provide adequate clearance even with a high g landing with relevant strut compression. The issue here is that the aircraft for an unknown reason landed with out it gear extended, either in norm config or alternate. You can build as many safe guards as you like to mitigate landing with gears still retracted but why would anyone want to design a plane purely for crash landings when multiple failures (either of systems or system overides) would look to be the likely cause.
If gravity extension had been used, the MLG doors would have remained open and been torn off long before contact with the nacelles and the ground. The photos after the go around clearly show all landing gear doors closed. My reading of the situation was that the crew attempted to land without attempting to lower the landing gear, either by normal or freefall extension.

pineteam

25th May 2020, 11:31

donotdespisethesnake

25th May 2020, 11:33

The Times also reporting Pakistan plane crash: pilots tried to land with wheels up (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pakistan-plane-crash-pilots-tried-to-land-with-wheels-up-wqc0zl3tj)

The Pakistani airliner that crashed into houses close to Karachi airport on Friday had aborted an initial attempt to land a few minutes earlier without its wheels extended, officials said yesterday.

An extraordinary sequence of events led to the loss of 97 lives (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/passenger-plane-crashes-in-pakistani-suburb-mtkxc5nb8), with only two passengers aboard the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight surviving when the Airbus A320 came down a mile from the runway in the densely populated Model Colony neighbourhood and burst into flames. Nineteen houses were damaged but only four people on the ground were injured.

Rest of article paywalled, so don't know what "officials" they refer to. Maybe someone has access?

Milvus Milvus

25th May 2020, 11:49

krismiler

25th May 2020, 11:50

Are we really discussing about making airliners tolerant against landing on the engines and still being able to fly away afterwards???

I was thinking of a pod strike whilst the landing gear was extended rather than doing a touch and go on the engines. On a B737-200 you'd have to work pretty hard to scrape an engine on the runway, Airbus thoughtfully gave a decent clearance for the IAE and CFM engines though this has reduced slightly with the NEO. The B737-300 had to have the lower cowlings flattened out as the clearance was so poor. With the longer wings of the four engined jets, a pod scrape on a outboard engine was quite possible but you would hopefully still have three undamaged engines and ancillaries.

My point is that with lower ground clearance due to higher bypass engines, and twins now being the norm, the chances of a strike are higher and the risk is that 50% gets knocked out rather than 25%. With this in mind it might be worth looking at the figures to determine if it's still acceptable to mount certain components in harm's way.

EDLB

25th May 2020, 11:56

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.

So the only sensible option not to loose your salary from unstable at 500 is to crash. Riddle solved. Do you work for PIA?

krismiler

25th May 2020, 12:00

You can build as many safe guards as you like to mitigate landing with gears still retracted but why would anyone want to design a plane purely for crash landings when multiple failures (either of systems or system overides) would look to be the likely cause.

Douglas actually did that with the DC3, the main wheels projected slightly below the engines and if the starter motors were used to position the propellor blades correctly, an engines off gear up landing could be accomplished on a runway, with no damage whatsoever. The aircraft was simply jacked up and returned to service. I'm not suggesting it for modern aircraft, just a bit of aviation trivia.

henra

25th May 2020, 12:19

So the only sensible option not to loose your salary from unstable at 500 is to crash. Riddle solved. Do you work for PIA?
That also crossed my mind...
I'm always alerted when there are fixed fines defined for cases where in reality the world can be more complex. I do understand that if the requirement is to be stabilised by 1000 and someone's approach is unstable all the way down through to below 500 that the Chief Pilot might want to have a cup of Tea (possibly without Buscuits) with the Crew in question, but this black and white: You're sacked when unstable below 500 even though the approach might have been stable from 1000 to 500 does not inspire confidence in the safety culture of that Airline. Would be interesting to understand at least about what region of the World we are talking.

iggy

25th May 2020, 12:25

So the only sensible option not to loose your salary from unstable at 500 is to crash. Riddle solved. Do you work for PIA?

That kind of logic brings me back to my time as a goat rider... :p

AmuDarya

25th May 2020, 12:39

For what it is worth.

PIA plane crash: 3 warnings from Air Traffic Control to lower altitude were ignored by pilot (https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/663377-pia-plane-crash-3-warnings-from-air-traffic-control-to-lower-altitude-were-ignored-by-pilot)

https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/663377-pia-plane-crash-3-warnings-from-air-traffic-control-to-lower-altitude-were-ignored-by-pilot

asdf1234

25th May 2020, 12:40

That also crossed my mind...
I'm always alerted when there are fixed fines defined for cases where in reality the world can be more complex. I do understand that if the requirement is to be stabilised by 1000 and someone's approach is unstable all the way down through to below 500 that the Chief Pilot might want to have a cup of Tea (possibly without Buscuits) with the Crew in question, but this black and white: You're sacked when unstable below 500 even though the approach might have been stable from 1000 to 500 does not inspire confidence in the safety culture of that Airline. Would be interesting to understand at least about what region of the World we are talking.
I fear you still have not understood the OPs post.

Stabilized at 1500ft, stabilized at 1000ft, unstabilized at 500ft due to wind shear, clumsy FO, or whatever life throws at you, NOT A PROBLEM.

Unstabilized at 1500ft and you carry on, still unstabilized at 1000ft and you still carry on, decide to safe lives at 500ft, re-education coming your way as you should have gone around at 1,000ft.

Unstabilized at 1500ft and you carry on, still unstabilized at 1000ft and you still carry on, one last chance to go around at 500ft but you decide real men just don't go around, you are sacked.

Given the amount of mangled metal and lives that arise from unstabilized approaches it seems sensible to hammer the point home.

mothergoose1

25th May 2020, 12:44

Why would someone be so hot and high ,there is a limit to being hot and high ,you can be hot and high by 20knots or high by 2000 feet but you can’t be just too hot and. High ,Something is a miss ,a piece of a puzzle is missing .My guess is a dual adr failure or unreliable airspeed at first This would have let them not to announce a failure and compete approach but since the checklist asks for manual extension and ecam doesn’t alarm that only the checklist that .This maybe let them to hit the engine pods and as they thought the landing gear would come down or maybe they did a hot and high and glide slope from above ,After which above setting high vs and later altitude above but some people accidently pull the knob off the alt selector,this further led to open climb thrust increase and flap over speed .Maybe a mix of both adc dual failure with accidental open climb unstable approach that’s why they said comfortable

krismiler

25th May 2020, 12:55

Could the gear have been selected down on the first attempt but stayed retracted the whole time because the speed never went below 260 kts ? It then extended during the go-around once the speed reduced. Normally this would sound ridiculous but given extraordinary the chain of events it might just have been possible.

mothergoose1

25th May 2020, 13:01

Yeah probably dual adr failure leads to landing gear problem and I just check it won’t show on the ecam .you gotta do the landing gear extension even if you put the lever down

N600JJ

25th May 2020, 13:03

It will be interesting to know exactly what stopped the engines. Perhaps nothing more than bent pipes.

AGB moved / damaged / destroyed when engines kissed the tarmac I presume.

Black Pudding

25th May 2020, 13:12

gearlever

25th May 2020, 13:14

FlyingAce77

25th May 2020, 13:16

Hot, High, Fast.........Could it be someone on the flightdeck was a Maverick or had CRM issues that they selves were simply not aware of. Could it be a simple matter of having a perfectly serviceable aircraft destroyed to human error. Hot, High, Fast ? Distraction caused by being behind the aircraft leading to human error.
I don’t know if he was a Maverick but sure as hell He was 3500ft at 5NM which is twice as high they should have been at 1500ft, distraction very possible with task saturation, selective hearing & maybe tunnel vision? A airworthy bird was as it looks like human error brought it down.

mothergoose1

25th May 2020, 13:20

Why would you approach at 270 when the approach speed normally is 136 or 140 ,that’s a huge difference of about 130 knots .its obvious that the green hydraulic mechanism speed above 260 valve closure gear not gonna come down even if you put the gear lever down ,and max speed with gear extended is 280 knots .

WillowRun 6-3

25th May 2020, 13:20

(SLF with interest in int'l aviation legal context and the major organizations especially those centered in Montreal . . .)
While awaiting both some revelations from the reading of the recorders and also the prelim report, it is a fair and proper question, at the very least, to ask: was "rust" from inactivity in the pandemic's wake a factor? Particularly if a gear retracted landing is revealed as factual, and the unstable approach at 5nm and 3500 also warrants some particular note - both according to many prior posts.
ICAO's Council, in one of the very first official actions under the new Council President, organized a COVID-19 Aviation Recovery Task Force with regard to returning from the pandemic (cleverly short-formed as CART). Initial report due by end of this week -- or it was, before this accident. Will the CART first workproduct address this accident even if just with reminders about "rust" being a potential concern?
And IATA and ACI already have issued their first pronouncements.
......
Several posts have pointed to a likelihood, at least, of auditory and situational-awareness filtering, I think the aviator term is "startle". Kind of reminiscent of the tunnel vision theme hammered into oblivion and cliche about Air Canada 759 and its landing attempt lined up on a taxiway in San Francisco couple years ago. Makes a person wonder; ordinary, routine times still yield infrequent or very infrequent incidents like that, quite possibly partly due to fatigue, which should be well understood, but sometimes isn't. But, who understands this "rust" of which many have spoken?

tubby linton

25th May 2020, 13:22

Would the gear come down (lever down, IAS above 260kt) when the airspeed drops below 260 or has the gear lever to be recycled?
Look at DSC32-10-10 for the safety valve logic. It is the usual Airbus boulean expression.

Flyingmole

25th May 2020, 13:46

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.

Please don't misrepresent my point. I was replying to a post that said we should be looking at aviation issues and not cultural issues. I was merely saying that insofar as cultural issues can affect human performance, and insofar as human performance can be a factor in accident causation, cultural issues should be considered. My experience in accident investigation in Middle East Oil & Gas (different from, but relevant to, aviation accident investigation) has indicated that there is very, very rarely a single, one-and-only root cause: that is simplistic. Instead, there are a plethora of human, mechanical, organisational, managerial and cultural issues that on one unhappy day or night all come together (cf John Reason's Swiss Cheese model). I did not say, nor did I infer, that the cultural issue was the root cause, I simply know from experience that an investigation that fails to dig deep into the cause-behind-the-cause-behind-the-cause is unlikely to reveal the full picture and thus prevent re-occurrence. Khalas!

vilas

25th May 2020, 13:53

This crash is exact replica of AirIndia Express B737crash on the same date ten years ago in Mangalore India. There the ATC delayed descent from 370 due to outbound traffic causing vertical displacement of appx. 9000ft. which both the pilots never realized and in a badly unstable approach landed halfway down the runway reversed and tried a GA hit a obstacle end of RW and crashed. In PIA case they were even worse displaced and despite three attempts by ATC to vector them to create space they declined saying they are comfortable. Trying to get in the slot without gear speed has to be very high. Their cool and calm demeanor I am sorry but was out of ignorance and overconfidence. They landed without gear and went around. The engines may have failed with interval. First time they should have lowered the gear but they didn't, second time they shouldn't have but they lowered the gear which killed them by depriving them the crucial 300/400ft to clear the buildings. Very sad unnecessary end on the eve of a joyous festival. I am reminded of Col Jessup's dialogue in A Few Good Men "We follow orders son or people die. It's that simple. Are we clear?'

DaveJ75

25th May 2020, 14:07

Hot, High, Fast.........Could it be someone on the flightdeck was a Maverick or had CRM issues that they selves were simply not aware of. Could it be a simple matter of having a perfectly serviceable aircraft destroyed to human error. Hot, High, Fast ? Distraction caused by being behind the aircraft leading to human error.

Oh thank God - normal service resumed! I was beginning to worry..

Distraction caused by being behind the aircraft leading to human error.

Total genius - I think you've cracked it. Hot, high AND fast? So a cabin conditioning snag too? Maybe Maverick was distracted by Goose being behind the aircraft?

MPN11

25th May 2020, 14:49

I don’t recall seeing any mention of WHY it was being flown in that manner. Was there some additional factor in play, such as VIP pax, or pressing need for an on-time arrival? There does seem to be some sort of urgency involved in proceedings, although the reported reluctance to accept lower FLs from ATC adds another puzzle factor ... WHY stay high, when the procedures say descend?

nnc0

25th May 2020, 15:05

Would the gear come down (lever down, IAS above 260kt) when the airspeed drops below 260 or has the gear lever to be recycled?

As long as 1 ADRs has a speed < 260 and MLG lever is down - gear will drop - no recycling required.

jolihokistix

25th May 2020, 15:06

Time pressure possibility 1.
One passenger who tried and failed to board in Lahore said in a later interview that this was the last flight to beat the lockdown in Karachi, so he really needed to be on board, and only a repeating computer glitch had prevented him from completing ticket purchase.

Dan_Brown

25th May 2020, 15:08

I am of the opinion a false G/S (6degs) was captured, locked onto and flown all the way to the r/w. Being "established" gave a false sense of security.

If the FAF Dis and height were checked this may never have happened.

The FAF is a very important check, no matter how modern the avionics in the aircraft. The G/S must be captured from below of course, as we all know.

Accident reports, are just that. Reports.we can all see what happened but why??

nnc0

25th May 2020, 15:09

tarik123

25th May 2020, 15:17

If you are caught on high in an A320 the best way to lose altitude is to reduce speed, configure to flaps 3 and gear down, select speed 160 , and use open descent until you capture the glide slope,
speed brakes could be used then, The approach MUST be stabilised above 1000 fee AGL. Do not continue the approach if not stabilised below 1000 AGL, heroes die young.

mothergoose1

25th May 2020, 15:41

Yes The other mistake which people most commonly make and can be grave in glide slope from above is when people put the altitude selector above to not capture it in the end they accidently pull the selector leading from open descend or vs to open climb

FlyingAce77

25th May 2020, 15:42

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.

Belly landing still requires Cabin to be Prepared, ATC should be informed, Hearing the Conversation between Tower controller & PM it was the Tower Controller asking if “Belly landing” is what they are performing makes me think Controller or Controllers in the Tower did have a visual with the A/C coming in for 1st approach into 25L, & they might have had saw A/C coming in Hot & High- I just can’t fathom the fact that 5NM at 3500FT - How can you In a sane mind even F*** up this big...
PS: ATC needs to control these cowboys in Pakistan”

oscar zoroaster

25th May 2020, 15:45

Built into the fuselage somehow?

One could calculate when the wheel bay doors were closed (or never opened) if you know closing times, which, given lack of damage, would tell you timing and sequencing.

metro301

25th May 2020, 15:46

Sikpilot

25th May 2020, 15:47

Except for the 1 post that mentioned that it was 2 Captains flying has there been any mention of the 2 pilots TT and time on the A320? Usually by now their names and history are posted somewhere.

Joejosh999

25th May 2020, 15:51

Are there any reports that ATC asked them to check their gear? If not, how big an anomaly is that?

FlyingAce77

25th May 2020, 15:52

FlyingAce77

25th May 2020, 15:53

Are there any reports that ATC asked them to check their gear? If not, how big an anomaly is that?

Last time I operated KHI , ATC before clearing us to land did said “Check Wheels down & Locked” I’m sure controllers would have used the same practice..
Though good observation!

EDLB

25th May 2020, 16:02

Could they have been playing with the IDLE FACTOR?
And even if they did. I can not see a reason why two captains kill themself and 90+ people in a serviceable airplane in Cavoc conditions. You know 20 minutes in advance, that this glide path will not work. One captain with 17000 hours has seen a 3 degree profile multiple thousand of times out his window. A 7.5 degree profile looks a lot different. Sure you can do that in a SEP floatplane or a Soyuz capsule hanging on a parachute, but not with a clean airliner. Why they continued with this stunt the recorders will hopefully tell. You got a Corona empty airspace with bored ATC, so why rush this approach? A circle anywhere and they could have established a nice glidepath.

About rust, sure, but do you think you are unfit to drive a car after a few weeks pause?

You got two experienced guys in row 0. So why did they kill themself? That is the riddle the investigation has to find out.

FlyingAce77

25th May 2020, 16:07

And even if they did. I can not see a reason why two captains kill themself and 90+ people in a serviceable airplane in Cavoc conditions. You know 20 minutes in advance, that this glide path will not work. One captain with 17000 hours has seen a 3 degree profile multiple thousand of times out his window. A 7.5 degree profile looks a lot different. Sure you can do that in a SEP floatplane or a Soyuz capsule hanging on a parachute, but not with a clean airliner. Why they continued with this stunt the recorders will hopefully tell. You got a Corona empty airspace with bored ATC, so why rush this approach? A circle anywhere and they could have established a nice glidepath.

About rust, sure, but do you think you are unfit to drive a car after a few weeks pause?

You got two experienced guys in row 0. So why did they kill themself? That is the riddle the investigation has to find out.
There were no 2 captains but an FO with low time got to know through someone who flys for PIA.

T28B

25th May 2020, 16:10

Please don't misrepresent my point. Thank you for your kind reply. :)
Why do you feel that you have something to add without new evidence, as that topic was already introduced to this thread? This goes for you as well, Cloudtopper. You'd already brought it up early on.
Go back and read the first two pages (down to about post number 65) of this rather long thread - this topic has already been raised.
Here are the first five posts that survived the bickering, A (https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/632693-pia-a320-crash-karachi.html#post10789636), B (https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/632693-pia-a320-crash-karachi.html#post10789674), C (https://www.pprune.org/showthread.php?p=10789837), D (https://www.pprune.org/showthread.php?p=10789847), E (https://www.pprune.org/showthread.php?p=10789890). They start with Cloudtopper's post which is number 10 of this ever-growing thread.
What you won't see if you review the beginning of this thread is the few dozen posts that were deleted - raising that issue began an almost immediate pile of noise and argument, accusations of racism, and other unprofessional nonsense. If you keep reading, you'll find an admonishment by PilotDAR (a mod) to lay off.
The human factors piece of this accident has a lot of aspects to it; and (absent further information) very little factual material to support our various guesses and speculations on that element.

If you'd read this thread, you'd know that perhaps. So why were you bringing it up again?

Airbus Unplugged

25th May 2020, 16:28

ferry pilot

25th May 2020, 16:43

" You are never gonna make it from here"

" Oh yeah? Watch this! "

Superpilot

25th May 2020, 16:53

Have seen their names plastered on some local media outlets. Captain and FO.

tarik123

25th May 2020, 16:54

you are absolutely right

siropalomar

25th May 2020, 17:14

I have read elsewhere
"A seperate safety valve is also incorporated. This shuts off hydraulic pressure to the actuators when the aircraft exceeds 260kt, and restores pressure only when the gear lever is selected down with the aircraft below 260kt."

This implies that the Gear will come down when "Selected", so if the lever is already down when reducing below 260kt does the lever need to be recycled for the system to detect a "selection"
I fly A330, been flying A320 too. FCOM states literally what you state. Type rating Instructors tell me that during simulator sessions Landing gear will come down when speed falls below 260 kt , no need to recycle Lng Gear lever. In that case, if they landed with gear retracted, it means they simply didn’t select Gear down. Obviously plenty of aural warnings (“too low gear, too low gear”) and ECAM Warning “landing gear not down” up to the moment they struck the runway. That is what we call “tunnel vision”, pilots exclusively centred on getting the plane on the runway, disregarding everything else. Let’s wait for the voice recorders reading, maybe the copilot was yelling “we’re too fast, too high, or please go around” all the way down. It’s happened before.

retired guy

25th May 2020, 17:28

One way of operating an aircraft safely is to have a briefing at a sensible period of low workload, in which the crew openly and cooperatively discuss the approach, the threats to be faced, the required performance of the aircraft, how the aircraft is to be operated and what modes/level of automation to be used, and a number of points or gates during the approach where the energy can be measured against the planned profile. These gates can then be used as decision points as to whether it is safe and sensible to continue the approach, or whether the configuration of the aircraft should be changed or extra track miles should be requested.

Ultimately, both pilots will ensure that at a bottom line, let's say 1000 agl, that if the aircraft is not on the centre line and prescribed glide path, with the speed stable and close to target and the engines at approach thrust - a go around shall be flown.

Some occupants of some aircraft flight decks may use different methods or no methods at all to achieve different outcomes.

Thanks Airbus, you have the nub of the matter right here. You describe what should happen in a well run airline and on a disciplined flight deck. SOPs are always very clear on gates and there are usually a few of them. Some are mandatory such as the 1000 RA or the 500 RA where if certain conditions are not met (basically the approach must be stable) then a GA must be flown. In a well known LCC the PNH can even instruct the Captain to "Go Around" if at 500 ft the plane is not fully configured for landing, on profile and at the correct speed. The Captain must respond with a GA. There are other gates such as the obvious one at 30 nm out at FL 100 at about 300 kts, which is the harbinger of things to come. If you are too high and fast at this point you need to start doing something and work at it until back in the slot. 10nm at 3000 at 210 kts to thereabouts is another really good one of course, but you do need to know your 3 x table. I have met some pilots who don't - and I am not making that up. So the question arises how did this plane end up the way it did? The CVR and FDR will reveal all, but will it be released in full? This is all very sad since like most crashes it appears to be completely avoidable if best practice we to have been applied. But we don't know yet of course and must await the CVR and FDR. All the best Ret'd Guy.

siropalomar

25th May 2020, 17:29

Anyone going on an A320 simulator soon? A friend of mine tried on his flight simulator to lower the gears above 260kt the gears remained up as expected and never came down when he slowed down below 260kt! Would be interesting to try it in a real FFS. In real Full Flight Simulators, if Lng Gear Down is selected with speed>260 kt, lng gear will remain retracted . Overspeed warning will trigger as long as speed remains above 260 too. When speed drops below 260, landing gear will come down, no need to recycle lng gear lever.

Flying_Scotsman

25th May 2020, 17:32

Hot, High, Fast.........Could it be someone on the flightdeck was a Maverick or had CRM issues that they selves were simply not aware of. Could it be a simple matter of having a perfectly serviceable aircraft destroyed to human error. Hot, High, Fast ? Distraction caused by being behind the aircraft leading to human error.

When I was wearing 'light blue', and first arriving at a hole in the ground as an investigator, it was very easy to ask "Why on earth did they do this or that?" However, what you have to ask is "With the situation they were in, and the information they had, why did they think what they were doing was correct?"

Mad (Flt) Scientist

25th May 2020, 17:52

In real Full Flight Simulators, if Lng Gear Down is selected with speed>260 kt, lng gear will remain retracted . Overspeed warning will trigger as long as speed remains above 260 too. When speed drops below 260, landing gear will come down, no need to recycle lng gear lever.

I would be very cautious in concluding anything about actual aircraft system behaviour, in an abnormal condition, from behaviour observed in a simulator whose intent is training not engineering investigation. The only way to know for sure what the system would do is to actually do it by test, the next best is a full-up engineering simulation. A FFS is a poor man's version of the latter when it comes to this kind of thing.

asdf1234

25th May 2020, 18:07

When I was wearing 'light blue', and first arriving at a hole in the ground as an investigator, it was very easy to ask "Why on earth did they do this or that?" However, what you have to ask is "With the situation they were in, and the information they had, why did they think what they were doing was correct?"
Well said. Safety is about advising others on how not to get into the pickle others did.

Airbubba

25th May 2020, 18:13

I would be very cautious in concluding anything about actual aircraft system behaviour, in an abnormal condition, from behaviour observed in a simulator whose intent is training not engineering investigation.

Amen to that one. Years ago there was a departure out of EWR with a conditional waypoint that somehow cancelled the speed limit below 10,000 feet. We were getting line checked and I mentioned in the pre-takeoff brief that we might have to manually intervene. The check airman said that we must be using the automation incorrectly. It was a Boeing and we left it in LNAV and VNAV for the departure and as soon as we hit the waypoint the speed bug went to the barber pole. 'It sure doesn't do that in the simulator!' was the check airman's comment.

Schnowzer

25th May 2020, 18:15

DaveReidUK

25th May 2020, 18:19

I would be very cautious in concluding anything about actual aircraft system behaviour, in an abnormal condition, from behaviour observed in a simulator whose intent is training not engineering investigation. The only way to know for sure what the system would do is to actually do it by test, the next best is a full-up engineering simulation. A FFS is a poor man's version of the latter when it comes to this kind of thing.

Is there not a presumption that, regardless of how a FFS might behave, the real aircraft will act as described in the FCOM ? The latter makes it clear that, with the gear selected down, the only thing that prevents hydraulic pressure extending the gear is IAS of 260 kts or more.

42go

25th May 2020, 18:24

Sorted it for you, Dave:
The latter makes it clear that, with the gear selected down, the only thing that prevents hydraulic pressure extending the gear is an electronic input of IAS of 260 kts or more.

With computers, that could be relevant!

Georg1na

25th May 2020, 18:35

DaveReidUK

25th May 2020, 18:36

The latter makes it clear that, with the gear selected down, the only thing that prevents hydraulic pressure extending the gear is an electronic input of IAS of 260 kts or more.

Well yes, it's generally understood that the inputs to an AND logic gate are electronic.

I suppose we ought to add the possibility that the IAS inputs (from both ADR1 and ADR3) were corrupted to the list of progressively less likely, though theoretically possible, reasons why they landed with the gear up.

Now where did that Occam's Razor go ?

James7

25th May 2020, 18:39

Likely scenario. The PNF also a captain called go around and started to configure the aircraft, i.e gear up. The PNF (Captain) not quite in the loop, fixated on landing, and eventually pulled up, most likely after a lot of shouting. Unfortunately too late and contact made. Will be interesting to hear the CVR.

siropalomar

25th May 2020, 18:41

Good point, I fully agree. In a couple of months we’ll get a preliminary report with info about CVR and FDR readings.

Capt Scribble

25th May 2020, 18:43

Gorgina, if you touch down on the engine pods, the grating of metal on tarmac will bring you to a stop pretty quickly and no need to waste fuel on the reverse thrust. The money saved can go towards a new plane.

ORAC

25th May 2020, 18:43

But I would like to know if you had touched down on your engine pods - and realised it quickly - would going to reverse thrust have stopped the beast?
With the pods being on the ground I think the reverse thrust would have difficulty deploying - but the drag would more than compensate.

Georg1na

25th May 2020, 18:46

Thank you for that - so the best course of action would have been to chop the engines and hold on tight?

Airbubba

25th May 2020, 18:46

Ian at FlightRadar24 has harvested some indicated airspeed data from the extended Mode-S data fields:

Additional Extended Mode S data decodedFlightradar24 has now retrieved and processed extended Mode S data from individual receivers in the area. Unlike ADS-B data, which always contains the same known data points, Extended Mode S may contain data from a variety of fields like aircraft identification, meteorological data, heading, speed, and others. The data sent varies based on the fields requested by the Secondary Surveillance Radar ground stations used by air traffic control.

The data sent via Extended Mode S does not include the Binary Data Selector (BDS) identifying the type of data. Flightradar24 interprets this data using advanced scripts and historical comparative data, but there may be errors in individual frames due to misinterpreted data fields. Overall trends in the data are correct as reported. We have included the raw data, downloadable below.

Included in much of the Extended Mode S data sent by PK8303 were data on Indicated airspeed. The below graph shows the aircraft’s calibrated altitude and Indicated airspeed from 10,000 feet to the final data received.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1408x959/pk8303_altitude_and_ias_f567e92fd3cf3d529d00580974f12f192e3a 7420.png

This altitude plot agrees nicely with the ones previously posted in this thread.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1407x958/pk8303_calibrated_and_corrected_altitude_f5d119fd67743041773 5101a1fd4b9eb4fac1f95.png

https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/pakistan-international-airlines-flight-8303-crashes-near-karachi/

siropalomar

25th May 2020, 18:56

Now I have to admit at this stage that I have never flown an airliner.

But I would like to know if you had touched down on your engine pods - and realised it quickly - would going to reverse thrust have stopped the beast?
That would depend on touchdown point ( in this case well past the runway threshold, around 4500 ft past, out of a total length of 11000), touchdown speed (presumably quite high) and breaking capacity ( no wheels, just the engine nacelles scraping the asphalt- probably deteriorating very fast, probably unable to deploy reversers). I’m quite sure deceleration seem very poor to the pilot, so his arse was yelling “go around or you’ll depart the end of the runway at a high speed and no control”

Milvus Milvus

25th May 2020, 19:16

That looks like 210kts touchdown ! Unbelievable...

Dan_Brown

25th May 2020, 19:21

The A380 and I believe the 320 has an airspeed input into the LGCIU that prevents extension at high speed. In the 380 it’s 280kts, can’t remember the 320.

As to what they were thinking. Nothing. They had pressonitis which then overloaded their cognitive functions. The big question is why the PM didn’t intervene earlier in the error chain. With the time of year and the airlines culture, I think we know the answer to that one.

Careful...

The real problem in certain parts of the world and certain cultures, people are not selected on merit!!

Nepotism raises it's ugly head in all countries of course, somewhere along the line. There are other countries where nepotism is rife.

being in the know has it's advantages of course but does it weed out the undersirea6ble candidate?? I say not always.

MPN11

25th May 2020, 19:23

That looks like 210kts touchdown ! Unbelievable...
I was going to say “arrival”, but yes, the almost inevitable end product of everything we have seen/heard all the way down from cruising FL.

Airbubba

25th May 2020, 19:25

The Airbus team is on the way to Karachi for the investigation.

PIA plane crash: Airbus team to arrive in Karachi today for investigationKARACHI: The team of renowned plane manufacturing company, Airbus, will arrive in the southern port city on Monday to investigate the recent crash of one of its own manufactured aircraft.

The Pakistan International Airlines plane crashed into a narrow residential street in Karachi on Friday, dealing significant damage to houses in a densely-populated area. Of the 99 people aboard, 97 were killed and only two passengers survived.

Airbus will run an independent investigation into the plausible reasons for the crash, which reportedly happened due to an engine failure.

Due to the arrival of the Airbus team, the transfer of objects from the site of the incident has been halted.

In an earlier letter, the Airbus team said that they do not have any conclusive details regarding the crash.

Pakistan International Airlines and Air France will also assist the plane manufacturer in the investigation.

https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/663397-pia-plane-crash-airbus-team-to-arrive-in-karachi-today-for-investigation

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1235x739/aib1888_10dc16482e207dcfa96e1f74a24c9c658d27c781.jpg

clark y

25th May 2020, 19:32

Georg1na answer to your last question, I would say yes.

There is one other situation where manufacturers state to do what you have asked, once reverses are selected, do not go around.

atakacs

25th May 2020, 19:32

Interresting choice of equipment for the team

SquintyMagoo

25th May 2020, 19:40

It's not a prelim, rather a 20 page PDF document put together by an insider of PIA stating a number of grievances and also pass accidents where management failed to respond to the lessons learned with the appropriate response.

You will find it shared on whatsapp

Multiple news sources quote a PCAA document, such as, "according to an earlier report, prepared by the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA)..." While this doesn't sound like a grievance document from PIA, perhaps they are all just quoting each other.

And now they are all quoting an apparent report from air traffic control, "according to a report from air traffic control..."

Dan_Brown

25th May 2020, 19:44

Faint hope!
Have we yet had CVR from either of the 737 MAX accidents?
Sadly the sort of nations we are dealing with regard loss of face as paramount importance, thus anything self-incriminating - as both of those tapes must be, won't see the light of day.
So with Pakistan's National airline, one of their 'most experienced' pilots flying and this cluster ****, what hope of transparency I wonder? Well - I don't wonder for long actually. Barely a second or so...
Just being realistic!

Agree.

This is one way we learn. That is by the mistakes of others. If we are deprived of any of the information, gleaned from an investigation, we ALL loose out.

By with holding this information says a lot for the lack of safety culture of these countries.

Learn from the mistakes of others. This we must always try to achieve.

DaveReidUK

25th May 2020, 19:47

Ian at FlightRadar24 has harvested some indicated airspeed data from the extended Mode-S data fields

Interesting - that will certainly warrant further analysis.

One word of caution - the data from the 14 different receivers isn't synchronised, as they all seem to be running different clocks, hence there is a lot of spurious jitter when you try to plot timeseries. So you get, for example, TAS jumping from 374 kts to 400 kts with timestamps only half a second apart.

But that's not an insurmountable problem, it should be possible to deduce the relative time offsets that should be applied to the data from respective receivers and produce a more accurate plot.

ZAGORFLY

25th May 2020, 20:12

agree, we should respect these lives voices abrubtly severed in a common uneventful friday.

BSD

25th May 2020, 20:21

Georgina's question:

But I would like to know if you had touched down on your engine pods - and realised it quickly - would going to reverse thrust have stopped the beast?

I've not flown an Airbus, but I'd be very surprised if you didn't need the "weight-on-wheels" switch (air/ground logic) to be made before the reverse will deploy, most lilkely also thrust levers at idle. That switch would be on the wheels and hence not available in a gear-up touchdown.

Revert to previous advice - "close the thrust levers and hang on!"

ZAGORFLY

25th May 2020, 20:22

I fly A330, been flying A320 too. FCOM states literally what you state. Type rating Instructors tell me that during simulator sessions Landing gear will come down when speed falls below 260 kt , no need to recycle Lng Gear lever. In that case, if they landed with gear retracted, it means they simply didn’t select Gear down. Obviously plenty of aural warnings (“too low gear, too low gear”) and ECAM Warning “landing gear not down” up to the moment they struck the runway. That is what we call “tunnel vision”, pilots exclusively centred on getting the plane on the runway, disregarding everything else. Let’s wait for the voice recorders reading, maybe the copilot was yelling “we’re too fast, too high, or please go around” all the way down. It’s happened before.
absolutely right Siropalomar. in these situation (behind the plane) a training Captain told me that you forgot also your name and do not hear anything else. Tragic and true. we will know soon (CVR ) "low gear" "low gear" !!

Mad (Flt) Scientist

25th May 2020, 20:26

Is there not a presumption that, regardless of how a FFS might behave, the real aircraft will act as described in the FCOM ? The latter makes it clear that, with the gear selected down, the only thing that prevents hydraulic pressure extending the gear is IAS of 260 kts or more.

With the best will in the world, the FCOM (or any other document, or group of documents even) cannot be a complete or perfect description of an aircraft's systems. There can be subtleties in any unusual condition which can make the necessarily general statements in something like an FCOM inapplicable, never mind that people can make minor errors in phrasing which might not be apparent except in an "edge case". Once you also get into the possibility of a non-normal condition, the FCOM description is a starting point but by no means the final word. Compare, for example, the amount of pages in an FCOM dealing with a given system to the number of pages in the full certification data set for that same system, and it's clear that there have to be things omitted or simplified.

That's not to say that I believe either the FCOM-described or FFS-experienced behaviour to be not representative - I just do not know that it necessarily is. And I would hope that if something like this behaviour is deemed potentially causal, or part of the "chain", that it would actually be verified by test (assuming test data doesn't actually already exist, of course)

FullWings

25th May 2020, 20:59

As others have said, this accident is looking increasingly bizarre.

Yes, cognitive overload; yes, distraction; yes task fixation, but at some point self-preservation has to kick in, surely? Before they hit the ground the first time, it appears that the aircraft was serviceable, albeit on the receiving end of a bit of a beating. The report and CVR transcripts will be fascinating, although will there actually be anything to learn...?

retired guy

25th May 2020, 22:20

Now I have to admit at this stage that I have never flown an airliner.

But I would like to know if you had touched down on your engine pods - and realised it quickly - would going to reverse thrust have stopped the beast?
Georgina
You won’t get reverse with no gear. But it’s a bit academic. Reverse was probably wrecked by the impact on the engines. If they had simply let it slide to a halt someone will one day work out that it would have gone off the end at 30’kts with little damage and no Loss of life. Or something like that. But they didn’t have a lot of time to ponder that one I suspect. If you are so overloaded as to land halfway down the runway with the gear up at high speed, I suggest that there wasn’t a lot of thinking space left?
The main issue here is why did the Crew of the plane not observe the landing gates which are there to force a go around long before it becomes a crash. Been an SOP for years and in well run airlines it’s mandatory and there’s a no blame culture for executing a go around at any stage when the approach is becoming too unstable to safely continue. Cheers Ret’d Guy

unworry

25th May 2020, 23:02

Ian at FlightRadar24 has harvested some indicated airspeed data from the extended Mode-S data fields:

This altitude plot agrees nicely with the ones previously posted in this thread.

https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/pakistan-international-airlines-flight-8303-crashes-near-karachi/

Thanks again Airbubba

took the liberty of highlighting a couple of key areas below, although it's comes as no surprise to most here.

Based on the FR24 CSV data
- (best approximation, due to periodicity and latency of recorded data)
-

251 IAS out of FL100
240 during descent, give or take
236 IAS at 2,000'
~215 IAS on tarmac, skipping down to 191 IAS
recording a minimum of 173 IAS, 200' AGL into the GA

https://i.imgur.com/TQPbjjk.png

gearlever

25th May 2020, 23:22

With the best will in the world, the FCOM (or any other document, or group of documents even) cannot be a complete or perfect description of an aircraft's systems. There can be subtleties in any unusual condition which can make the necessarily general statements in something like an FCOM inapplicable, never mind that people can make minor errors in phrasing which might not be apparent except in an "edge case". Once you also get into the possibility of a non-normal condition, the FCOM description is a starting point but by no means the final word. Compare, for example, the amount of pages in an FCOM dealing with a given system to the number of pages in the full certification data set for that same system, and it's clear that there have to be things omitted or simplified.

That's not to say that I believe either the FCOM-described or FFS-experienced behaviour to be not representative - I just do not know that it necessarily is. And I would hope that if something like this behaviour is deemed potentially causal, or part of the "chain", that it would actually be verified by test (assuming test data doesn't actually already exist, of course)

Come on guys. Select the G/L down on your next flight at 280 kts, decelerate below 260 kts and wait for the dunlops.

Lonewolf_50

25th May 2020, 23:55

Come on guys. Select the G/L down on your next flight at 280 kts, decelerate below 260 kts and wait for the dunlops. And then wait, without hope, for biscuits with that cup of tea when one next has a meeting with the chief pilot. I will venture a guess here: most companies have monitoring programs in place such that a gear extension at greater than the usual airspeed will attract some (unwanted) attention.

gulfstream650

26th May 2020, 00:05

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.

Another logical assumption emerged by a A320 pilot:
There was no issue of L/Gs, L/Gs were down during 1st attempt.
G/A was opted to avoid runway overshoot due to high altitude approach leading the acft to 4500 ft from threshold.
Now this is the catch:- Probably Flaps selection to position 3 from 4 and Gears Up selection was too early while engines still spooling up from approach Idle to TOGA,.
Too early retraction of Flaps caused loss of lift and acft sank while the Gears already retracted up and engines dragged along the runway 3 times( as witnessed on runway)
First mark : Eng 1
2nd mark: Eng 2
3rd mark: Both engines
Acft climbed with struggling engines to 3000 ft but couldn't hold the Alt and ATC warned the crew about this and crew asked for 2000 ft but due to complete loss of power acft kept on descending and crashed on to residential area.
Pic taken by plane spotter shows dragged engines with black marks and RAT auto deployed due to dual eng failure( AC Bus 1 & 2 being dead ).
Having lost G&B Hyd crew extended the Gears by Manual Gravity Extension, L/Gs extended can be seen in the video just before crash.
Aircraft was still maneourable as Flt Control being supplied by Blue Hyd circuit pressurised by RAT and Flight Control computers by Emergency Generator but no power to keep the acft up.

Toruk Macto

26th May 2020, 00:12

Human factors and may not be relevant here . In some countries there are ex military captains who where very high ranking officers while in the military, they still have many connections . The ATC officer might be a military employee . ATC can be very weary of being to forthright over the radio as a bit worried what might come back at them .

Airbubba

26th May 2020, 00:38

Come on guys. Select the G/L down on your next flight at 280 kts, decelerate below 260 kts and wait for the dunlops.

And then go home and wait for a call from the Safety folks when they see the FOQA/QAR data. ;)

That looks like 210kts touchdown ! Unbelievable...

I watched one of those Takbir One arrivals while I was on the ground at DXB waiting for pax boarding years ago. The controller repeatedly mentioned that the plane was high on path and offered vectors for another try. The plane touched down halfway down the runway but it was a long runway on a clear day so they got it stopped.

After landing the plane taxied to a stand. The pax got out and some, instead of heading for Dubai Duty Free, consulted each other for the Qibla and said a prayer on the ramp. And then they headed for Duty Free I would imagine.

The expat controller in the tower said 'glad you were able to get it on the ground'. The captain pitched a fit on the radio demanding 'explain comment, explain comment!'

This crash is exact replica of AirIndia Express B737crash on the same date ten years ago in Mangalore India.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/970x667/india_crash_4afb9731df06d0432fd0d29436cb1b9b5ed90df0.jpg

Very similar in some respects. Total disregard for the proper approach profile and stable approach criteria. The FO called for a go around at least three times. They crossed the marker at over 4000 feet and touched down 5200 feet down an 8000 foot runway. They attempted a go around after deploying the thrust reversers with 800 feet of runway remaining.

The CVR had the expat captain snoring for an hour and forty minutes before top of descent. The NTSB might blame the crash on sleep apnea these days, they analyzed the data from a pilot's CPAP machine in one recent report.

I'd like to think this sort of approach is becoming less acceptable in some parts of the world.

krismiler

26th May 2020, 00:56

Without weight on wheels the ground spoilers won't deploy, as well as not having reverse thrust, wheel brakes or drag from the landing gear. Floating along at high speed in ground effect just above the runway there would have been little cause for the aircraft to slow down until the cowlings scraped the pavement, which was well down the runway. Do we have an indication of the flap setting on the first attempt as 236 kts (at 2000') is over limit for any flap stage ?

215 kts at touchdown is well in excess of the limit just for FLAPS 2 and when configuring in the air FLAPS 1 gives slats only, no trailing edge surfaces extend. With the engines being bumped up to approach idle, the first stage has very little effect on slowing down and is often more use in allowing greater speed brake extension due to a reduction in VLS.

Standard method for configuring an A320 for landing which I would give to a new F/O on the "do this and you won't get into trouble basis", with the appropriate speeds used. Some airlines may require the aircraft to be fully configured earlier, and some pilots might be happy to push it a bit further but this is pretty acceptable for general use.

3000' AGL FLAPS - 1
2500' AGL FLAPS - 2
2000' AGL GEAR DOWN - FLAPS 3
+ 1500' AGL FLAPS - FULL

Lonewolf_50

26th May 2020, 01:03

Lonewolf_50

26th May 2020, 01:06

The CVR had the expat captain snoring for an hour and forty minutes before top of descent. The NTSB might blame the crash on sleep apnea these days, they analyzed the data from a pilot's CPAP machine in one recent report.

I'd like to think this sort of approach is becoming less acceptable in some parts of the world.What, catching forty winks to make up for the fatigue-generation methods of the average ops department and crew scheduling practices? (I kid) :8

gulfstream650

26th May 2020, 01:06

Georgina
You won’t get reverse with no gear. But it’s a bit academic. Reverse was probably wrecked by the impact on the engines. If they had simply let it slide to a halt someone will one day work out that it would have gone off the end at 30’kts with little damage and no Loss of life. Or something like that. But they didn’t have a lot of time to ponder that one I suspect. If you are so overloaded as to land halfway down the runway with the gear up at high speed, I suggest that there wasn’t a lot of thinking space left?
The main issue here is why did the Crew of the plane not observe the landing gates which are there to force a go around long before it becomes a crash. Been an SOP for years and in well run airlines it’s mandatory and there’s a no blame culture for executing a go around at any stage when the approach is becoming too unstable to safely continue. Cheers Ret’d Guy
Another logical assumption emerged by a A320 pilot:
There was no issue of L/Gs, L/Gs were down during 1st attempt.
G/A was opted to avoid runway overshoot due to high altitude approach leading the acft to 4500 ft from threshold.
Now this is the catch:- Probably Flaps selection to position 3 from 4 and Gears Up selection was too early while engines still spooling up from approach Idle to TOGA,.
Too early retraction of Flaps caused loss of lift and acft sank while the Gears already retracted up and engines dragged along the runway 3 times( as witnessed on runway)
First mark : Eng 1
2nd mark: Eng 2
3rd mark: Both engines
Acft climbed with struggling engines to 3000 ft but couldn't hold the Alt and ATC warned the crew about this and crew asked for 2000 ft but due to complete loss of power acft kept on descending and crashed on to residential area.
Pic taken by plane spotter shows dragged engines with black marks and RAT auto deployed due to dual eng failure( AC Bus 1 & 2 being dead ).
Having lost G&B Hyd crew extended the Gears by Manual Gravity Extension, L/Gs extended can be seen in the video just before crash.
Aircraft was still maneourable as Flt Control being supplied by Blue Hyd circuit pressurised by RAT and Flight Control computers by Emergency Generator but no power to keep the acft up.

ExSp33db1rd

26th May 2020, 01:29

When an explanation was demanded of him, the pilot said "Well I couldn't think straight! There was this horn that was blasting in my ear."

Wasn't there a CFIT accident when the last thing heard on the CVR was the sound of the warning horn and the Captain saying " Shut up, Gringo" as he cancelled the horn ?

https://www.avcom.co.za/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=55384

Airbubba

26th May 2020, 01:41

Wasn't there a CFIT accident when the last thing heard on the CVR was the sound of the warning horn and the Captain saying " Shut up, Gringo" as he cancelled the horn ?

https://www.avcom.co.za/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=55384

From a post I made a decade ago:

The accident usually associated with the 'shut up gringo!' call is Avianca 11 operating CDG-MAD on November 27, 1983.

However, the published CVR transcript has no mention of the legendary last words:

http://www.fomento.es/NR/rdonlyres/D53C568D-2A84-490B-BEE0-9EC81EE287C4/8766/Anexo_A.pdf

Another CFIT accident sometimes claimed to have the exclamation was Avianca 410 CUC-CTG on March 17, 1988. It was a 727 doing a high speed climb into the haze in mountainous terrain, with the FO flying and the captain chatting over his shoulder with a jumpseat rider.

I first recall hearing about this callout a couple of decades ago at the Pan Am training center in MIA. PAA trained Avianca's 747 and 727 crews in those days I believe.

ldo

26th May 2020, 02:39

unworry

26th May 2020, 03:37

Wouldn't 210->192 KIAS over the runway provide enough energy to prevent ground contact even though the engines had not fully spooled up at the time? The airspeed information seems to point more to a gear up landing than a failed GA (unless the PF failed to pitch up enough during the GA).

The Rate of descent in the moments before they decked appears in excess of -500 fpm.

The final 30 sec segment down to flare alt equates to a rate of -1200 fpm. Approximation of course, but in keeping with the profile.

ozbiggles

26th May 2020, 04:48

I don’t know if this will turn out to be the worst ever approach, but it is going to make the top 10.

Capt Kremin

26th May 2020, 05:13

Most probable:

Unstable approach due in part from lack of recency.

Gear was down.

CRC warnings were from flap overspeeds.

Improper go around. Selecting Flex/MCT instead of TOGA/GA or TOGA Tap. Recency issue again.

Gear selected up as aircraft was still pointing towards the runway.

Two impacts due to skip. TOGA finally selected or manual raising of the nose for go around.

Both engines fail on downwind due impact damage.

Its almost happened before.

krismiler

26th May 2020, 05:55

I don’t know if this will turn out to be the worst ever approach, but it is going to make the top 10.

I would be shocked to see a performance like this from a 200 hour first officer doing initial type rating training in the simulator, let alone two Captains in the aircraft. Any trainee who did this would be instantly flagged for closer investigation, the debriefing afterwards would be very interesting and likely to involve senior personnel from the training department.

Any instructor has had students mess things up with alarms going off, but anyone with a bare CPL should have known that continuing wasn't a good option.

Superpilot

26th May 2020, 06:06

Where is this assumption about two Captains coming from? A local news station has given the names. It was a normal crew pairing.

Airbubba

26th May 2020, 06:25

It might be a while before we see an accident report according to this editorial in the local paper The Dawn:

The plane crash must be investigated in a transparent manner so the findings are credible and provide the families the most definitive answer possible as to why their loved ones died. However, eyebrows are already being raised over the composition of the team formed by the government to probe the disaster with oversight from the Special Investigation Board. Of the four members that have been named, three belong to the air force. The CEO of PIA happens to be Air Marshal Arshad Mahmood Malik; the PAF officers on the committee are all junior to him in rank. Surely there are worthy civilians who could acquit themselves equally well in their task and whose objectivity, or deference to a senior air force officer, would not be an issue?

The pilots’ association has also asked that it, and international aviation bodies, be involved in the probe. Independent plane crash investigation bodies worldwide usually do include airline pilots and co-opt personnel from the relevant aircraft manufacturer. Doubts about how the inquiry into the crash of PK-8303 will unfold are not misplaced.

After all, it has been nearly four years since another PIA flight, PK-661, crashed en route to Islamabad from Chitral. Yet the SIB has still not released its final report that explains why 48 people had their lives cut short that day.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2020

EDLB

26th May 2020, 06:34

, although will there actually be anything to learn...?

There is always a lot to learn. The more interesting part will be the first few holes of that cheese. What was their set of mind at FL350 to even try this? They started their descend late, but why keep an impossible straight path? What was the mindset behind this? Why did CRM not prevent this decision making process?

I doubt that you make it with this decision making to 17000h, so what was different this time?

henra

26th May 2020, 07:36

Another logical assumption emerged by a A320 pilot:
There was no issue of L/Gs, L/Gs were down during 1st attempt.
G/A was opted to avoid runway overshoot due to high altitude approach leading the acft to 4500 ft from threshold.
Now this is the catch:- Probably Flaps selection to position 3 from 4 and Gears Up selection was too early while engines still spooling up from approach Idle to TOGA,.
Too early retraction of Flaps caused loss of lift and acft sank while the Gears already retracted up and engines dragged along the runway 3 times( as witnessed on runway)

Have you seen the speeds in the above charts? At 220 kts there will be no sink if you pull that nice little handle on the side panel (not with flaps in 3,2,1, or clean). That's so much energy that you don't need the engines at that moment to gain altitude. It's a mere question of where you point your nose....
(At 220 kts that would be sufficient to gain >2000ft until down to 130kts, assuming a glide ratio of 8 - 10)
The only little catch hindering you from leaviong the runway again might be the nose down momentum from the drag of the pods scratching the tarmac being significantly below your cg. That is where the engines might help you getting unstuck again. But for preventing contact with Terra Firma you wouldn't have needed them in that situation.

DaveReidUK

26th May 2020, 07:56

DaveJ75

26th May 2020, 08:21

Unless I've missed something, no evidence has emerged yet that confirms the gear was lowered at all on the first approach.

Quite. Or indeed the original serviceability state of the aircraft.

Fatjetpilot

26th May 2020, 08:46

Where is this assumption about two Captains coming from? A local news station has given the names. It was a normal crew pairing.
I noticed exactly where. Many posts ago oribably on day one someone just threw it in as a question. The post literally read "Two captains?". It's incredible how quickly it got traction as a new piece of information. Fascinating to watch.

FullWings

26th May 2020, 08:49

There is always a lot to learn. The more interesting part will be the first few holes of that cheese. What was their set of mind at FL350 to even try this? They started their descend late, but why keep an impossible straight path? What was the mindset behind this? Why did CRM not prevent this decision making process?

I doubt that you make it with this decision making to 17000h, so what was different this time?
Oh yes, I’m sure it will be *interesting* but will there much useful info to take away and make your own operation safer? Don’t both have the prawn salad? It seems so far away from normal (or abnormal) procedure that incapacitation of some sort seems a possibility. If it isn’t and it turns out to be a totally misjudged approach with no CRM input, then “don’t bounce the aircraft off the runway at 215kts with the gear up” isn’t something I’m going to write in my diary and underline...

Magplug

26th May 2020, 09:23

Unless I've missed something, no evidence has emerged yet that confirms the gear was lowered at all on the first approach.

My money says the FDR will show the aircraft to have been entirely serviceable up to the point where the engines first scraped the runway. We can however expect no end of 'Smoke & Mirrors' from the airline and government authorities in pursuit of 'No fault here' and 'We are a safe airline'. What is for sure is that they will go after the last man standing..... That will probably be the Head of training or Chief Pilot or whoever they can attach the slightest blame to. It's just the way it works there......

EDLB

26th May 2020, 09:45

then “don’t bounce the aircraft off the runway at 215kts with the gear up” isn’t something I’m going to write in my diary and underline...
That is one thing to take away. If you bounce the donks on the ground, they might be good for a minute or two but not for a full pattern. Don‘t think, that this was tested before.

PIA will be back on the European black list quick, if this investigation becomes botched. There is a lot of evidence and some survivors out there, so it will be difficult to make up stuff and get away with it.

henra

26th May 2020, 09:51

That is one thing to take away. If you bounce the donks on the ground, they might be good for a minute or two but not for a full pattern. Don‘t think, that this was tested before.

This was tested before with pretty much the same survival time of the engines. 90s.
We seem to find volunteers for all imaginable and also for the unimaginable mishap scenarios.
In 2018 Smartlynx managed to perform this test on a training flight. At least they were cautious enough to make an immediate return to the runway they scratched and came only slightly short and touched down a bit hard..
https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20180228-0

Icelanta

26th May 2020, 10:00

Guys, when hot and high, first thing to do is put the bloody gear down! It IS the best speedbrake, and is certified to be lowered up to quite high speeds, and safely so.
It is NOT Cowboy practice, it is using your available instruments to become esablished in a safe way, also called Airmanship.

That these guys did not put the gear down when being so hot and high beggars belief. And they were both Captains??!

Check Airman

26th May 2020, 10:07

What is for sure is that they will go after the last man standing..... That will probably be the Head of training or Chief Pilot or whoever they can attach the slightest blame to. It's just the way it works there......

Not substantially different here either...

andrasz

26th May 2020, 10:52

Where is this assumption about two Captains coming from? A local news station has given the names. It was a normal crew pairing.
It was mentioned as an unconfirmed rumor a few hundred posts back.

Dan_Brown

26th May 2020, 11:01

Be very wary of reading any articles out of India and Pakistan on this matter, the two countries despise each other and are basically at war, so its unlikely much will be factual.

Someone mentioned the airline involved, maybe blacklisted from European skies. Don't put money on that or hold your breath.

DType

26th May 2020, 11:07

Well, I guess that >200 knots explains why there was no evidence of a tail strike (which had been puzzling me).

freshgasflow

26th May 2020, 11:18

With main landing gear down, is it possible to scrape both cowlings even with a very very hard landing ? Would it at least burst the tyres, if not damage the gear ? And if so, would there be very deep tyre marks on the runway surface?
Finally if gears were retracted prematurely during go around, can the hydraulics of the gear mechanism do so even when there is weight on the wheels ? Thank you.

Toruk Macto

26th May 2020, 11:29

retired guy

26th May 2020, 12:13

Wasn't there a CFIT accident when the last thing heard on the CVR was the sound of the warning horn and the Captain saying " Shut up, Gringo" as he cancelled the horn ?

https://www.avcom.co.za/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=55384
Hi ex Sp
it was an early GPWS “pull up pull up” followed by “shut up gringo” followed by ....” end of recording “!

andrasz

26th May 2020, 12:18

With main landing gear down, is it possible to scrape both cowlings even with a very very hard landing ?

In short, no. Maximum oleo compression will still give plenty of clearance.

retired guy

26th May 2020, 12:20

Has anyone tried this in a sim ? 3500 ft say 200 knots at 5 miles . With gear up ? Flap 3 or full flap ? I’ve never tried but my gut tells me it would be hard to get near the threshold .
it’s got that feeling of “ hold my beer “ ?
Toruk. Done it for real. A few times in a long career. Just got into too high and fast through nobody’s fault. Circumstances. No sweat at all. GA with circuit to land or 360 on finals (quieter airports) or vectors for second approach. All very leisurely really. But to answer your question, sim or no sim you see what happens if you “try it”. Throw it away and learn as with all errors that occur. Hope that’s helpful?
Ret’d Guy

Toruk Macto

26th May 2020, 12:30

Toruk. Done it for real. A few times in a long career. Just got into too high and fast through nobody’s fault. Circumstances. No sweat at all. GA with circuit to land or 360 on finals (quieter airports) or vectors for second approach. All very leisurely really. But to answer your question, sim or no sim you see what happens if you “try it”. Throw it away and learn as with all errors that occur. Hope that’s helps
Ret’d Guy
We all been there and that’s good advice
I’m interested if it can be physically done ? 250 knots from 5 miles at that altitude , with gear up will a 320 actually get anywhere near the threshold ? If not then the gear must have been down at some stage, in my opinion only .

Joejosh999

26th May 2020, 13:27

On the NWest overfly of MSP I think the flight crew said they’d become too distracted by their iPads. IIRC the skinny was the flight attendants woke them up lol.

Airbubba

26th May 2020, 14:16

The AIB A330 flight is heading for Toulouse. No goodies for the BEA?

They were filed for Le Bourget and diverted to Toulouse approaching Genoa. An interesting change of plans. :confused:

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1763x925/f_wwto_f85feb7134984e349a07414ef13ba11606644f0c.jpg

Joejosh999

26th May 2020, 14:19

You do have to wonder, if they’d tear dropped, and/or left the gear up, might they have gotten down more or less in one piece.

Seat4A

26th May 2020, 14:38

A couple of short video clips in this article that I had not seen in other media

Crash d’un A320 à Karachi. Des enquêteurs du BEA français se rendent au Pakistan

https://www.ouest-france.fr/monde/pakistan/crash-d-un-a320-karachi-des-enqueteurs-du-bea-francais-se-rendent-au-pakistan-6846075

And

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1283x727/1b_f3a2e9de9ea9a6f1c2f5a60f64630fa051741286.png

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1285x722/1b1_66a642d27e5987cfed91ddd17b303d71b9c43c4b.png

Source

https://twitter.com/breakingavnews/status/1265265602274439169

procede

26th May 2020, 14:43

They were filed for Le Bourget and diverted to Toulouse approaching Genoa. An interesting change of plans.

It could be that le Bourget was not open for an aircraft this size, due to limited firefighting capacity. They'll probably now transport the CVR and FDR by road.

henra

26th May 2020, 14:50

You do have to wonder, if they’d tear dropped, and/or left the gear up, might they have gotten down more or less in one piece.
A teardrop maneuver might have been the ticket to a possible survival in this case. Gear up is a good question. Dpends also when they did extend it. If it was down during the whole circuit it could have made a difference same as config and speed. Best glide speed clean vs. flaps 3 and gear down at 150kts will lead to a significant change in glide ratio. But that is a moot point. Don't smash the donks in the first place. Otherwise you're purely down to luck and minute details which could be easily figured out in hindisght from the comfort of your armchair...

krismiler

26th May 2020, 15:11

Based on this video and we don't know how representative it is, FLAPS 3 was used for the approach and TOGA/GA TRACK only appears at around 500' during the climb out.

Capt Scribble

26th May 2020, 15:14

No one with any airline experience needs an altimeter with needles to tell them they are way out of the groove if they are at 5nm at 3500ft. Given that it appears they were at 210kts or so, even throwing an orbit would have left them hard pressed. Maybe a subtle incapacitation, but what of PM.

Wannabe Flyer

26th May 2020, 15:26

You do have to wonder, if they’d tear dropped, and/or left the gear up, might they have gotten down more or less in one piece.

Or carried on 3 more miles to the PAF base on the same heading!

Rapid D

26th May 2020, 15:35

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.

If you listen closely, ATC actually says turn left heading 180. The 280 in the text is not correct.

freshgasflow

26th May 2020, 15:51

Has anyone analysed previous approaches to this aerodrome by PIA flights on Flight radar 24 ? Perhaps it may show that the airline is quite accepting of un stabilised / super steep approaches ?

vilas

26th May 2020, 15:55

If you listen closely, ATC actually says turn left heading 180. The 280 in the text is not correct.
ATC was trying to vector them to give space as they were high. But they said they are already established. It could be a case of false glideslope because while ATC was very uncomfortable with their position pilots were totally at ease. Similar thing happened in AI Express crash at Mangalore India.

Airbubba

26th May 2020, 16:05

It could be that le Bourget was not open for an aircraft this size, due to limited firefighting capacity. They'll probably now transport the CVR and FDR by road.

Sounds plausible. Could it be one of those paperwork problems discovered enroute? Maybe the A358 is a new type and not yet listed in some document authorizing the operations at LFPG. Did they book this as a test flight TLS-KHI-TLS and weren't able to get the change of destination signed off in time?

Airbubba

26th May 2020, 16:08

I'm not completely sure that the logic for overspeed has priority over the LDG GEAR warning. May be someone can chime in for that one?

Is the pun about the aural warning intentional?

Rapid D

26th May 2020, 16:15

masalama

26th May 2020, 16:36

ATC was trying to vector them to give space as they were high. But they said they are already established. It could be a case of false glideslope because while ATC was very uncomfortable with their position pilots were totally at ease. Similar thing happened in AI Express crash at Mangalore India.

There are some similarities wrt unstabilised approaches in both , but the aircraft was fully configured although way too fast triggering flap load relief and touchdown was more than half way down the runway on the gear in the AIE case .
Both these cases , the pilots seem to be out of the loop and decide to go around after the initial touchdown which in hindsight seems to have more of an effect on the lives lost ironically..
Also , the CVR in AIE showed the copilot announcing go-around but the captain continued and the copilot did not assert himself , the DGCA eventually came out with a circular on subtle incapacitation and the mangalore crash is often cited in CRM and pilot training modules at Indian carriers .

Let’s wait for the CVR/FDR data and investigation reports to get the HF info on the PIA crash . Sad day for aviation .

CaptainMongo

26th May 2020, 17:01

DaveReidUK

26th May 2020, 17:28

A very amateurish attempt at recreating the approach

For which they have wisely disabled comments.

misd-agin

26th May 2020, 17:34

If you're high and fast 'gear is your friend" when you're trying to manage your total energy from a 'too much' to a normal energy profile. Going 'downhill' at 210 kts, along with being high on the glideslope, the plane will not slow down, or at least not quickly, without gear.

NWA SLF

26th May 2020, 17:56

Dan_Brown

26th May 2020, 18:10

Without speculation where is the shared knowledge, the brainstorming, the "I never in the world would have thought of that", the fodder for some crazy movie? Would not one expect that engineers designing the next generation would be reading all of the speculative ideas which then might enter the FMEAs of the next gen? The master button that will light up indicating the airplane thinks you are doing something stupid, are you sure you want to do this knowing that I (the plane) think your actions may cause a crash? Press here to continue your foolish action for which you assume total responsibility.

Maybe time to get rid of the pilots. Or keep them in the cockpit but just monitor, or intervene when the automatics fail.

With the degree of automation in aircraft these days, coupled/interfaced with automatics minded pilots, i doubt this accident would have happened if it was left totally to the automatics. Put another way, the humans interfered and screwed it up, for reasons we are not aware.

Man is fast becoming the weak link. We all know we are not going to elimate human error. I'm a dinosaur but even i can see what's happening and what the trend is.

vilas

26th May 2020, 18:23

According to Pakistani media channel ARY ATC approach and tower controllers have given their statements. According to them pilots ignored their warnings at 10nm about being high and fast. Trying to manage that they forgot the gear and landed first time with gear up.

Out Of Trim

26th May 2020, 18:25

I understand and agree with you. I was replying to the comment that on an approach to RWY 25, a turn to 280 would be a right turn. ATC actually said "turn left to heading 180". Whoever wrote the text on the video got it wrong and wrote 280.

That being said, a significant turn like that after already having given approach clearance if just bizarre. Why didn't ATC just cancel approach clearance if they were (rightly so) concerned about the safety of continuing this approach?

I think the ATC vector 280 offered was on the first original approach as ATC observed they were hot and high! The turn left heading 180 was after the go-around.

silverstrata

26th May 2020, 18:37

It's not a simple question, because there is as yet no evidence as to whether the gear was or wasn't lowered at some stage. We can only infer that it wasn't down by the time the engines hit the runway.

Are those kind of descent rates possible on final approach, without the gear?
They went from 2000’ to 100’ in 1.4 minutes, while slowing down from 240 to 210 kts.
That is about 1500’/min, while slowing down.
I don’t think the ‘bus would do that, without some gear assistance.

Silver

vilas

26th May 2020, 18:37

Vilas,

Below is a link to an article, “Pitch-up Upsets due to ILS False Glide Slope.” Conducted by the Dutch safety Board.

IMC I could see a false 6 or 9 degree capture going unnoticed for a short period but VMC probably not.

regards,

https://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/en/media/attachment/2018/7/10/1083d1120d9crapport_pitch_up_en_interactief.pdf Thanks CM
Well while I would agree with you in general but strange things have happened also in VMC. Air India Hong Kong incident was in VMC the crew was specifically asked by ATC whether they are aware about GS fluctuation. And yet in 10km visibility the aircraft pitched down 2nm before FAP and descended at 2700ft/mt. then settling down at ROD of 2000ft/mt. The crew didn't notice a thing till at 300ft over the sea when the GPWS sounded they looked outside and went round. It was a narrow escape. So anything is possible.

henra

26th May 2020, 18:56

Are those kind of descent rates possible on final approach, without the gear?
They went from 2000’ to 100’ in 1.4 minutes, while slowing down from 240 to 210 kts.
That is about 1500’/min, while slowing down.
I don’t think the ‘bus would do that, without some gear assistance.

Hmm, with Flaps 3 that could probably be doable. Leaving decelleration aside that would be a glide ratio of 15. That's about what the Bus would do in clean config at that speed. With Slats and flaps 3 but gear up a decel from 240 to 210 (30% less energy = 30% more drag) with the same flight path doesn't seem unreasonable.

double_barrel

26th May 2020, 18:59

I think the ATC vector 280 offered was on the first original approach as ATC observed they were hot and high! The turn left heading 180 was after the go-around.

No. This was discussed a few 100 posts ago (#511). ATC proposed a left turn to 180 on the initial approach, but it was wrongly transcribed as 280 on the video.

Airbubba

26th May 2020, 19:00

From Dunya News in Pakistan:

Pilot of the crashed plane did not open landing gear: ATC
Last Updated On 26 May,2020 07:08 pm

KARACHI (Dunya News) – In a major development in the investigation of PIA plane crash, the on-duty Air traffic controller and approach tower controller have submitted their written statements.

According to sources, both the controllers were investigated by the Air Investigation Board. The written reply said that on May 22, PK 8303 was handled by the Approach Tower Controller from Lahore to Karachi. The task of landing the aircraft was then transferred to ATC, 10 nautical miles before landing.

The approach and the air traffic controller have provided all information about the incident to the inquiry board, claiming that the captain ignored instructions given 10 nautical miles before landing.

The approach controller said that before landing, when the plane is usually at an altitude of 1800 feet, the captain was flying at an altitude of 3000 feet and even after repeated instructions, the captain maintained that he would manage altitude and speed before landing.

The ATC further said that the captain landed the plane for the first time without opening the landing gear. On the first landing, both engines collided with the runway and rubbed against it three times and caused sparking before the captain pulled the plane back up asked for permission to land again.

According to sources, the investigation team questioned the ATC and the approach tower controllers whether the captain had signaled for an emergency landing, to which they replied that the captain did not declare to attempt an emergency landing and insisted that he would land normally.

https://dunyanews.tv/en/Pakistan/546988-Pilot-crashed-plane-did-not-open-landing-gear-ATC

parabellum

26th May 2020, 19:03

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=OZ0LY7ma1cA

Mr Optimistic

26th May 2020, 20:14

F-MANU

26th May 2020, 20:18

Joejosh999

26th May 2020, 20:34

BEA latest update:

"Communication done on behalf of the AAIB team of Pakistan.

1) BEA, AIB and Safran investigators have not left Pakistan and their mission is ongoing.
2) The CVR has not been recovered at this point in time.
3) The FDR has not left Pakistan."

Not sure I trust Pakistan to turn over data to the French. It’s pretty clear the chance for their flagship airline (w military pilot) to look pretty bad is high.

excrab

26th May 2020, 20:37

(pax). A bit disconcerted by the talk about using the gear to slow the thing down. Is that really an option in day to day ops and if you do it aren't there subsequent consequences since you shouldn't have been in that state anyway ( well so I assume). Thanks for your patience, I only sit in the back.

It really is an option, and whilst I’ve only had to resort to it a couple of times in Europe it was something that I have had to do quite often at some airfields in Asia, normally due to political or terrain issues coupled with ATC requirements. However, all of these were pre-briefed and we were expecting to do it to capture the glide slope from above. Not, however, at Karachi, where in my experience the ATC service was one of the best on the sub continent. As a caveat, I fly Boeing, not Airbus, and haven’t been to Karachi for about two years, but the principles of descent planning (3 x height plus 10 for top of descent and 3 x ht and 5 x ground speed for an ILS approach) work for every type I’ve flown, and the fact that it so basic a principal for gross error checking for every captain or f/o that I’ve ever flown with or trained makes this accident so difficult to understand. But as has been said we won’t really know until the CVR and FDR is read.

EDLB

26th May 2020, 20:48

2) The CVR has not been recovered at this point in time.
3) The FDR has not left Pakistan."

Thanks F-MANU

That smells fishy to me. In above pictures the BEA folks point with their fingers to the recorder positions. They should have both be retrieved by now and the location looks, that they should be in good shape.

Airbubba

26th May 2020, 21:14

Thanks F-MANU

That smells fishy to me. In above pictures the BEA folks point with their fingers to the recorder positions. They should have both be retrieved by now and the location looks, that they should be in good shape.

Looks like something changed about the plan to fly back to France with the CVR and FDR. :confused:

From The Express Tribune in Pakistan:

Airbus investigation team completes initial probe of PIA aircraft crashBy Our Correspondent (https://tribune.com.pk/author/8754/our-correspondent-6/)
Published: May 26, 2020

KARACHI:
The Airbus investigation team completed its initial investigation into the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) aircraft crash. The probe team inspected the runway of the Jinnah International Airport. They also visited the air traffic control tower and radar control station.

The 11-member investigating team of Airbus reached Pakistan from France on Tuesday to probe into the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane crash.

The specialists will visit the plane crash site area in Model Colony and also provide technical assistance to their Pakistani counterparts to probe the reasons for the crash.

The Airbus experts are expected to take the aircraft’s black box recorder which contains the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder and any other evidence that would help with the investigation.

The team will fly back to France at 10pm tonight after 16-hours of investigation.

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2228725/1-airbus-investigation-team-reaches-karachi/

Fortissimo

26th May 2020, 21:14

In above pictures the BEA folks point with their fingers to the recorder positions.

On the other hand, he might simply have been asking his colleague to take a photograph of the screw jack or another significant piece of wreckage.

pattern_is_full

26th May 2020, 21:50

Here's a human factors thought, they are hot and high, they take the gear early as you do! All very rushed as these approaches always are. But getting to 2000' they are getting back on to a sort of correct profile, start to relax, PF gets back into the groove thinks all is looking good so calls for gear down as you would normally at that altitude, PNF selects gear UP!!!!

Well, the gear lever on the A320, as on the vast majority or aircraft, moves DOWN vvvvvv to lower the gear, and UP ^^^^^^^ to raise the gear. That is a fairly unignorable industry-wide visual and haptic signal of the intended gear position.

However, since I firmly believe that pilots have and will do the most unbelievable things, I can't rule that out. It is obvious that one way or another, this crew was doing things "no pilot would ever do." Nor are they alone in that, as many accident reports will bear out.
________________

BTW - the Aviation Herald is now reporting the CVR "cover" has been found, but the data module is missing. The search of the wreckage continues, and locals have been asked to turn over any aircraft parts they may have found.

http://avherald.com/h?article=4d7a6e9a&opt=0

atakacs

26th May 2020, 22:08

BTW - the Aviation Herald is now reporting the CVR "cover" has been found, but the data module is missing. The search of the wreckage continues, and locals have been asked to turn over any aircraft parts they may have found.

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)

Anything is possible but this doesn't pass the smell test...

Dan_Brown

26th May 2020, 22:13

Anything is possible but this doesn't pass the smell test...

Too many vested interests in those boxes. Not all are for the safety of aviation.

Rapid D

26th May 2020, 22:21

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.

While I agree with you, in my 25+ years I have never heard ATC merely give a heading when they think you are too high on glide path for a safe approach after they have already been given approach clearance. Have you or anyone else? Why not just cancel approach clearance and give a vector and altitude assignment? Or what's very common (at least in U.S.) , simply ask "do you need a 360?" when they see how high you are on a visual approach. But to not cancel approach clearance yet give a heading? ATC knew it was not good. They could have done a bette job on intervention.

ex-EGLL

26th May 2020, 23:36

While I agree with you, in my 25+ years I have never heard ATC merely give a heading when they think you are too high on glide path for a safe approach after they have already been given approach clearance. Have you or anyone else? Why not just cancel approach clearance and give a vector and altitude assignment? Or what's very common (at least in U.S.) , simply ask "do you need a 360?" when they see how high you are on a visual approach. But to not cancel approach clearance yet give a heading? ATC knew it was not good. They could have done a bette job on intervention.

But where do you draw the line for ATC intervention? Controllers get very little exposure to line flying these days, there are an endless number of performance figures that controllers know nothing about. The first time a controller broke someone off the approach because in his/her opinion the aircraft was high and or fast but was in fact was set up and able to conduct a stable (by 1000') approach all h**l would break loose form the pilot community. The controller questioned the situation ,offered an alternative but the pilot insisted he was "comfortable" with the situation, the captain has the final authority / responsibility.

Airbubba

26th May 2020, 23:46

If I didn't know that I wasn't supposed to come over the numbers at 210 knots gear up with the alarms flashing and wailing, I don't think an extra call from ATC would save me. :ugh:

But for the grace of God, could happen to anybody, they didn't know, tunnel vision, poor CRM, their shared mental model was flawed, we must not be judgmental etc...

Rapid D

26th May 2020, 23:51

But where do you draw the line for ATC intervention? Controllers get very little exposure to line flying these days, there are an endless number of performance figures that controllers know nothing about. The first time a controller broke someone off the approach because in his/her opinion the aircraft was high and or fast but was in fact was set up and able to conduct a stable (by 1000') approach all h**l would break loose form the pilot community. The controller questioned the situation ,offered an alternative but the pilot insisted he was "comfortable" with the situation, the captain has the final authority / responsibility.

All that fair enough. But my question remains...have you ever heard of a "turn to this heading" while an aircraft is cleared and established on an approach without actually cancelling the approach clearance? Never for me. And it wasn't a suggestive "would you like to turn left to lose altitude captain?" It was just a turn to the heading, captain said we are good.

An ATC directed heading after approach clearance is given should also involve cancellation of approach clearance. Can we agree on that?

siropalomar

27th May 2020, 00:05

[QUOTE=RudderTrimZero;10793953]A very amateurish attempt at recreating the approach but should give non-pilots an idea of the speeds and angles involved here. Also with the Master Warning and CRC going off for over-speed, gives an idea of how easy it might have been to be completely oblivious to the LDG GEAR warning. I'm not completely sure that the logic for overspeed has priority over the LDG GEAR warning. May be someone can chime in for that
After reading so many posts and waiting for CVR and FDR readings, what i see on this video, up to the moment when the engines impact on the runway , looks very plausible. ( it´s impossible to replicate the flight after the go around, as the engines, hydraulics, electrical generation, fuel pumps or anything related to the gearbox/engine damage after the scratching will be known only after CVR/FDR readings are done). Kudos to the guy who made the video.

4runner

27th May 2020, 00:19

Loose rivets

27th May 2020, 00:28

This is about the shock of disbelief and resultant bewilderment rather than an old bloke's memories.

DC3 Southend to Rochester (just across the Thames) P2-ing for bloke that had checked me out on type just days before. My first job.
He landed smoothly on the grass heading about 240. We were going like hell given that we were on the short 'runway'. He hauls it into the air, screws it hard to the left and ponks it back on again heading ~ south. The engines are purring smoothly as we zoom past our passenger who were all standing by their little wooden terminal. At some stage he told ATC that he couldn't lose height or airspeed. There was just a hint of a tremor in his voice. We are now going uphill with the engines still purring smoothly. There are trees in front of us . . . a lot of them. He hauls it into the air. I asked him if I should raise the gear. Yeh, yeh, gear up.

This man had been in the war. He was a senior pilot and TRE. He was obviously very shaken but maintained a quiet dignity as we hit some twigs at about about 50 kts. To our right was the highway, which to our very great fortune was sculpted out of the high ground. We kind of fell into it. In minuets we were lined up for another bash.

My days of assuming experienced guys would always do sensible things had come to an end very early in my career. This time I caught him pulling back on the RPM levers instead of the throttles. They're the nearest to him and longer, if one is searching for a reason for doing something very undesirable.

At no stage did he say anything, and nor did I - to anyone.

krismiler

27th May 2020, 00:37

Note that in the video the "RETARD" callout is heard which is what you would expect to hear on a normal landing. After a quick look in the FCOM I can’t find anything to say that having the gear up would stop this call, it seems to be simply triggered by the RA. As per Pavlov's dogs, the crew retard the thrust levers expecting a normal touchdown believing they are back in the ballpark.

But where do you draw the line for ATC intervention?

This crew were in excess of normal parameters by about double, ATC should have the authority to discontinue an approach when it exceedes normal plus a certain percentage, unless a MAYDAY call has been made. I don't want to be told to go around because I had VS - 1100 fpm briefly at 1000' but if a safe landing is in doubt, it's a further safety layer. Complying with an ATC instruction enables the crew to save face, anyone who has flown in Asian knows how important that is, and it cuts through confusion and tunnel vision.

In aircraft carrier operations, the Landing Signals Officer has full authority to "Wave Off" any approaching aircraft if it deviates from set parameters. I'm not suggesting this is needed at civil airports, but safety might be improved if ATC were to enforce a "gate" on arriving aircraft which if not met would result in an immediate instruction to go-around.

LTC8K6

27th May 2020, 00:39

All that fair enough. But my question remains...have you ever heard of a "turn to this heading" while an aircraft is cleared and established on an approach without actually cancelling the approach clearance? Never for me. And it wasn't a suggestive "would you like to turn left to lose altitude captain?" It was just a turn to the heading, captain said we are good.

An ATC directed heading after approach clearance is given should also involve cancellation of approach clearance. Can we agree on that?
It's possible that we do not yet have the complete audio between ATC and flight crew.

learner001

27th May 2020, 00:56

So, in the scenario that the crew are so task saturated that the cacophony of audio alerts have gone unheeded, you believe an analogue instrument would have gained the attention of either pilot?

Somewhere along the descent from, let’s say around 8.000’, (Probably not yet really that task saturated...)
initially before, but especially starting and during the 'cacophony' parts,
there may have been a slight chance that at some moment,
any of those tiny little extra, visualised clues from pointer needles would have been noticed by either pilot.

Some simple needle pointers overriding complex 'sophisticated stuff', 'cacophony' (You started that...) and the subsequent 'hectics'...

Sooner or later possibly (re-)creating some (more, if any…)
situational awareness for either pilot (We don’t know who was (initially) PF/PM),
maybe, eventually even taking corrective action at last,
ultimately saving the day and many innocent lives...

After that getting back to business as usual,
and others never knowing whatever actually, really had happened…

But then again…
Here we sadly most probably will... Eventually…
Not going for the obvious... We're all trying to learn, don't we...?
learner . . . ;)

Seat4A

27th May 2020, 01:40

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEYiiZdvNh4

Sikpilot

27th May 2020, 02:04

Still no confirmation on if this was 2 Co Captains or a low time FO?

ex-EGLL

27th May 2020, 02:08

An ATC directed heading after approach clearance is given should also involve cancellation of approach clearance. Can we agree on that?

If ATC instruct the aircraft to turn onto a specific heading that would be a new clearance, which therefore cancels the previous clearance.

Lonewolf_50

27th May 2020, 02:15

Still no confirmation on if this was 2 Co Captains or a low time FO? Not sure that it matters though it is certainly of interest vis a vis CRM and human factors.

Consider: Asiana flight 214 at SFO that made a gross error in airspeed (35+ knots slow) in the opposite direction to 8303's over-speed approach. In that case, two Captains in two seats.
Captain // right seat (co-pilot position) check / instructor captain and pilot in command, ...12,387 hours of flying experience of which 3,220 hours were in a 777.
Captain // left seat ... 9,793 hours of flying experience, of which 43 were in a 777 over nine flights

dingy737

27th May 2020, 02:59

Curious to know the period of time between the ill fated flight and pilots last flight because of COVID-19 lockdown.

ozbiggles

27th May 2020, 03:08

It might be a factor but if anything, if it was they should have been far more on the side of caution and take it easy rather than get it in at all cost.
Different companies have different gates for being stabilised, I’m not sure how many PIA have but it doesn’t look like this crew met even one of them.

mayam13

27th May 2020, 03:41

Voluntarily practiced daily fasting, I doubt could affect mental faculty. I guess we can be more technical and ethical than religious.

dingy737

27th May 2020, 04:11

Fully agree. But I know individuals that in analogy; stop exercising for long periods ( say 80 days) and then abruptly return and try to fit right back into their former routine which was only achievable because of the frequency of workouts and get an injury. So if off line for say 80 days and then abruptly return without proper mental preparation and don’t take that extra caution to keep it simple and precise you can get behind the aircraft in a hurry. Some egos don’t allow you to bail out and try it again.
just a theory of course.

Redlands

27th May 2020, 05:51

Visual clues aside, is the audible gear warning dependent on true position of the gear or purely the position of the lever?

ReturningVector

27th May 2020, 06:05

Visual clues aside, is the audible gear warning dependent on true position of the gear or purely the position of the lever?

Dependent on a gear down and locked indication.

vilas

27th May 2020, 06:18

From Aviation Herald

On May 26th 2020 it became known, the data module of the cockpit voice recorder has not been found so far, only the housing had been recovered. The FDR including data module is about to be taken to Paris for read out by BEA whose investigators arrived in Karachi on May 26th 2020. Authorities are hopeful to find the CVR's data module during removal of the wreckage from the crash site.

On May 26th 2020 a spokesman of the airline reported only the cover of the CVR has been recovered so far. Residents of Model Colony are being urged to hand over any aircraft components found in their houses.

On May 26th 2020 evening the BEA reported their investigators are still on site, the FDR has not yet left Pakistan, the CVR has not been recovered.

Airbubba

27th May 2020, 06:23

Dependent on a gear down and locked indication.

And some fine points in the attached Airbus safety publication.

fox niner

27th May 2020, 07:22

Have been digging into the pakistani internet. Found this:

https://historyofpia.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=28780&start=300

Which is a local PIA/aviation forum. Quite factual info. After following a few clicks and links, it looks to me that the F/O was in fact NOT a captain. Also, other news will probably be found here first, and then be leaked out.

Airbubba

27th May 2020, 07:33

Airbus team extends stay for Karachi Air Crash probeWeb Desk (https://arynews.tv/en/author/webdesk/) On May 27, 2020

KARACHI: A team of Airbus, arrived in Karachi on Tuesday to assist the probe in recent air crash of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight PK-8303, visited the site of the crash again on Wednesday, ARY News reported.

A team of 11 French experts landed in Karachi on a special Airbus 338 yesterday morning and visited the location of the plane crash in Karachi.

Except two survivors, all 97 passengers and crew members of the aircraft that crashed into a residential area near Karachi airport were confirmed dead. However, no resident of the Model Colony’s Jinnah Garden, where the plane crashed, was among the deceased. The Airbus experts today reached the the plane crash location and expected to analyse the wreckage and collect samples with equipment. The team will also get assistance of drone cameras to inquire into the incident.

The team of experts expected to focus on search of the cockpit voice recorder of the aircraft which was not traced so far.

According to sources the French team has extended its stay in Pakistan for five more days due to the untraced vice recorder of the flight.

A spokesperson of PIA yesterday said that the cockpit voice recorder of the ill-fated PK-8303 was not recovered

The voice recorder which is installed in the rear side of the aircraft was not found by the investigators as yet, said the PIA spokesperson, adding that it is suspected that the voice recorder was dropped far from the crash site as the aircraft’s tail had hit the ground first.

The investigators have expanded the searching area to find out the missing voice recorder. The spokesperson appealed the residents not to put any part of the plane inside their houses. The citizens were also advised to immediately hand over the pieces of aircraft’s wreckage to the officials, investigation team or Rangers’ personnel.

The Airbus experts yesterday inspected the wreckage and marks of an attempt of belly landing of the flight at the runway of Karachi airport.

The team has also demanded complete record of one year of the Airbus 320 and also asked the number of times the aircraft was ground. The team also asked about the detail of the repair work on faults according to the checklist and other technical details.

The French team on Tuesday got a briefing from the PIA officials and asked about any fault of the alarming system of the airliner.

https://arynews.tv/en/airbus-team-extends-stay-karachi-air-crash-probe/

EDLB

27th May 2020, 07:46

Still no confirmation on if this was 2 Co Captains or a low time FO?
Does this matter? Any 100h FO should and will make a better job than this one. If you can not get a serviceable A320 in CAVOC conditions, on a 11000 feet runway at sea level down in one piece, you should be nowhere near row 0. There are lots of ways to land a A320 even in a nonstandard cowboy style way, but not, if you forget everything you learned.
They had two INOP brains in row 0. The question remains, why.

ATC performance was good in this case. What can they do? The responsibility is with the pilots and they got all help from ATC.

Uplinker

27th May 2020, 08:04

Does this matter? Any 100h FO should and will make a better job than this one..............

It might matter if - and this is purely hypothetical on my part - if there was a CRM problem where a Captain who was very autocratic and ego led, made a series of very bad decisions and a timid F/O felt they could not override them until it was too late.

F/Os are told to take control if a Captain is going badly wrong, but F/Os are not, as far as I know, ever actually trained in how to do this. Nor are they ever tested for it in my experience. Some of us are willing and able to take control, from a Captain who might be very senior and scary, others might be meek and timid - able and fully competent to safely land the plane if the Captain became incapacitated, but not able to wrest control from a (conscious) domineering and aggressive Captain.

If - again hypothetically - two Captains were on the flight deck, CRM problems could also arise: If the Captain in the LHS was the other Captain's boss, the junior Captain might not feel they could point out the mistakes of the senior guy and might have kept hoping he would eventually get it sorted. The SFO 777 that crashed short was an example of a junior Captain being unwilling to correct his boss.

Cabin crew get training in how to approach and talk to angry passengers etc, and calm them down, but I have never seen the scenario of an F/O overriding a difficult Captain addressed in CRM courses.

(I am not saying that any of this applied in the Karachi crash, I am just making a general point about CRM. Why such a poorly executed approach was continued rather than them going around and doing it again properly, absolutely mystifies me).

unworry

27th May 2020, 08:22

While everyone is scrambling to find the CVR module, here's a picture of the FDR on site.

Looks like it took quite a knock and may explain why only part of the CVR has been recovered so far

https://historyofpia.com/board/may_20/e-may26e.jpg

pineteam

27th May 2020, 08:28

Dependent on a gear down and locked indication.

As you said. And just to share. An instructor friend of mine tried in our FTD today to lower the gears above 260kt. No warning; Just the L/G CTL memo will appear amber on the Wheels page meaning the landing gear lever and the landing gear position do not agree. As soon as the speed drops below 260kt, the gears come down automatically ( No need to recycle the gears lever) and the overspeed warning kicks as the Max speed for gears extension is 250kt then it stops when the gears is locked. I assume because the max speed with gears down is 280kt.

EDLB

27th May 2020, 08:29

Cabin crew get training in how to approach and talk to angry passengers etc, and calm them down, but I have never seen the scenario of an F/O overriding a difficult Captain addressed in CRM courses.

(I am not saying that any of this applied in the Karachi crash, I am just making a general point about CRM. Why such a poorly executed approach was continued rather than them going around and doing it again properly, absolutely mystifies me).

Agree fully. The main issue to learn here for everyone including training departments is, why CRM broke down so badly.
For that the CVR is needed.

parabellum

27th May 2020, 08:35

Why such a poorly executed approach was continued rather than them going around and doing it again properly, absolutely mystifies me).
Couple of points, in this case and possibly a cultural issue, loss of face counted for more than unintended loss of life.
Mentioned earlier, possibly crew were observing Ramadan and would have been awake for twelve hours at time of the accident with very low blood sugar level and the accompanying inability to either concentrate or coordinate.

Was assured many times, by Muslim FOs, when working for a ME airline, that pilots on duty are excused fasting during Ramadan with the tacit understanding that they will make up for 'lost' periods of fasting at more suitable times.

DaveReidUK

27th May 2020, 08:46

Ian at FlightRadar24 has harvested some indicated airspeed data from the extended Mode-S data fields:
Additional Extended Mode S data decoded

Flightradar24 has now retrieved and processed extended Mode S data from individual receivers in the area. Unlike ADS-B data, which always contains the same known data points, Extended Mode S may contain data from a variety of fields like aircraft identification, meteorological data, heading, speed, and others. The data sent varies based on the fields requested by the Secondary Surveillance Radar ground stations used by air traffic control.

The data sent via Extended Mode S does not include the Binary Data Selector (BDS) identifying the type of data. Flightradar24 interprets this data using advanced scripts and historical comparative data, but there may be errors in individual frames due to misinterpreted data fields. Overall trends in the data are correct as reported. We have included the raw data, downloadable below.

Included in much of the Extended Mode S data sent by PK8303 were data on Indicated airspeed. The below graph shows the aircraft’s calibrated altitude and Indicated airspeed from 10,000 feet to the final data received.

More detailed study of the FR24 "Extended Mode S data" (i.e. the EHS parameters (https://i.stack.imgur.com/osbv7.png)) confirms that extreme caution needs to be exercised when reaching any conclusions based on the decoded values.

While the IAS values in the FR24 data may or may not be accurate, the accompanying TAS values clearly aren't. I queried this by email with FR24 and received only a boilerplate response, so I've just asked the same question on their Twitter feed:

"Can you explain why the True Airspeed (TAS) values in your download, before and during the go-around, are consistently shown as 314 knots? That's up to 140 kts higher than the IAS values at the same point in time, which is clearly nonsense."

Similar considerations apply to the Heading values in the FR24 dataset, which show near-instantaneous heading changes of 180° or more at a couple of points.

I'll post any response that I receive.

Dan_Brown

27th May 2020, 08:52

Couple of points, in this case and possibly a cultural issue, loss of face counted for more than unintended loss of life.
Mentioned earlier, possibly crew were observing Ramadan and would have been awake for twelve hours at time of the accident with very low blood sugar level and the accompanying inability to either concentrate or coordinate.

Was assured many times, by Muslim FOs, when working for a ME airline, that pilots on duty are excused fasting during Ramadan with the tacit understanding that they will make up for 'lost' periods of fasting at more suitable times.

Are you implying, that like the engines, if the crew run out of lubricant or liquid, they cease to function correctly??
If so, that is preposterous!!

Sikpilot

27th May 2020, 09:02

Not sure that it matters though it is certainly of interest vis a vis CRM and human factors.

Consider: Asiana flight 214 at SFO that made a gross error in airspeed (35+ knots slow) in the opposite direction to 8303's over-speed approach. In that case, two Captains in two seats.

That is pretty much what I am interested in. At this point in time we know the plane lost both engines after the gear up landing but the unknown is why? Did a new FO just sit there? Where both Captains arguing "I got this" "No you don't" or was this just 2 rusty pilots. This is very important because the layoff was only 2 short months and eventually thousands of pilots will be climbing back in to the cockpits after who knows how long a layoff. Pilot Unions should be asking for answers as to what happened on this flight ASAP. The FDR and CVR will be extremely interesting to all of us and probably be discussed in training classrooms for the next 100 years.

vc10derness

27th May 2020, 09:27

A37575

27th May 2020, 10:04

in this case and possibly a cultural issue, loss of face counted for more than unintended loss of life. Nowhere in any manual I am aware of are specific instructions on how a first officer can force a captain to execute a go-around when it is obvious an approach is so unstabilised as to be dangerous to life and limb.

OK so there are motherhood words in the book like "Captain go around." but to a captain intent on pressing on regardless, a mere comment by an F/O using the company approved warning expression, means nothing to some culture driven personalities.

Exactly how does the F/O take over control at such a potentially dangerous moment within a few seconds of landing? To have two pilots fighting over the controls does not even bear thinking about. All is not lost however.
For years there has been one simple and effective remedy which could prevent such accidents. Buy you won't see it in any manuals.

That is the F/O must act decisively to call aloud "Captain Go Around - Landing Gear coming up" . Simultaneously the F/O deliberately selects gear up without waiting for a response. . Even the most culture driven pilot in command would be shocked to the core and be forced into a go-around. There is no risk of confusion of who is flying the aircraft. There is no way even the most fanatical captain would continue with the approach and deliberately land wheels up just to make a point. This action by the PNF should be mandated in the company operations manual so that all pilots are aware of this last ditch solution to prevent a certain overrun on landing or a deliberate pressing on in IMC below DH or MDA.

Until this practical advice is promulgated in company operations manuals, the danger of pressing on regardless with an unstable approaches, will continue unabated and accidents such as this one will always be on the cards. Whether some would admit it or not, it is a demonstrated fact that some cultures transcend flight safety commonsense. For every accident involving a seriously unstable approach there are literally hundreds of other unstable approaches that go unrecorded for various reasons. The perpetrators get away with it time and again and cutting it fine becomes a sport and a challenge. We have all seen the type and kept our mouths shut for fear of making waves; or worse, losing our job

Dan_Brown

27th May 2020, 10:29

Nowhere in any manual I am aware of are specific instructions on how a first officer can force a captain to execute a go-around when it is obvious an approach is so unstabilised as to be dangerous to life and limb.

OK so there are motherhood words in the book like "Captain go around." but to a captain intent on pressing on regardless, a mere comment by an F/O using the company approved warning expression, means nothing to some culture driven personalities.

Exactly how does the F/O take over control at such a potentially dangerous moment within a few seconds of landing? To have two pilots fighting over the controls does not even bear thinking about. All is not lost however.
For years there has been one simple and effective remedy which could prevent such accidents. Buy you won't see it in any manuals.

That is the F/O must act decisively to call aloud "Captain Go Around - Landing Gear coming up" . Simultaneously the F/O deliberately selects gear up without waiting for a response. . Even the most culture driven pilot in command would be shocked to the core and be forced into a go-around. There is no risk of confusion of who is flying the aircraft. There is no way even the most fanatical captain would continue with the approach and deliberately land wheels up just to make a point. This action by the PNF should be mandated in the company operations manual so that all pilots are aware of this last ditch solution to prevent a certain overrun on landing or a deliberate pressing on in IMC below DH or MDA.

Until this practical advice is promulgated in company operations manuals, the danger of pressing on regardless with an unstable approaches, will continue unabated and accidents such as this one will always be on the cards. Whether some would admit it or not, it is a demonstrated fact that some cultures transcend flight safety commonsense. For every accident involving a seriously unstable approach there are literally hundreds of other unstable approaches that go unrecorded for various reasons. The perpetrators get away with it time and again and cutting it fine becomes a sport and a challenge. We have all seen the type and kept our mouths shut for fear of making waves; or worse, losing our job

If I knew i was going to die because of the actions or inactions of the PF and he or she ignored my requests to stop what they were doing. If they still didn't relinquish control I would then be shouting. If that didn't do any good it would be time to use the crash axe.

hoistop

27th May 2020, 10:32

PJ2 indicates that this was not a rushed approach. I agree....until ATC told them they were at 3500' at 5 miles out. After that I disagree and eagle21 I believe has it. The attempted landing from that position (and possible configuration) lead to a 'touchdown' on the engine pods with gear up. The unfortunate thing about the CFM56 engine is that the accessory gearbox is at the bottom of the fan casing. This drives quite a lot of critical engine machinery and is also (I believe) where the generators are fitted. The subsequent damage to both engines was enough to seal the disaster. My question is how weree they able to be 2000' higher at 5 miles than they should have been. I admit to not having flown the Airbus but I did do 36 years on VC10,747-100, L1011, BAC1-11, 747-400 and 737-400 and -700. A horrible day. An immediate go-around from the initial problem of being in the wrong place....and we wouldn't be talking about it. 20/20 hindsight. Stay safe all.

The lowest point on CFM56 (not to count cowling and drain mast) is bottom of gearbox housing with oil lines coming in and out FWD and AFT very close to lowest point. Also fire loops are at that point. Right from centerline is IDG, and left from CL is hydraulic pump, but a bit higher and no hyd. lines coming below pump. Dedicated alternator, that powers FADEC is in between (but elec. power is available from other sources if this one fails) Since RAT was extended (providing Hyd. power to Blue hyd. system and consequently powering emergency generator), there must have been quite some damage on the engines.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1800x875/cfm56_lh_a96405bc4259560be20106de9c51b6f8c329057d.jpg

Wirbelsturm

27th May 2020, 10:39

From what I remember from my dim and distant 'minibus' years.

Press and hold the priority button on the sidestick.

LOUDLY announce 'I have control' as the system calls 'Priority right/left'.

Execute the go-around and then, when safe, explain to the now 'unloaded' PF why you took control.

We all get tunnel vision at some point and start to lose senses whilst we grapple with a deteriorating situation of our own devising. I brief my colleagues on my sectors that I am distinctly average and not clever enough to be clever therefore if I am doing something stupid intervene!!!

At the company I work for co-pilot intervention is often taught as a module in the sim and very welcome it is too.

Magplug

27th May 2020, 11:06

@A37575.... The answer to that question works from either seat. Hint - Tip - Take Control. The most important inter-personal skill of an FO is appropriate assertiveness. If you see it is going to rat-**** drop some hints, if no joy then you should directly tell the other guy what he should be doing to correct the issue. As a final resort you should decisively take control in the prescribed manner. Moreover if the guy you are flying with fails to respond TWICE to stuff you say to him you should take control anyway as he may have suffered subtle incapacitation. In a simulator check FOs can get away with average skills and no initiative but lack of appropriate assertiveness is looked upon very poorly (in the west). Do you think we might just see some cultural issues brought out in the investigation?

I do fear that our industry has gone down a road from which it is impossible to return. The industry needs pilots today more than ever before and training departments are under constant pressure to produce them. For some time now we have had guys arriving on the line with c.200 hours, a frozen ATPL and, by definition, zero experience. The demand for pilots has galvanised airline training departments into shaving personal suitability, flying ability, courses and standards to an absolute minimum. The objective is to get the candidate through an LPC and onto the line in the shortest time possible. To support this objective there is a belief that an ever-expanding rule-set will keep the pilot and therefore the operation safe. The result is that you give the pilot less & less ability to make his own low-level mistakes and learn from them. Removing discretion from the operator makes for a safer operation - Right? What's more - Not only will we tie him up with so many rules that it will be impossible for him to remember them all, but we will threaten him with disciplinary action or even termination him if he busts an approach gate or gets a rule wrong.

Our experience is the sum-total of our past cock-ups. We made mistakes, most of them small, and we learnt not to do it again. Today our flights are tied to such a narrow avenue of acceptability that we do not have the latitude any more to make our own mistakes - and by definition we are accruing no experience. De-skilling is not a trend confined to aviation, if you reduce an employee's latitude for discretion to an absolute minimum you can reduce his task to that of a simple flowchart. You can employ someone of a lower calibre, less qualified and therefore pay him less. Today's new Captains are a product of that narrow mindset and the new guys who sit next to them, hoping to learn from their experience..... don't find any. When the day comes that there is no page in the QRH for the problem you have - they are out of ideas. They have no experience to fall back on.

Pilots that are unable to recognise the dangers of crossing the FAF 2 dots high or crossing the threshold at 200kts are a product of just that system.

xetroV

27th May 2020, 11:07

Thanks again Airbubba

took the liberty of highlighting a couple of key areas below, although it's comes as no surprise to most here.

Based on the FR24 CSV data
- (best approximation, due to periodicity and latency of recorded data)
-

251 IAS out of FL100
240 during descent, give or take
236 IAS at 2,000'
~215 IAS on tarmac, skipping down to 191 IAS
recording a minimum of 173 IAS, 200' AGL into the GA

With that speed over the threshold, I believe the crew would never have received a TOO LOW GEAR warning during the first approach; they would have received TOO LOW TERRAIN instead (or another mode if that would have priority). I can see how a crew would discard the latter GPWS warning as being erroneous/nuisance when approaching a runway in VMC, especially a crew that had already lost their situational awareness due to extreme (probably self-induced) tunnel-vision.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/884x833/mode4a_e9ab563a8c070b5e4e7126e0601b44d406385cbb.jpg
Here's the mode 4a envelope.

Dan_Brown

27th May 2020, 11:15

parkfell

27th May 2020, 11:33

.........This crew were in excess of normal parameters by about double, ATC should have the authority to discontinue an approach when it exceedes normal plus a certain percentage, unless a MAYDAY call has been made....

....Complying with an ATC instruction enables the crew to save face, anyone who has flown in Asian knows how important that is, and it cuts through confusion and tunnel vision.....

......safety might be improved if ATC were to enforce a "gate" on arriving aircraft which if not met would result in an immediate instruction to go-around.

I think that you are entering the territory of “shark infested custard” suggesting that ATC have the competence to instruct the aircraft commander to abandon the approach for exceeding “normal parameters”.

However, if the Aerodrome Controller had been paying attention, the ATCO would have observed that the GEAR was NOT down, and been totally justified in ordering a GO AROUND.

Just why the ATCO was not paying attention, has yet to be revealed....

Workload management; situational awareness, to name but two aspects which fell apart.
Rich in CRM aspect, not to mention the ‘Swiss Cheese’ model. Enough for a complete conference.

Another mission for Angelo C perhaps......?

atakacs

27th May 2020, 11:51

However, if the Aerodrome Controller had been paying attention, the ATCO would have observed that the GEAR was NOT down, and been totally justified in ordering a GO AROUND.

Just why the ATCO was not paying attention, has yet to be revealed....

Is this SOP ? I think not and frankly unrealistic at any busy airport. And what about night / low vis landings ? I'd say it is the responsibility of the crew to make sure the gear is extended...

parkfell

27th May 2020, 12:12

Is this SOP ? I think not and frankly unrealistic at any busy airport. And what about night / low vis landings ? I'd say it is the responsibility of the crew to make sure the gear is extended...

It was not at night.

LVP were not in force.

Are you speaking as an (ex) ATCO?

True, the buck stops with the aircraft commander.

However think Swiss Cheese?

aterpster

27th May 2020, 12:13

This is very important because the layoff was only 2 short months and eventually thousands of pilots will be climbing back in to the cockpits after who knows how long a layoff.
I was off for over four months near the end of my career. The company sent me to the sim for a captain PC then back to the line. I didn't feel uncomfortable at all.

sonicbum

27th May 2020, 12:15

The above video is a joke. Good on eye candy and detail and obviously produced by a seasoned YouTuber. I would say the video posted above, linked here again:

https://youtu.be/9NJpBdg3xrM ..is more accurate in terms of speeds and configuration. But it's low on detail, sounds and dramatics. More likely produced by someone who actually flies the thing?

Interesting video, but really difficult to believe that so many hard warnings were neglected by the crew.

ATC Watcher

27th May 2020, 12:16

This crew were in excess of normal parameters by about double, ATC should have the authority to discontinue an approach when it exceedes normal plus a certain percentage, unless a MAYDAY call has been made. I don't want to be told to go around because I had VS - 1100 fpm briefly at 1000' but if a safe landing is in doubt, it's a further safety layer. Complying with an ATC instruction enables the crew to save face, anyone who has flown in Asian knows how important that is, and it cuts through confusion and tunnel vision.

In aircraft carrier operations, the Landing Signals Officer has full authority to "Wave Off" any approaching aircraft if it deviates from set parameters. I'm not suggesting this is needed at civil airports, but safety might be improved if ATC were to enforce a "gate" on arriving aircraft which if not met would result in an immediate instruction to go-around.

This is not how ATC works and Controllers have generally no idea of detailed aircraft performance. And where do you draw the line ? a 10 degree vertical profile can be performed by large jets in KTM for instance. It is up to the PIC and only the PIC to decide if the landing is feasible or not. .We should not attempt to shift responsibilities to outside of the cockpit, as by doing so you will create far more issues than you will potentially solve, .

Now the ATC R/T
I was refraining from continuing commenting on that part before as nearly always nowadays after an accident in this forum , , the amateurs are jumping in pretending to be either airline pilots or controllers and making stupid statements .. after a couple of days they are generally gone and we can start discussing more seriously.
Looking at facts so far and the videos photos posted, 2 things bother me
This heading 180 given by the Approach controller after aircraft reported being established on ILS , , you simply do not do this unless the runway is blocked or something . The other one is the fact that apparently no mention of the gear issue was made on the R/T prior the first landing.This is highly unusual to say the least. .
As I said earlier on , we have to be careful on exchanges recorded by spotters using hand held scanners . I strongly believe the R/T transcript posted is most probably not complete and we are missing important exchanges.

I can think of a couple of scenarios that will make a lot of sense if there were only 2 or 3 additional R/T exchanges.

MPN11

27th May 2020, 12:17

Is this SOP ? I think not and frankly unrealistic at any busy airport. And what about night / low vis landings ? I'd say it is the responsibility of the crew to make sure the gear is extended...
ex-Mil ATCO perspective. Whilst I fully agree that the Captain is wholly responsible for operating the aircraft (and rightly so) a Local Controller should be more than just a parrot repeating clearances. Certainly in my former world, even at very busy units, the controller should (vis/wx permitting) ensure that the runway is clear and monitor closely all aircraft approaches and movements in his area of responsibility. That’s why one of our tools was a pair of binoculars immediately ro hand.

As a SATCO I suffered from a Local Controller who never seemed to look out of the windows. Queues of vehicles waiting at traffic lights waiting to cross an empty runway with no movements, that sort of thing. Never actually unsafe, just dismally inefficient. A year or so after I left I was conducting a Staff visit, and there he was in Local ... with no movements and a queue of vehicles stuck at the lights. “Nothing’s changed, I see, Sergeant XXX”, pointing at the vehicle queue.

sonicbum

27th May 2020, 12:18

With that speed over the threshold, I believe the crew would never have received a TOO LOW GEAR warning during the first approach; they would have received TOO LOW TERRAIN instead (or another mode if that would have priority). I can see how a crew would discard the latter GPWS warning as being erroneous/nuisance when approaching a runway in VMC, especially a crew that had already lost their situational awareness due to extreme (probably self-induced) tunnel-vision.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/884x833/mode4a_e9ab563a8c070b5e4e7126e0601b44d406385cbb.jpg
Here's the mode 4a envelope.

Thanks, very good point. This is the one from GTG with Surveillance.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1076x1288/screenshot_2020_05_27_at_14_11_29_2cae6750b7c7f3d66a59844b90 3d941f50fe06ef.png

malr

27th May 2020, 12:24

That is the F/O must act decisively to call aloud "Captain Go Around - Landing Gear coming up" . Simultaneously the F/O deliberately selects gear up without waiting for a response. . Even the most culture driven pilot in command would be shocked to the core and be forced into a go-around.

600+ posts about not bringing gear up until there is a confirmed positive climb ... this go-around strategy seems to conflict with that.

LookingForAJob

27th May 2020, 12:32

Re the suggestions that ATC should have done something....
Aircraft commander is responsible for the operation of the aircraft - that is how it should be. But we are all human and we can all err. ATC has always been able to take decisions and issue instructions or advice to aircraft if it appears that an aircraft may be in a dangerous situation. The text below - my bold - is related to surveillance services but includes instructions from aerodrome control. And, hopefully, a lack of wheels on short final would be considered sufficient grounds to advise the pilot or issue a go-around instruction, either directly or via the approach controller. I am of what appears to be the old school - even though the pilot is responsible for the aircraft, I still like to see an aerodrome controller keeping an eye on what is going on outside when he/she is able. No guarantee that the controller will spot something amiss, but it might close one of those holes in the cheese.

8.9.6.1.8 An aircraft making a radar approach should: a) be directed to execute a missed approach in the following circumstances: i) when the aircraft appears to be dangerously positioned on final approach; or ii) for reasons involving traffic conflictions; or iii) if no clearance to land has been received from the procedural controller by the time the aircraft reaches a distance of 4 km (2 NM) from touchdown or such other distance as has been agreed with the aerodrome control tower; or iv) on instructions by the aerodrome controller; or b) be advised to consider executing a missed approach in the following circumstances: i) when the aircraft reaches a position from which it appears that a successful approach cannot be completed; or ii) if the aircraft is not visible on the situation display for any significant interval during the last 4 km (2 NM) of the approach; or iii) if the position or identification of the aircraft is in doubt during any portion of the final approach. In all such cases, the reason for the instruction or the advice should be given to the pilot.

ATC Watcher

27th May 2020, 12:33

ex-Mil ATCO perspective. Whilst I fully agree that the Captain is wholly responsible for operating the aircraft (and rightly so) a Local Controller should be more than just a parrot repeating clearances. Certainly in my former world, even at very busy units, the controller should (vis/wx permitting) ensure that the runway is clear and monitor closely all aircraft approaches and movements in his area of responsibility. That’s why one of our tools was a pair of binoculars immediately ro hand.
.

Do not put military and civil operations on a par here . I a large airport such as Karachi , the binoculars are not there monitor if landing gears are extended. In any case you need your 2 hands to do something else.
I know in this case it this was a single aircraft due Corona, but this how civil TWR controllers are trained today.

Flying_Scotsman

27th May 2020, 12:47

...but this how civil TWR controllers are trained today. But is it correct?

MPN11

27th May 2020, 12:51

I fully agree there’s little comparison between Civ & Mil operations and environment, which is why I prefixed my post the way I did.

OK, heads down, look at ASMA or whatever and shuffle the flight strips. And it works very well for Civ (most of the time). I know how it works ... I started as a Civil ATCA. 😎

Anyway, the BIG issue is the missing CVR. The FDR will presumably tell in much detail WHAT happened, but the CVR will hopefully help explain WHY..

Milvus Milvus

27th May 2020, 12:54

Good point, well made.... No GPWS "Too Low Gear"

A320

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1023x919/gpws_4e096395872dcca7226cdc1e5a998ce69f55cc4b.jpg

Roj approved

27th May 2020, 13:19

In answer to the question of whether there would be a warning for the L/G not being down, the following is not related to EGPWS, it is a seperate warning purely for the gear not being down and the aircraft below 750ft RA.

L/G NOT DOWN

Triggering Conditions:

L2

This alert triggers when:

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

2. 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

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

There is a strong possibility, as someone mention much earlier, that the Pilots were distracted by the OverSpeed warning and didn’t read the ECAM when the Master Warning came up again at 750’RA, therefore not realising they had a Second ECAM Warning happening. It is not Airbuses intention that you continue an approach and/or land an a/c with unresolved ECAM’s unless in grave danger. Ie: FIRE etc.

I think by this point, target fixation had taken over from any “normal” operation.

On a side note, I have spent some time flying in India, very different country but similar class hierarchy and face saving culture, pilots arguing and bullying ATC is common.

The ATCO had tried to hint at the a/c being above profile and was dismissed with “we are comfortable”, I doubt he would have had much success at getting them to go around after that.

A very complex accident, and we may never really know the reason unfortunately.

Stay safe and blue side up