PIA A320 Crash Karachi
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Apart from the fact that many, many landing gears have already been unintentionally raised with weight on wheels,
the game is not necessarily over yet, after humbly just having been able to manage to only get your aircraft airborne,
you could still bounce back onto the runway…
Better not rely on ’cannot’… learner . . .
the game is not necessarily over yet, after humbly just having been able to manage to only get your aircraft airborne,
you could still bounce back onto the runway…
Better not rely on ’cannot’… learner . . .
I think the original poster was emphasizing that his airline has a strict adherence to initiating a GA if not stabilized at 1,000ft. No doubt they too get champagne for a GA initiated at 1,000ft. Pushing on with an unstabilized approach below 1,000ft has disciplinary consequences. Just Culture has its place when dealing with unintentional errors whereas deliberately breaking company SOP at such a critical phase of flight requires disciplinary action.
I’m sure the PIC didn’t set off to work that morning with a explicit plan to disregard SOPs. It is incumbent on an airline to investigate why this gate might not have enabled the trapping of an error, rather than just fire the PIC involved. I’m not saying that in this case it’s excusable, but that it should be investigated fairly and a just culture applied rather than an immediate escalation to disciplinary proceedings and the assumed cover-up applied for the sake of the share price.
If you fire people based solely on the FDM, your crew will get very good at flying the FDM rather than the aircraft.
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.
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.
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That's why the response of 'we are comfortable' immediately followed by 'we can make it' really raises suspicions as it isn't exactly clear whether that last sentence was meant for ATC or the PM. Have to wonder who that was intended for. Earlier in the thread there was an unconfirmed report that two captains were at the contols. Don't know if that's true or not but PF and PM but either way CRM was an issue.
Absolutely! They were tragically 1400 ft above the path therefore trying the “capture Above” the sound reported (din din din ) was not associated in my opinion to unsafe gear but to overspeed. Flaps auto retracted for load relief. Tunnel vision aural alarm at that point “too low gear” was another sound over the mess in which pilots behind the plane forget also they’re own name. The go around was the tragic mistake.
Last edited by ZAGORFLY; 25th May 2020 at 02:33.
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Flaps auto retracted for load relief.
At 5nm from the threshold, any sane A320 crew would want to would want to be in at least flaps 2 with the gear down and a sensible speed, most would be more comfortable with flaps 3. Doing 250 kts the aircraft should be clean and even with speed brakes and configuring as soon as the speed fell below each limit there is no way you could be stable at 1000' even if you went for a flaps 3 landing. You might get it onto the runway and stopped if it was long enough but you could kiss goodbye to your job and probably your licence as well.
Worth reviewing the 1996 gear up landing of Continental 1943. Gear horn blaring up until touchdown at 193 kts, no 3 green, GPWS chirping away, yada, yada, yada…
Never underestimate the capacity of the human being to ignore/block prominent visual and aural alerts when under stress.
Never underestimate the capacity of the human being to ignore/block prominent visual and aural alerts when under stress.
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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.
With respect to your experience, there is a chance that the forensic based investigation may or may not prove this consideration to be valid.
And we still don't know whether or not they put the gear down before the first approach.
FFS, how about we work with the basics and then climb up the causation tree. (And for all I know, you may be right!)
To put this in perspective: I had a pilot in our multi crew aircraft (a great many years ago) who - a pilot who was not Muslim nor observing Ramadan - get a bit strange on me during a night flight due to him being mildly hypoglycemic.
Negligence on his part for not taking care of an issue (diet) that he knew about ahead of time.
Different root cause, same result: he was useless to me. (Yes, he got a piece of my mind once we got back to terra firma)
How may accident investigation boards have you been on?
It's bloody hard work.
If it was a factor, it would be considered contributory not causal, Mr investigator. His point is relevant. You might refer to the previous Air blue accident in 2013 where the report referred to same..( occurred during Ramadan)
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With respect, a key issue in aviation incidents is human factors, and where such rituals can affect human factors they are relevant to identifying possible causation of incidents and accidents. I say that as someone who has worked in the Middle East for 20 plus years, has a huge respect for the customs and religion, but is acutely aware of the detrimental effect on operational effectiveness of prolonged fasting. The crash was, I believe, around 14.40 local and the Al-Fajr prayer call, when fasting begins, is around 03.25 in Lahore at the moment. If - and it is a big 'if' - the pilot had been fasting then given the timings I have just quoted, it is relevant to consider this in an analysis of the crash.
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.
I suppose one might argue that a wheels up landing is a 'single failure' - it would take multiple failures or mistakes to get there, with the further mistake of attempting a go-around after impacting the runway with the engines.
There is only so much the designers can do to protect against bad or suicidal piloting.
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.
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If it's true that RW 07 was set up in there FMGS, therefore this would explain why they were above profile continually from the TOD after having being offered a straight in approach for 25
Re 'single failure'. Something to be said for the tri-jet engine configuration. Or small outer-rim permanently exposed load-bearing high-tolerance metal wheels (think Thrust/Bloodhound SSC) to obviate/ameliorate both engine strike in case of gear failure. For future consideration.
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Both captains ? , where they both military and how many hours on the bus ? I read somewhere Airbus only new to airline . Taking a straight in when setup for overfly can take a few seconds to process before committing to it . Having to do a quick orbit on final when it did not quite work is sometimes required . ( I know as I’ve had to it and only good thing is it’s usually done in silence )
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You don't start assigning causal or contributory factors unless you have evidence to support them.
Follow the evidence as you uncover it.
If - yes let's do this IF thing, shall we? - there had been a thunderstorm, there may have been other potential contributory causes.
If, if, if ... in a few days there may be more to work with.
There are a lot of things that become doable when costs and fuel burn are not a consideration... Heck, we could go back to fixed gear - that would solve the problem...
If your reward/punishment scale is "who uses the least fuel per mile" you will incentivize creative ways to either save fuel or appear to be saving fuel.
If your reward punishment scale is "who gets off on time and lands on time" you will incentivize creative ways to get to the gate on time.
If your reward punishment scale is "fewest complaints about firm landings" you will incentivize (perhaps) an extraordinary effort towards greasing one on ...
And so on. Which makes me wonder: what do this company's SOPs and rules and metrics incentivize? Did those incentives play into whatever it was that this crew did during this (apparently) routine flight from Point A to Point B?
Sometimes you can write a policy and discover, months later, maybe years later, that what people are doing to appear to be adhering to that policy isn't quite what you wanted them to do.
(I have a vague memory of a story about 727 pilots being clever with the flaps in flight from years ago that would illustrate that point, but can't find a reference at the moment).