PIA A320 Crash Karachi
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Investigation update from Ary News:
KARACHI: The investigation process of crashed Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane, PK-8303, has entered into its final phase as French experts would complete their probe till Sunday, citing sources, ARY News reported on Friday.
Sources told ARY News that the 11-member visiting team of Airbus company comprising French experts have collected important evidences of the crashed aircraft.
The French experts will depart for Paris on Monday with the plane’s black box, cockpit voice recorder to decode it. Following their scheduled departure after completing the six-day visit, the aviation authorities have permitted a special flight to land in Pakistan.The director of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) issued directives for the special flight likely to land at Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport on May 31.
A team of 11 French experts had landed in Karachi on a special Airbus 338 on Tuesday and visited the location of the plane crash in Karachi.
The investigation team of Airbus had also paid a visit to the radar centre of the Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport.
The visiting foreign experts had reviewed the arrangements at the radar centre for the take-off and landing of aircraft.
Moreover, the investigation team had inspected different equipment at the radar room besides witnessing the process of landing and take-off of the planes.
Except for 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.
Investigation of PIA plane crash enters into final phase
Salah Uddin On May 30, 2020KARACHI: The investigation process of crashed Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane, PK-8303, has entered into its final phase as French experts would complete their probe till Sunday, citing sources, ARY News reported on Friday.
Sources told ARY News that the 11-member visiting team of Airbus company comprising French experts have collected important evidences of the crashed aircraft.
The French experts will depart for Paris on Monday with the plane’s black box, cockpit voice recorder to decode it. Following their scheduled departure after completing the six-day visit, the aviation authorities have permitted a special flight to land in Pakistan.The director of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) issued directives for the special flight likely to land at Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport on May 31.
A team of 11 French experts had landed in Karachi on a special Airbus 338 on Tuesday and visited the location of the plane crash in Karachi.
The investigation team of Airbus had also paid a visit to the radar centre of the Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport.
The visiting foreign experts had reviewed the arrangements at the radar centre for the take-off and landing of aircraft.
Moreover, the investigation team had inspected different equipment at the radar room besides witnessing the process of landing and take-off of the planes.
Except for 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.
Sometimes I'm amused, sometimes I'm concerned, when someone suggests they LEARNT to fly on whatever A/C. The word learnt, is past tense. It gives the impression, after one learnt, there is no more learning to be had. Is this correct? We continue to learn until the day we die, do we not? Whatever we are doing.
Not trying to be clever and some may think this is irrelevant to this thread. I say it is relevent because clearly this crew learnt a very bitter leeson at the end, taking almost 100 poor soles with them. One crew member with 17,000 hours.
It was CAVOK with nothing to obstruct the flight, yet they flew the damned thing into the ground. The a/c had the most up to date automation etc., etc. This concerns me a great deal.
Not trying to be clever and some may think this is irrelevant to this thread. I say it is relevent because clearly this crew learnt a very bitter leeson at the end, taking almost 100 poor soles with them. One crew member with 17,000 hours.
It was CAVOK with nothing to obstruct the flight, yet they flew the damned thing into the ground. The a/c had the most up to date automation etc., etc. This concerns me a great deal.
Last edited by Dan_Brown; 30th May 2020 at 01:15.
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Yes it will capture. The ILS push button is only for display. And it will keep flashing on your PFD in case you arm the approach but forgot to press the ILS push button. Quite difficult to miss it.
If the aircraft was doing 236 kts at 2000' that suggests that the gear would have been down if it had been selected down, as the speed was now below the lockout speed. The tower controller has a very good view of the runway and would/should have been watching the aircraft to confirm its arrival and hand him over to ground frequency once vacated. He doesn't notice that the wheels aren't down, it isn't his job to check and everyone else manages to do it correctly. Possibly the view is distorted by the shimmering heat, dirty windows or fasting for the last nine hours.
He becomes concerned at the aircraft's excessive speed along the runway and at some stage realises that the landing gear is retracted. He assumes that there is a problem with the undercarriage and that the crew are aware of it but neglected to tell him, hence his query about carrying out a belly landing.
The primary cause of this accident was continuing the badly unstabilised approach instead of going around, and the final decision to continue appears to have been made when they informed the controller that they were established and could make it. The CVR should reveal if there was any mention of going around after this or if they tunnel fixated on landing the aircraft.
The events leading up to this, such as how they got into that position in the first place and the exact errors and sequence in which they happened should be revealed by the investigators.
He becomes concerned at the aircraft's excessive speed along the runway and at some stage realises that the landing gear is retracted. He assumes that there is a problem with the undercarriage and that the crew are aware of it but neglected to tell him, hence his query about carrying out a belly landing.
The primary cause of this accident was continuing the badly unstabilised approach instead of going around, and the final decision to continue appears to have been made when they informed the controller that they were established and could make it. The CVR should reveal if there was any mention of going around after this or if they tunnel fixated on landing the aircraft.
The events leading up to this, such as how they got into that position in the first place and the exact errors and sequence in which they happened should be revealed by the investigators.
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Wouldn't the same security camera that recorded the final approach have recorded the first pass?
It would establish whether the landing gear was down on the first approach.
It would establish whether the landing gear was down on the first approach.
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do we not already have reports from ATC interviews that gear was UP on approach ?
suggests that they did know, if so why not advise the crew, did they really want their runway damaged ?
suggests that they did know, if so why not advise the crew, did they really want their runway damaged ?
The reply by the ATC was the pilot of the 737 concerned was a former senior military officer well known to ATC and who had a propensity for ignoring SID requirements. In that society senior military people have contacts and unpleasant things can occur to anyone that has the temerity to question them or cross them. In the case of this particular pilot ATC said it was safer for all concerned to let him do what he likes and simply adjust the flight paths of other aircraft to avoid conflict
Krismiler sums up a poss scenario in the VCP well at post #895 just above. It's not clear what ATC actually saw and, in many ways, while it might have saved the day had the lack of gear been noticed in time and had the crew actually responded to a final shout from ATC - even that is highly debatable if they were so fixated on getting the jet down onto the runway.
Ultimately this accident seems to have been set up at FL"x" at speed "y" where both "x" and "y" are quite a high! Maybe we will find out what really went on ...... that is up to the AAIB. Ultimately it's what went on in Row 0 which matters. Just my view based on unclear facts and educated guesses put forward by several people atm.... Thats all we still have.
Cheers, H 'n' H
Over 700 posts ago, this was written:
Since then the biases and prejudices have appeared:
1. Crew protection - no one could be dumb enough to do that so it didn’t happen. Followed by a plethora of systems posts blaming the jet.
2. Blame Ramadan - fair point on contributory factor. Not PC to discuss religion, gender identity etc.
3. Airbus vs. Boeing - it must have been those dodgy none moving throttles (conveniently forgetting Turkish at AMS, Korean at SFO and EK at DXB that all had moving thrust levers and managed to have the wrong power set. Why not blame the auto-trim system instead? Because it doesn’t matter.
4. Anti-military - ah, he flew military jets therefore had no CRM. If that was the case BA, UAL, DAL to name but a few would be spearing in left right and centre.
5. CRM protectors - if they had good CRM, they wouldn’t have crashed. No sh1t, if they had performed any other of about 100 competencies better they wouldn’t either.
6. Let’s blame a chain of events....everything that ever happens comes from a chain of events and if any were broken the day would have been saved. Sometimes though the links are as tenuous as a butterflies wing flap in the Amazon causing a Wall Street crash.
7. Bad Pilot/Good Pilot - we always like to judge as a defence mechanism blame the pilots solves the problem, particularly if they are conveniently dead.
8. ATC should have said something. Well they did but the crew ignored the advice.. but why?
Millions of approaches have been flown without incident and often the jet has saved the day by finally getting through to the pilots that they have screwed the pooch. The EGPWS works well, the Airbus FCS is well designed with world leading flight control protections. The jet was fine. All the rest above are at worse biases at best a small link in the chain.
So what was it? The crew performed inadequately on the day! It’s no different to the lorry driver that turns the wrong way up the freeway. All the signs are there but he didn’t notice. But he wasn’t trying to go the wrong way, why didn’t he notice. Was he worried about the length of the vehicle etc. etc. That must be it!
Capt Gul, didn’t plan to crash and we can’t comment on how good his human machine normally was but it failed. The FO clearly should have intervened but his machine failed as well. Why? Tunnel vision, task saturation, lack of capacity. By the way this is the main reason most military pilots get washed out in training. Their human machine is unable to cope as the workload increases on complex missions. Okay problem solved.
How to fix it.
1. New rules...uh no, that is managements way of trying to show they have done something.
2. Better selection, Traning and examining. of course it could help..
But then there is the elephant in the room.
On this occasion this crew were unable to cope with the demands of a badly flown approach and actually managed to over-ride all the protections in place. But why didn’t they spot the clues? Why didn’t they listen to the machine, ATC etc, etc, telling them they were wrong?
Simple, culture! As an illustration, not to denigrate but a statement of fact, on the same day as this crash a video appeared of 2 women being ‘honor killed’ in Pakistan, in Iran a 14 year old girl met the same fate. That is the society from whence the Captain came. Those norms are still considered acceptable by many and at the same time a Captain is considered a god. ATC know they can only hint to the infallible Captain he may have erred. The bottom line is telling a Captain he is a little high on the approach is quite a long way down his ‘give a sh1t list’!
This will be little different to the Air Blue crash in Islamabad. That was put down to poor CRM whilst ignoring the elephant in the room.
The reality is the only way to try and reduce these types of events is to change the culture that is getting in the way. I know the middle eastern airlines and Korean have worked hard in divorcing airline culture from national culture.
Yep culture needs to change, but they won’t internally and anyone that suggests they need to externally gets run over by the PC / ‘ism’ / ‘phobic’ bus. Until that day you will have to accept a small but measurable additional risk attached to flying on an aircraft who’s crew’s basic cultural norms may be incompatible with safety.
This video nails it pretty well.
3500’ at 5nm (over 2x the normal path), overspeed warning on recording, pod strike in the pictures and ATC mention “a belly up landing”.
Looks like high energy unstable approach, leading to a crash landing bounce, go-around into the circuit. Essentially crashed the jet then tried to fly it.
3500’ at 5nm (over 2x the normal path), overspeed warning on recording, pod strike in the pictures and ATC mention “a belly up landing”.
Looks like high energy unstable approach, leading to a crash landing bounce, go-around into the circuit. Essentially crashed the jet then tried to fly it.
1. Crew protection - no one could be dumb enough to do that so it didn’t happen. Followed by a plethora of systems posts blaming the jet.
2. Blame Ramadan - fair point on contributory factor. Not PC to discuss religion, gender identity etc.
3. Airbus vs. Boeing - it must have been those dodgy none moving throttles (conveniently forgetting Turkish at AMS, Korean at SFO and EK at DXB that all had moving thrust levers and managed to have the wrong power set. Why not blame the auto-trim system instead? Because it doesn’t matter.
4. Anti-military - ah, he flew military jets therefore had no CRM. If that was the case BA, UAL, DAL to name but a few would be spearing in left right and centre.
5. CRM protectors - if they had good CRM, they wouldn’t have crashed. No sh1t, if they had performed any other of about 100 competencies better they wouldn’t either.
6. Let’s blame a chain of events....everything that ever happens comes from a chain of events and if any were broken the day would have been saved. Sometimes though the links are as tenuous as a butterflies wing flap in the Amazon causing a Wall Street crash.
7. Bad Pilot/Good Pilot - we always like to judge as a defence mechanism blame the pilots solves the problem, particularly if they are conveniently dead.
8. ATC should have said something. Well they did but the crew ignored the advice.. but why?
Millions of approaches have been flown without incident and often the jet has saved the day by finally getting through to the pilots that they have screwed the pooch. The EGPWS works well, the Airbus FCS is well designed with world leading flight control protections. The jet was fine. All the rest above are at worse biases at best a small link in the chain.
So what was it? The crew performed inadequately on the day! It’s no different to the lorry driver that turns the wrong way up the freeway. All the signs are there but he didn’t notice. But he wasn’t trying to go the wrong way, why didn’t he notice. Was he worried about the length of the vehicle etc. etc. That must be it!
Capt Gul, didn’t plan to crash and we can’t comment on how good his human machine normally was but it failed. The FO clearly should have intervened but his machine failed as well. Why? Tunnel vision, task saturation, lack of capacity. By the way this is the main reason most military pilots get washed out in training. Their human machine is unable to cope as the workload increases on complex missions. Okay problem solved.
How to fix it.
1. New rules...uh no, that is managements way of trying to show they have done something.
2. Better selection, Traning and examining. of course it could help..
But then there is the elephant in the room.
On this occasion this crew were unable to cope with the demands of a badly flown approach and actually managed to over-ride all the protections in place. But why didn’t they spot the clues? Why didn’t they listen to the machine, ATC etc, etc, telling them they were wrong?
Simple, culture! As an illustration, not to denigrate but a statement of fact, on the same day as this crash a video appeared of 2 women being ‘honor killed’ in Pakistan, in Iran a 14 year old girl met the same fate. That is the society from whence the Captain came. Those norms are still considered acceptable by many and at the same time a Captain is considered a god. ATC know they can only hint to the infallible Captain he may have erred. The bottom line is telling a Captain he is a little high on the approach is quite a long way down his ‘give a sh1t list’!
This will be little different to the Air Blue crash in Islamabad. That was put down to poor CRM whilst ignoring the elephant in the room.
The reality is the only way to try and reduce these types of events is to change the culture that is getting in the way. I know the middle eastern airlines and Korean have worked hard in divorcing airline culture from national culture.
Yep culture needs to change, but they won’t internally and anyone that suggests they need to externally gets run over by the PC / ‘ism’ / ‘phobic’ bus. Until that day you will have to accept a small but measurable additional risk attached to flying on an aircraft who’s crew’s basic cultural norms may be incompatible with safety.
Source ?
de minimus non curat lex
The tower controller has a very good view of the runway and would/should have been watching the aircraft to confirm its arrival and hand him over to ground frequency once vacated. He doesn't notice that the wheels aren't down, it isn't his job to check and everyone else manages to do it correctly. Possibly the view is distorted by the shimmering heat, dirty windows or fasting for the last nine hours.
Dirty windows...is this often an issue?
Quote: ”it isn’t his job to check” ~ it will be interesting to read the accident report as to whether your assertion is how ATCOs are taught during their training, and whether their equivalent of MATS part 2
(ATC local instructions/SOPs) makes any reference to looking at landing aircraft.
I do accept that given all the protections afforded to A320, a wheel up landing (in error) must be an exceptionally rare event.
10 to the minus 10 (and counting)
I can't find the original post from which that appears to be quoted - Source ?
3. Airbus vs. Boeing - it must have been those dodgy none moving throttles (conveniently forgetting Turkish at AMS, Korean at SFO and EK at DXB that all had moving thrust levers and managed to have the wrong power set. Why not blame the auto-trim system instead? Because it doesn’t matter.
NO ONE ever blamed the non-moving throttles. The entire throttle discussion was a thread drift regarding the Asiana (NOT Korean) accident at SFO, where the issue discussed was the lack of proper differences training when transitioning between Airbus and Boeing.I'm honestly sorry I ever brought it up.
Approach - to whom Tower have just transferred the a/c - ask
"Confirm you are ?carrying out? belly landing".
It's not easy to know exactly why Approach asks this question at that moment, and there's no clear answer from the struggling crew. Pure speculation - Approach have had a quick heads-up from Tower that the first landing was some form of no-gear.
I'm sure by now investigators know more, factually - but there don't seem to be any reliable reports (whether official or leaked) of what they actually do now know.
Last edited by Gary Brown; 30th May 2020 at 07:37. Reason: Odd formatting of YouTube insert
Anyway, as others have said, the machine was almost certainly not at fault, but the pilots operating it probably were.
We just need to know why now.
Quote: ”it isn’t his job to check” ~ it will be interesting to read the accident report as to whether your assertion is how ATCOs are taught during their training, and whether their equivalent of MATS part 2 (ATC local instructions/SOPs) makes any reference to looking at landing aircraft.
I learned a bit about Cultures from that one event I tell you! H 'n' H
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That's why I posed my "actual sequence of events" query a few pages back...... So far as I am aware, the only ATC mention of the state of the gear is *after* the first, failed landing, as they are turning back to try again.
Approach - to whom Tower have just transferred the a/c - asks the crew
Approach - to whom Tower have just transferred the a/c - ask
"Confirm you are ?carrying out? belly landing".
It's not easy to know exactly why Approach asks this question at that moment, and there's no clear answer from the struggling crew. Pure speculation - Approach have had a quick heads-up from Tower that the first landing was some form of no-gear.
I'm sure by now investigators know more, factually - but there don't seem to be any reliable reports (whether official or leaked) of what they actually do now know.
Approach - to whom Tower have just transferred the a/c - asks the crew
Approach - to whom Tower have just transferred the a/c - ask
"Confirm you are ?carrying out? belly landing".
It's not easy to know exactly why Approach asks this question at that moment, and there's no clear answer from the struggling crew. Pure speculation - Approach have had a quick heads-up from Tower that the first landing was some form of no-gear.
I'm sure by now investigators know more, factually - but there don't seem to be any reliable reports (whether official or leaked) of what they actually do now know.
Whilst at first sight/hearing this may lead the listener to believe that the controller is asking about future intent, it is more likely that the controller is asking about a historic event.
A native english speaker would say "Confirm you carried out..." whereas in the subcontinent this is often phrased as "confirm you are carrying out" with both phrases referring to the past event.
I think it is important to understand the use of the English language by people in India and Pakistan to fully understand the phrase "Confirm you are carrying out belly landing".
Whilst at first sight/hearing this may lead the listener to believe that the controller is asking about future intent, it is more likely that the controller is asking about a historic event.
A native english speaker would say "Confirm you carried out..." whereas in the subcontinent this is often phrased as "confirm you are carrying out" with both phrases referring to the past event.
Whilst at first sight/hearing this may lead the listener to believe that the controller is asking about future intent, it is more likely that the controller is asking about a historic event.
A native english speaker would say "Confirm you carried out..." whereas in the subcontinent this is often phrased as "confirm you are carrying out" with both phrases referring to the past event.
Fair point - but it's not even clear to me, from the publicly available audio, that he's saying "carrying out" . And in any case, we don't know how the Approach controller knew whatever it was he knew.
ATC Spotting the Gear Down Or Not
Several comments have been along the lines of ATC could have seen and warned the crew they were about to land with the gear up. Leaving aside culture aspects or ATC responsibilities, surely I can’t have been the only one to have sat at the holding point, looking at the aircraft on final approach, and not being able to see the gear (or some of it) because of angles and aircraft configuration? Is it not possible that the tower controller couldn’t see the gear but dismissed it as an optical allusion (particularly if, as someone a few posts back mentioned, there is haze, shimmering from the heat etc).