PIA A320 Crash Karachi

[Milvus Milvus]

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"

[krismiler]

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]

Originally Posted by FlightDetent

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]

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]

Originally Posted by EDLB

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]

Originally Posted by EDLB

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...

[AmuDarya]

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/66...nored-by-pilot

[asdf1234]

Originally Posted by henra

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]

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]

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]

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]

Originally Posted by Loose rivets

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]

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.

[gearlever]

Originally Posted by krismiler

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.

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

[FlyingAce77]

Originally Posted by Black Pudding

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]

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]

Rust Never Sl......

(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]

Originally Posted by gearlever

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]

Originally Posted by T28B

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]

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?'