Airblue down near Islamabad

[Mr.Bloggs]

Religious fasting?

Fasting every other day, if true, was a contributory factor. No human is designed to do this, and combining drastic blood sugar changes with diurnal rhythm upsets and a complex job would lead to severely deteriorated performance.

And the accident record of PIA to date has been very poor indeed. Perhaps related, perhaps not.

[aterpster]

Mr. Bloggs:

Fasting every other day, if true, was a contributory factor.

In the U.S., at least, that would temporarily invalidate the pilot's medical certificate, thus his license to fly.

[inducedrag]

The pilot was asked to operate the flight on only 2 hrs notice. That is why all night before he was awake and praying and had returned home just before sunrise and kept a fast as it was his day OFF

[Fawad]

@JALALUMER

Do you have any proof of your claims? All these are rumors at best. Media reports quoting his family said "he was not awake the whole night and went to bed at around 10.30pm" and he was also told the evening before that he would be flying tomorrow.

And please excuse my "rudeness", but I find it hard to believe when someone tells me exactly how high the plane was and what exactly it was trying to approach by watching from the ground.

@BOAC

'History of PIA' forum is back online. As the admin states, it was an issue with the web hosting company. Please note that this is a private website with nothing whatsoever to do with PIA and also it isn't hosted in pakistan. There is little PIA or any govt. could do to "suppress recent claims on the website". Too much into conspiracy theories, are we?

[BOAC]

Fawad - thank you for that and for confirming the reason for that site's 'demise'. What are you questioning in Jalalumer's post - the fasting?

Interestingly while it has been off air folk have been 'busy' selectively removing what appeared to be reasonable posts while leaving obvious conspiracy theories in place! They have pruned the posts which rumoured the dismissal of the 'over 62's' and also the poster who wrote of a preceding go-round. Interesting.

The plot thickens. I believe Jalalumer's post is as reliable as anything else we are getting from Pakistan and certainly fits with the now 'disappeared' post on the PIA history forum. One thing IS certain - the CVR and FDR will tell - if we ever get the truth.

[JALALUMER]

i cant name my friends,they are flying as captians in PIA and airblue
as for the airblue captians religious routines ,info came from a doctor working in agha khan hospital living in the next door apartment in karachi
All i want to know is:
At the time of crash if i can see margalla hill from my house which are 8 mills away
why airblue pilots hit the hills when the visibility was very good.
After missing runway 12 it made a U turn towards margalla hills for aproaching 12 again.The aircraft should have turned left between faizabad flyover and zero point .
It never turned but flew strait for 4 miles into the hill.
I think the aircraft was making a left turn at the time of impact because if u see carefully theres are 3 gorges in the hill,the plane hit the one in middle.
The excat point of impact is in the gorge,thats only possible if the plane is making a left turn.
No pessenger plane ever flies in that area except the single engine cessnas flown by rawalpindi flying club .its used by them as holding area.
the airblue captian must have landed at islamabad thousand times in every type of weather but the intriging question for me is what went so bad in the last 3 or four minutes after i saw it flying over my home that it crashed in the hills.

Mr Fawad i know what i am taking about as some of my close friends are pilots.

[Fawad]

@BOAC
The site admin claims that "all" and not "selected" posts between certain dates have been lost. That's quite normal and that forum isn't the first one to have experienced such sorts of thing. Basically, if your server crashes, you can only recover data till the last back-up you had and some posts will definitely be lost. I have had experiences of forums loosing a months worth of posts and even "selective posts" if the site is hosted on multiple servers sharing posts and only one of them crashes.

Now why would someone (presumably from what i gather) living outside pakistan hosting a website outside pakistan give a damn about PIA or govt? When shoe-hurlings at the president and "murder plots" but serving ministers couldn't be suppressed, I think you have a wrong (or out-dated) idea about media freedom in pakistan.

@JALAL
There is no doubt that the late Captain was a religious person. The question is : was he fasting on the day of the flight? and did he stay awake all night? According to his family (from interview by media, I believe Mubashir Luqman Show but not sure since I have watched dozens of shows on the crash), he was informed of his duty the previous evening and went to bed at 10.30pm. I ain't advocating for the captain, but letting everyone know the other side of the story.

There are loads and loads of these - 'informed 2hrs before flight', ATC recording saying ' we can see the margala', ' We have the airport in sight', Blackwater trying to crash into kahuta (nuclear facility), anti-aircraft shot it down, etc. Pardon me if I don't take that seriously.

Regarding why would a pilot fly into the Margalla hills...ofcourse that's the whole point of the investigation. While you could see the hills (from ground level), its possible the plane was in the clouds.

Even if I were to believe the captain was awake all night and fasting, how does that make both him and the co-pilot miss an obvious sight (which according to you was clearly visible)? A plane is not like a car where you may fall asleep and crash ...unless you both do.

There's two way communication between the captain and ATC, there's a co-pilot, there are warning systems both inside the plane and by ATC. There has to be a series of events that went wrong for such a crash to happen. Its hard to believe that a crew in a sophisticated jet could fly into a mountain that is "clearly visible", even if its captain wasn't at his physical/mental peak.

I doubt the mountains were visible (to him) and would be suspicious of both navigational error (pushing the wrong buttons) and ATC handling. Also he wasn't approaching RNWY 12 "again" but approaching RNWY 30.

Btw, CAA ( civil aviation authority) now has a new chairman...a former pilot of PIA. And IIRC, this is the first time its being headed by an (ex?) commercial pilot. Let's hope this will open up the CAA a bit and we could see more transparency in the future.

[BOAC]

Fawad - I do actually understand this stuff, you know, I run a forum myself and have worked on this one (and have seen countless posts 'disappear' outside server back-ups). I take your word on the 'lost posts' on that forum. It is good to see some posters re-posting.

Judging by

Regarding why would a pilot fly into the Margalla hills...ofcourse that's the whole point of the investigation. While you could see the hills (from ground level), its possible the plane was in the clouds.

- I assume your knowledge on aviation and in particular on circling approaches is minimal?

I'm afraid also

Also he wasn't approaching RNWY 12 "again" but approaching RNWY 30.

does not make sense either.

Regarding your last para - I do hope so as, I'm sure, do the bereaved.

[Junior79]

My One And Only Post.... Thanks

I request you all to please desist from trying to "guess" what my father was like.
I dont know who this agha khani doctor is but maybe he can provide a time table of my father rozas. (btw there is no doctor in the next door apartment, ppl make claims to be important, I think we should be able to rationalise whats possible and whats just plain ridiculous)
I am not going to indulge in any stupid conjecture about his perosnal conduct and would request you to please respect my fathers memory.
I do not respond to what the media says cos thats just monkeys on typewriters. I wish to clarify once and just once for you since you guys are professional people. He was not fasting and was not up all night and was rather asleep by around 10 PM. I think we should respect that most pilots are responsible and are not reckless and do not put lives of others at risk. Lets try and find out why they were making a 3rd attempt to land and why there was no emergency with ATC and other moniors when they had gone beyond the MARGALLAS once.
P.S. he was informed about this flight 12 hours before ETD.

[Fawad]

@BOAC

Well, the whole story of why HoPIA went offline doesn't really have much to do with the discussion of this thread. So let's leave it aside. If it may enhance your confidence, the same stuff regarding pilots being released has been reposted on the same forum.

According to a news report published in September 14 edition of Urdu daily 'Waqt', following four pilots above the age of 60 have been released by AirBlue after flight ED-202 accident.

* Capt. Ali Hamid
* Capt. Saeed Khan
* Capt. Mirza Rafi
* Capt. Khalid Mufti

Well, I have never claimed to be a pilot nor given that impression. I do, however, know a thing or two and am always eager to learn from sites like this.

My comments about RNWY 12 was to emphasize he wasn't making "another" approach to land on it. A lot of mess had been created in the local media in the early days saying he was going to land but ATC didn't "allow him" at the last moment and asked for a "go around", put him into a holding pattern, etc. All the stories about "told 2 hrs before flight","anti aircraft gun shot it," etc also surfaced within hrs of the crash with little merit sans any evidence.

My comments was related to that. I am aware that even if you intend to land on 12, you first approach 30 first before breaking off and also the circling approach. To my knowledge, the most credible reports so far indicates they failed to complete the circling approach successfully.

Going back to topic, someone posted this on the HoP forums.
Green: Normal approach
Red: ED202 path



If I understand what Jalal is saying (and please feel free to correct me if I got this wrong), the plane followed the green line till near the runway, flew over his house 700m from the runway, had to abandon the approach and made a "U turn" towards the Maragalla hills to try again. That would make it somewhere close to where the green lines crosses Saidpur Rd and Murree Rd.

The picture above and media reports suggest they followed the red path. This would mean they never approached Rwy 12 the first time to try it "again". It means they never made the left turn where the green line crosses Islamabad Hwy and 9th ave.

[BOAC]

The picture you have posted is conjecture only. There is no publicly available evidence that the a/c followed a particular route. In any case, technically the green line is not quite as a circle would be flown, but as an illustrative it is fine.

The picture above.... suggest

see above

media reports suggest

- pure guesswork on the part of the media.

What is of interest is Jalal's 'story' about a missed approach on R12 which fits with another post (still absent on the other forum at this moment, and I believe it was from 'Jameel Ashraf') which talked of multiple approaches to R12.

[HundredPercentPlease]

2 Google Earth views.

One of the runway on downwind, and one on "downwind" of the Islamabad Expressway (with the real runway behind it).

[JALALUMER]

The red and green line map provided by fawad is almost correct.the only correction to be made is that that green line s left turn should have been a bit wider.A fokker would land comfortably using the green line map but airbus,777 and 747 make a wider circle.
There are no anti aircraft guns near margalla hill.
kahuta has live missiles but is about 30 miles away from margalla hills .Kahuta is approx in opposit direction of the final flight path.
The air blue jets first attempt was on runway 30,second was for12 ,this i saw myself when it passed very low over my home.it turned around flew back towards islamabad-margalla hills and crashed.
I am sure the pilots were flying very correctly.when ever a plane misses landing on 12 it flies directly over my home otherwise normal landings can be seen from my window.
Another points ,when it passing over head the engine power was increasing and the gears were in up position...both normal i think,because the plane was very low.

[BOAC]

Originally Posted by Jalal

the gears were in up position

- this is getting weirder and weirder, since the last sighting of the a/c was supposedly gear down over Islam. If these facts are correct it would hint at total spatial disorientation, such that some sort of 'downwind' checks were done while heading for the hills which would suggest the Captain was 'certain' he was in the circling pattern and certain that he 'knew' where he was..

[aterpster]

BOAC:

- this is getting weirder and weirder, since the last sighting of the a/c was supposedly gear down over Islam. If these facts are correct it would hint at total spatial disorientation, such that some sort of 'downwind' checks were done while heading for the hills which would suggest the Captain was 'certain' he was in the circling pattern and certain that he 'knew' where he was..

That is a very big IF. Facts are always correct or they aren't facts.

[BOAC]

Thanks for a useful contribution

[Fawad]

The map was just for illustration purposes and a rough sketch, but you get the idea.

Originally posted by JalalUmer
There are no anti aircraft guns near margalla hill.

There certainly are. There are multiple anti aircraft guns across the city. Even the chief of Islamabad Police admitted that publicly on TV.

Originally posted by BOAC
pure guesswork on the part of the media

The "media reports" I am talking about includes interview from airport authorities, CAA chief, and Airblue CEO. In fact, no one has mentioned the story of a "missed approach" or another attempt at landing. They all maintained it was its first approach.

[TamairTarmac]

UFO strike?

Is this something that happened? UFO? Misreport of Islamabad crash? what?


US aircraft makes emergency landing in Islamabad

URL
A US aircraft made an emergency landing at the international airport in the Pakistani capital after it was hit by an unidentified object while in flight, TV news channels reported. The plane was airlifting flood-affected people from the northern city of Skardu, reports said. All crew members and
passengers in the plane were safe, the Geo News and ARY News channels reported.
There was no word on the incident from Pakistani aviation authorities and the US embassy.

The US has sent several heavy lift military aircraft for flood relief operations in Pakistan.

[TamairTarmac]

Benazir

As Emily Litella would say, Nevermind.

It is most likely this. Welcome to Daily Regional Times Online Newspaper

Back to Airblue
Delete the lapse if you want. Pardon for the interruption.

So much misreported.
So little time.

[BOAC]

More woes on the history of PIA forum - 'Account suspended' (probably the English cricket team's fault.........)

Edit: 22/9 - Blimey! It's back again. What do they say about a 'whore's drawers on boat race night'?