What sort of warning is there if gear is lowered but fails to correctly lock? What's the procedure if gear fails to lock? Could crew have thought that a warning was a bad sensor, rather than an actual failure? I'm picturing a scenario where perhaps the crew is suspicious of the gear but think that it's down, but then when it doesn't hold they do a go-around, but the engines have already been damaged.

At 750ft AGL you get a master warning "L/G GEAR NOT DOWN". That means you'll get a loud DING DING DING and red flashy lights. There is a large red downwards arrow next to the landing gear lever that lights up (if you're in the landing configuration minus the landing gear, eg flaps set for landing with the gear up). If you ignore that, eventually you get a "TOO LOW GEAR" GPWS callout (400ft maybe? Can't remember), when that shouts you get a GPWS light in front of you.

Edit: That's weird, I wasn't intending to reply to jugopropwash, thought it was BrooksPA28 asking about warnings for the gear not being down. Perhaps the post was deleted.

They would not be the first to get so involved with the landing that they screwed the pooch. See Capt. Asoh's noble defense. If they had a double podstrike plus maybe a tailstrike, why didn't they say anything afterwards? Well, maybe it's not so bad and they won't get in trouble. Why cause problems for yourselves?
Thus why a just culture is hard to attain. Even when policies in place, you still get judged on insufficient st
​​​​evidence.

That implies that the controller should have taken a particular interest in this approach. Was no-one in the tower watching as they descended with gear retracted, banged the engines on the runway, and then climbed away trailing smoke? Did it not occur to anyone to pipe up: "Er, PIA, we think you might have just smacked your aeroplane on the ground"?

So you can retract the gear with weight on and movement, live on a runway during a TOGA before lift off to allow engine nacelles to scrape the ground? Im not sure I get that.
Or is the suggestion there was positive climb, gear up then a sink back down temporarily to scuff engines before gaining momentum

Or a large bounce, put the gear up instead of the flap in the bounce, the engines take too long to spool up and you get a second bounce (crash) before climbing away.

My guess is the gear was not lowered on the 1st landing

Never underestimate the ability of the human mind to filter out certain sounds - especially during high stress/high workload situations (perhaps worrying about another, unrelated, issue).
Allegedly (according to one of my college profs) many years ago a biz jet did a wheels up landing at Boeing Field. The flight crew swore up and down that the landing config warning never sounded - until the investigators played them the CVR recording where the warning was clearly evident during final...

This is not true. https://reports.aviation-safety.net/...321_AP-BJB.pdf

Chapter 10, section 10.3 It was conclusively established that neither the Captain, nor the FO, were fasting during or 12 hours before the flight

You'd have audible warnings though? If true it would certainly be on the CVR unless there was some fault with that system but it's such a rookie mistake.

There was a gear unsafe warning going off during R/T between the plane & ATC. Seems they tried to land gear up, scrapped the pods on the Rwy then went around, the rest is obvious as to what happened next.

That warning may well not be a gear unsafe warning, most likely an overspeed while trying to loose the height and configure

“Possible” scenario, (as the Swiss cheese has happened before in a 320)

Aircraft is doing the slam dunk, trying to get down, Gear out, Flaps out-maybe not at Conf Full, or 3 because of the rushed approach, have realised well and truly unstable, called Go Around, in the heat of the moment, the PF has pushed the Thrust into MCT instead of TOGA. There is the increase in thrust and sound of the engines, and because of the repetition in Sim sessions, the PNF has called positive climb, even though they weren’t, due to the ‘go around mouth music’.... PF has then called for gear up. Gear is selected up, but the aircraft is still sinking towards the runway, with speed increasing.....and ‘maybe’... both engines have contacted the runway? They’ve realised, gone to TOGA and flown away. Then with some damage ECAM is lighting up with stuff, Rat is extended.

Nup, they where with Twr well into the App/Ldg so unlikely to be anything other than gear not down. To land a modern day jet like the Airbus gear still up is almost unimaginable but they tried by the looks of things!

It would really surprise me if this really happened, because it is (or should) be well known to Airbus pilots that SRS and Go-Around mode do not activate if the thrust levers are not advanced in the TOGA detent. If for any reason the thrust levers are not properly set, the PF would notice immediately that something is wrong on the FMA, because he would still see the normal modes that guide the aircraft in the landing phase.

According to FlightAware records, the aircraft (AP-BLD) hadn’t flown in the last 60 days.

Was the aircraft parked and stored in accordance with the AMM/MP?

https://safetyfirst.airbus.com/aircr...g-and-storage/

According to Flightradar24 the aircraft operated regularly till 22MAR. After that:

07MAY 2 legs
19MAY 2 legs
21MAY 1 leg (MCT-LHE)

I agree with you, however it has happened before, but the crew realised their error just under 100ft RA and avoided contact with the runway without landing gear. Human Factors is an amazing thing.

A plausible scenario I can think of is:

PF “Go Around Flap”
PF moves THRLVR up one click.
PM “positive climb” (momentary, not sustained)
PF “gear up”
PM selects gear up.
No FMA Readout.
AC not in TOGA and keeps descending. Realised when still descending - just before pods hit. Selects TOGA.

It caught out an Australian airline some years ago, although without the ground contact.

EDIT - was distracted and took ages composing and have just seen others have same conclusion.

EDIT 2 - Have just heard audio of landing clearance read back with Continuous Repetitive Chime going off. It wasn't going off at the clearance for the approach. Whatever happened occurred between the two. Maybe there was gear problem that forced the go around.

Reading the FMA could have been missed. A Jetstar Australia A320 almost contacted the runway during a go-around when the thrust levers weren't fully advanced into the TOGA detent. However this was during thick fog so it's reasonable to assume that the autopilot was engaged.

https://australianaviation.com.au/20...around-mishap/

If they were at 3500' and 5nm, based on normal approach speeds they were around 2 minutes from touchdown and would have needed a descent rate of around 1700 fpm which is double what would normally be expected and well outside stabilised criteria. The gymnastics involved in trying to salvage the situation would suggest that the aircraft would have been hand flown at the time. Clearly, a safe landing wasn't possible but the go-around might have only been initiated after a prolonged float down the runway, it would be interesting to see how far along the pavement ground contact occurred. An early gear retraction before confirming "positive climb" and possible non engagement of TOGA when go-around was initiated look increasing likely.

This aircraft, like thousands of others, has been sitting in storage for months. I believe this was its 6th flight out of storage.

It will be interesting to see if the initial gear problem is related to issues created by extended storage.

Airline maintenance will have to be super vigilant come the time when worldwide aviation cranks up again.

Gear Up Landing Attempt
 

With regard to the hypothesis advanced on this thread that the landing gear was not selected down - I operated into KHI regularly for 25 years, and one of the unique features there was the way ATC always used the phraseology “ABC123, check wheels down and locked, clear to land 25R”. It always caused me to glance at the gear position indications. Unless something has changed at KHI ATC since my last approach there, which admittedly was six years ago, I can’t help thinking that that particular hole in the Swiss Cheese should have been blocked by such a call. But there again, for the PIA crews hearing it several times a day for years, maybe it would just become so routine that it lost its effectiveness, especially under stress.

It is a long time since I operated A320 into Pakistan and later while based there. If the engines scraped the runway during the go-around, and damage the IDGs / alternators, Would the RAT prop deploy far enough to be destroyed by striking the runway? Assuming APU not operating, that might take them straight from full electrical power to battery power only - another unwanted distraction.
Are all the FADEC systems sufficiently clear of the cowling scrape area to avoid damage?
Damage caused by the scrapes might be a slow train wreck rather than fully apparent.
With gear already up, the crew might have intentionally selected less than TOGA for the go-around, which could have been a significant contribution to the end result

Shouldn't there be corresponding scrape marks on the runway?

Have there been studies of bird strikes on the RAT?

The rat would likely be auto deployed at the second engine shutdown not before..

Won’t be much if it’s a poorly executed go around. If what I think has gone on here, they essentially have crushed the CFMs on the deck briefly (albeit extremely hard) whilst rotating/correcting the float error, with the gear retracting. Nose attitude most certainly up going of the marks.

I would be quite interested in the location of the marks on the runway.

Is that approach height correct ? 5 miles from threshold or from navaid ? 3500 ft what’s that above the runway ? Was there any background warnings on the initial ( high ) approach ? If they where high and floated they may have been in a low energy state at the far end of runway ? Reports of wheels up approach?
RIP to those involved . Sad day during tough times for aviation .

Regarding the question on FADEC systems being sufficiently clear of the scrape area.

The FADEC's dedicated alternator, High Pressure Fuel Pump are both on the main gear box (MGB) that on the -5B is on the lower side of the engine. If the engines had impacted the ground hard enough it's not hard to conceive the whole MGB was compromised that would not only render the IDGs inoperative but also the other accessories on inlcuding the Engine Fuel Pump, FADEC dedicated alternator as well as the Hydraulic pump with no chance of recovery. In addition to this fuel lines, hydraulic lines for Yellow/Green systems would have probably been compromised on the engines too.

If I recall, on early model A320 that I flew, the the RAT deployed when:
-AC BUS 1 is not electrically supplied
-AC BUS 2 is not electrically supplied
-Aircraft speed is greater than 100kt

No engine necessarily needs to have been shut down or failed.

Mainly I would like to know if the deployed RAT prop would contact the runway with engine scrape on go-around with gear up.

Assuming the sequence of events was runway contact and engine damage causing dual IDG failures and then RAT engagement, it seems improbable the turbine would deploy quickly enough to contact the runway.

Surely the amount of time the nacelles were on the runway was no more than a second or two, as throttle advancement and arrest of the aircraft sink rate had already occurred before contact. If this was not so, undoubtedly it would not have been able to fly away.

As is true with all conjecture in this thread, the above scenario depends on wildly improbable events. I must agree with others who have commented, the entire episode beggars belief.

Facts are; master warning sounds during 1? final approach, RAT deployed(could be several reason why), gear extended on the last approach, high pitch on last approach(glide due to dual engine failure/problems or flap/slat issues), FR24 flight track and vertical profile, ATC comment, scrapes on both engines, black and not straight line but from front middle to slightly to the left(rubber from the touchdown zone and a slightly angled touchdown/xwind? I have seen similar scrape-marks on 1 of our B74 classics which had a number 3 pod-strike.
Poor lads might have landed gear up(both engines appear to be operational due exhaust visible on video), pod-strikes in ground effect on the rubbery part of the touchdown zone,slightly angled like in a xwind, GA, both engines fail/failed due damage from the pod-strikes? Fireball and post flight fire indicates fuel present on impact.
I flew the A320 a long time ago but this seems possible, a hair raising scenario....

Not sure if this footage has been shared yet:

Struggling to believe anyone survived that, but if appears to be the case.

There may be some points incommon with the Emirates B777 crash in Dubai in 2016, though in that case the engines didn't spool up and the aircraft sank back onto the runway. Botched go around after an unstable approach with a similar outcome. Could the automation have been a factor with this accident as well ?

There is going to be a larger reliance of Automation in the near future as many return to work after many months away from the stick. It would be interesting to see how recent the crew have been active for. We are all going to be incredibly rusty for the first few weeks.

It’s going to be inevitable that there will be an increase in incidents when the world ramps up. 95% of the Pilots at my operator will return to work having not flown for 6 months. We are also starting back in the midst of a challenging weather season. The training department is going to be busy.

Regarding forgetting to lower the gear before landing, given that they started from a very high energy state, wouldn't getting the gear down be something that they would have to do to salvage the approach?

Having flown the 330/340, and knowing enough about the 320, I just can't see a way that they could make a wheels up landing attempt unless they were actively ignoring the CRC, Master Warning, ECAM and the GPWS.

So they do a rushed approach. The ATCO even queried whether they were going to make it.
Somehow they “forget” to lower the gear. Unintentionally belly landed and scraped both engines.
Regained altitude, and on downwind both engines quit due to damage. RAT deploys, and they alpha floor it into the suburb.
Pure speculation of course.

I think it is possible that the crew were unaware they had contacted the runway, the GO around was probably initiated during the flare when they noticed the unusual attitude from the lack of gear, by the time the engines had spooled up the nacelles just touched the runway, hard enough to damage them and the IDG's but not hard enough to be catastrophic or even erode the fan cowl latches (Fan cowls stayed on). This could be why they don't mention it or call a mayday until the IDG's and engines start to fail later in the go around due to the damage sustained.

Bird strike or not, there is a pretty big feathered job in the previous photos.
Salt flats attract birds too.

APU start as in Sully would be a good idea - only possible with fuel though...