I think this accident will be used one day by the people pushing for full automation . So many warnings and ECAMs messages were disregarded in that flight . it is close to caricatural . ...

Or the opposite, the issue is the presence of mind, to work in a complex environment. You can design anything, machine or system or procedure, however if you do not have the discipline and zen to work with it, it will kill you at some point

So its the people that need to adapt and work with systems. ATC is more likely to be fully automated before Pilots are taken out of the aircraft

Well I do not think so as current R&D is on AI and machine learning that will gradually take over ATC and Cockpit tasks , first with Controllers and pilots monitoring the processes, but then, as systems get better an automated reliance will be introduced and back up systems will take over . That means that we both will be out of the loop at the same time . It will not be ATC fits and Crew inside aircraft next, it will be both at the same time as ground computers will interact to airborne computers, no humans in between. But relax, we are still a couple of decades away from this , but it most probably will come one day .
,

Separate discussion perhaps covered elsewhere but.... when that time comes, how many pax will willingly board such an aircraft?

Back on topic. I'm only SLF (though I work in aerospace for one of the big players and have a keen interest, and some training, in aviation safety) but when I watched the Mentour video on this crash, I spent most of it aghast at what I was seeing. I've followed this topic on here from the beginning but it still shocked me, and the shocks kept coming. This, surely, has to be about as bad as it gets up the front of a commercial airliner. Truly an eye-opener even for this relatively informed amateur.

The price of the ticket is the strongest motivator .always been and you probably won’t get the choice anyway .
but i agree , we’re off topic .

Ohhh no. The airplane was far, far, within its limits (of course before they scraped the engines on the runway...) I mean during the high slope approach.
Usual airline ops use about 2% of the airplane flight domain. Test pilots do things that you can't even imagine.

However, beyond the limits of the FO, it's indeed very clear.
Why were they high in the first place ? Because the F/O, who was PF, didn't properly check his descent distance and missed an orbit that made the flight path longer than it was.
Again, it all boils down to the F/O.

Yes, the captain has final responsibility over the aircraft, and that includes making up for the F/O's mistakes.
But the F/O is also a trained professional whose duty is to do his job correctly, that includes not doing everything that he did, including things at a time when everything was still perfectly normal.

A toxic combination of high authority gradient, low skill/knowledge levels and a complete inability to modify the plan when it was obviously failing had a large part in their demise. I wouldn’t heap the majority of the blame on the P2 as, yes, he wasn’t doing a very good job but there was no effective monitoring from the P1. The P2 also tried to intervene but without success, due to inadequate advocacy and the aforementioned authority gradient. If the P1 had become incapacitated, would the P2 have continued the approach? Probably not; would the P1 have done the same had the P2 passed out - much more likely as he had a track record of doing exactly that.

I can’t access the report from the country I’m currently in, but I’m reasonably sure they went a long way into the red with flaps/slats somewhere on the approach? Given aerodynamic forces increase with speed squared, it doesn’t take much of an excursion to get to ultimate design loads. They may have been where no test pilot had gone before, as TPs understand the much tighter margins when it comes to speed limitations...

In a two-pilot operation, keeping within P2's limitations is just as much part of the captain's responsibility as keeping within the aircraft's limitations. This captain failed in his responsibility to do so. [Arguments about whether P2s should be able to do more than follow SOPs are beside the point so long as airlines only train them to do just that.]

Which report have you been reading? I've been reading the one where the captain overrides the FO's suggestions and then ATC's instructions to orbit. Let me guess, you are going to absolve the captain on the basis that the FO and ATC were insufficiently assertive?

This whole flight and accident process was under control of the Captain.

The F/O might well have made errors, but any given F/O might be nervous and/or be on their first line flight after passing their final line check. So a Captain has to not only be a "normal" Captain but will sometimes have to "babysit" new F/Os, and be prepared to offer advice, command certain actions, or take over if need be. That's what the fourth stripes are for.

The responsibility for conducting a safe flight begins and ends with the Captain, but in this accident flight, it was the Captain who was at fault. The F/O might be very new to the company and the environment. If a normal, approachable Captain makes a mistake, you can easily point out their error, and they will say "Ah, good spot, thank you", but put in the situation of a terrible autocratic Captain, it is a really big ask to expect a new or unassertive F/O to override the Captain and take control - (unless they are literally flying towards a cliff).

CRM is often cited, but it is not always as easy as remembering some special magic words to say when a fierce, autocratic Captain is shouting at you. And F/Os are not, in my experience, given actual training in dealing with fierce autocratic Captains, they are just told to say certain phrases.

What I think is of greater concern generally is that Captains are often given some sort of protective wrapper once they have got into the LHS. I have seen poorly performing Captains in recurrent SIM checks and on the line, but they seemed to be protected by the company - despite poor performance - and not taken to task or demoted. There are thankfully many fewer "Atlantic Barons" these days, but there still needs to be a more robust way of dealing with and weeding out the bad line Captains.

In no case am I absolving the captain.
However, being an F/O myself, I identify as him and am easily prone to blaming him, as I would blame myself if I performed this poorly.

The F/O made many mistakes. The captain didn't notice them and didn't compensate them.
Not the other way around. And that is very specific to this case. Other crashes happened differently.
I'm not going against the general rule that the captain has the ultimate responsibility for the airplane. I'm just saying that in this particular case, his job was made very difficult by this F/O.

I disagree. The Captain made the decisions, did not observe what was going on, and chose to go-around, sentencing most to death. Himself included. Standard flight deck gradient in Pakistan. As steep as the North Face of the Eiger. Tough for the FO to climb successfully.

lol the mentally deficient FO (due to self enforced starvation from Ramadamingdong) entirely phucks the approach up; and it’s still the CPT (who also hasn’t had sniff of bacon sanger) fault?! :ok:

My daily browse of X, Daily Wail & Pprubbish is complete

Off to communicate with adults

Errr.....well, it most certainly is the Captain's responsibility - in the same way as when an engine fails, the situation has to be dealt with and contained.

What were you told on your Command course - to just sit there and let the F/O crash the plane ???

~~~

Fasting for Ramadan might have made sense in the century's before the invention of complex machinery, but nowadays, it is beyond bizzare and extremely concerning that it is allowed amongst those operating aircraft.

Can they not get a dispensation and 'make up for it' in other ways to appease their gods ?

Had the captain saved the day, what treatment should this F/O have been given, after having repeatedly tried to kill everybody ?
Doing nothing would have been far better.

Have you actually read the report?

CVividasku's post has certainly reinvigorated this thread with a lot of useful commentary. I think he may be making a more subtle point than is being credited. Yes the Captain was responsible and ran an appalling show with a litany of errors. If there is a value to negative examples then here you have it. If his behaviour or even a cursory compliance with SOPs had been there then nothing much would have happened. Do consider the FOs role though. Not only was it non challenging but also counterproductive as CVividasku pointed out. Accidents are the result of a multiplicity of factors and aviation personalities are very varied. I've flown with people in both seats who probably shouldnt have been in either. We probably know people like this, now just imagine if two are paired together on a bad day.

I'm afraid the subtle undertones of "repeatedly tried to kill everybody" have eluded me. I eagerly await CVividasku's elaboration on what he meant by that. Also, "Doing nothing would have been far better" ... I was under the possibly mistaken impression that once the captain had taken control, that's pretty much what the FO did! Happy to be educated otherwise if I'm off the mark here.

My limited understanding is that a fatwa can be issued absolving pilots of the need to fast during Ramadan if operating as crew. It may differ from country to country but it isn't unheard of.

No, I wrote a list of actions that the F/O did, or most probably did for one where we cannot be sure it was him, that doomed this plane.
So no, he didn't sit idle doing nothing. He did some things, some very stupid ones. He wasn't ill intentioned, but some ill intentioned would have done similar things.
Retracting the gear while the airplane was in descent, for starters. It's "positive climb, gear up", not "on final approach, gear up" and not even "I would like to go around, gear up".
Trying to go around after the airplane did a gear up landing...

The captain also has a huge responsibility for ignoring many rules and not monitoring properly his airplane, of course.
However, culturally, I don't see the captain as the man in charge and the F/O there with no responsibility. To me, flight conduct responsibility is shared 51/49 between the captain and the F/O.
As an F/O I will leave the captain with some area of responsibility (if he wants to do whatever with the pax commercial relationship, that sort of thing, so be it), but when it comes to flight safety, I consider that it's shared 51/49.
Other cultures have a different view on that. Maybe they're more prone to blaming the captain.

So to sum up what I mean, is that the F/O is 49% responsible for this crash, and the CPT 51%.
And from what I read, I feel like people are making the captain 90 or 99% responsible for it.

CVividasku, thank you for replying and clarifying. Your earlier posts gave the impression that you were making the FO 100% responsible for this ("it all boils down to the FO").

At the risk of going over old ground, I wonder how much significance ought to be given to the captain being initially declared "unfit" by PIA's psychiatrist (although later overturned by two second opinions) and the statement in the accident report that the captain "...was of bossy nature, firm, dominant and overbearing. He had below average intelligence. He tends to have little regard for the authority. He had low mechanical comprehension with low comprehension of space relations. His level of stress tolerance was also quite inadequate." There are no such medical or character notes against the FO (although the report did outline some underperformance in checks during the course of his progression to FO).

Also in the report, a nod to the captain's apparently gung-ho approach to flying: "After the accident, flights of Captain for last 12 months were analysed which indicated, numerous triggers during Approach related to High Speed, Path High, High Rate of Descent, Long Flare Distance and GPWS Warnings. There was no Go-Around initiated and several Unstabilized Approaches were continued." Again, there are no such comments against the FO.

Given these extracts from the report, it is understandable that one might lean towards blaming the captain rather more than the FO, especially as some of the crucial actions taken in the cockpit are unattributable to a specific seat. In the end I guess we will never truly know why this crew acted as it did.

Generally speaking you are exempt from fasting while travelling (but should make up the missed days at the end)

Do you think airbus test pilots fly stabilized approaches ? What do you think about aerobatics, spins, barrels.. ?
It's not dangerous to perform a maneuver that's under control. What's dangerous is to be in an unexpected, unwanted position, unintentionally. In this case it shows that the pilot does not control the flight path.

Unstable approaches are forbidden, so when they happen, it's a sign that the pilot is behind the aircraft, or that he voluntarily disregards the rule.
The latter case is not necessarily dangerous. At least, in my opinion, less than the first case. Again, do you think airbus test pilots fly stabilized approaches ? They disregard this safety rule, yet they're not dangerous.

To claim the captain was incompetent, it would require to prove that all these violations of usual rules were unintentional. You proved that he was either incompetent, or disregarding voluntarily the rules.
In my opinion it's not clear which is true, however the F/O really didn't help him in this case. There is a clear disregard for the rule, but the fact that the CPT could say "they're gonna be amazed we did it" when indeed his flight path was consistent with a landing (assuming the gear was let down...) pleads, in this case, for the second part.
Constant disregard of the rule giving him some proficiency in this kind of situations (high energy approaches). Not enough obviously...

That whole post is quite extraordinary (and worrying) but to pick out the two points above:

1) Aerobatics (in particular, barrel rolls), spins and test flying are hazardous activities where risk is controlled through application of mitigations in respect of pilot qualifications, experience, supervision, geographic location, etc - and perhaps most importantly in this context, numbers of commercial passengers: ie none.

2) Any captain of a commercial passenger flight who intentionally violates rules in the absence of extenuating circumstances is, by any reasonable definition, incompetent in their role. So I don't think any consideration of intent is necessary.

Yes I am sure they do, whenever they land after a test flight if the landing is not part of the evaluation. I am also sure that they perform all sorts of non-nominal approaches - if those are part of their test plan - with full ground backup and cleared airspace if necessary.

I think those manoeuvres - along with Airbus test pilots - constitute whataboutery and are irrelevant to the PIA incident which was not a test flight and which went south because of an abject failure to operate the aircraft properly... on the part of both pilots (I do agree with you there!)

I think I’m going to have to disagree a bit here. If someone is behind the aircraft but complies with the rules according to stabilised approaches, GPWS warnings, etc. then it is a safer situation than them deciding that rules are for other people and carrying on, in this case to a hull loss. There is always the hope that if things got away from them the first time round, they’ll have another go with a bit more caution and try to stay ahead of the aircraft next time.

I would think that test pilots fly stabilised approaches, just like everyone else, unless they are doing something that has been pre-briefed as non-standard and a safety case made for it. Airbus lost a jet and four test pilots in one go at Toulouse, due to an unplanned/unbriefed engine shut down on a perfectly serviceable aeroplane, when one of them decided to show how good the automatics were in this scenario but hadn’t thought it through fully, or involved the other crew members in the decision. I would expect that test pilots are in reality pretty cautious as a group (certainly the ones I know, the older, less bold ones), as I would be if operating much closer to the edge of the flight envelope than in normal ops.

It has been well established that the captain on the PIA flight was more akin to a crash test dummy than a test pilot, and would be a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. He was disregarding the rules in some part because he was incompetent; it seems he got away with it up until then because PIAs FOQA was almost non-existent and/or serious issues were flagged but nothing done about them, breeding Normalization of Deviance.

Hmm. To me that equates to one of the more common radio transmissions made immediately before many accidents: “Watch this!!”...

This may point to the lack of FOQA at PIA, or at least the lack of a robust program.
Or the infamous "hold my beer..." in other situations outside of the flight deck.

Do you respect the entirety of your tens of thousands of pages of OM A-B-C-.. ? I doubt it. Or, your manuals are much smaller than they could be.
Your claim is way too broad.
You should restrict it to rules which have a direct impact on safety.

Furthermore, the approach is to be stabilized by 500ft (VMC).
Hence, it's perfectly by the book to fly a high energy approach where you descend at an angle of negative 10° of flight path angle, then join the glide path and configure for landing and lift your thrust levers at 540ft AGL and reach VAPP+13kt (my airline allows +15) with some thrust by 500ft AGL. Sometimes it's even part of recurrent training to do this sort of thing.

The PIA8303 was, give or take, close to this sort of profile.
The moment where landing became less likely was when the F/O pulled the gear up.
Had he not done that, the landing would have been nominal. I can't guarantee the approach would have been stabilized (Vapp+15 could have been reached below 500ft, so unstable), but it's 99% sure the captain would have landed and stopped without any passenger noticing anything wrong. Like he did all the time before.

It's easy to notice and compensate for one's own mistakes. It's much more difficult when someone like this guy does completely unexpected things.
If you lived in Toulouse, you would regularly see, during weekdays, white and blue jetliners turning to final lower than 500ft AGL.
I didn't have to look for very long to find a sidestep performed below 500ft and finished at 300ft AGL, on flightradar.
For example when they need to gather data about braking or flaring, they will make very short circuits.

Cvividasku, what is Your point? Remember that a good pilot is someone that doesn’t willingly put him/herself into such situations where he/she has to demonstrate to be a good pilot. That’s probably the oldest saying in aviation and that is still correct nowadays. In aviation we are busy enough in dealing with external threats, i.e. weather, atc, malfunctions, you name it. We don’t want to become an additional threat by flying unsafe & non-sense type of approaches. We want to avoid Undesired Aircraft States (i.e. the whole descent and approach of the PIA) at all times.
I don’t know why You are mentioning Airbus test pilots but anyway those guys have a very specific job to do and they are also highly trained for that, their margins are different from a standard line flight crew, regardless of the crew experience, for many different reasons already mentioned above.

Here is a possible scenario:

The Captain - who we have learned was generally difficult and autocratic and did not fly by the book - is for some reason, (maybe hunger), in a particularly bad and unapproachable mood that day. Due to his impatience, he decides to accept an approach that is too close, too high and too fast, instead of simply asking for more track miles or even a 360°

He barks orders to his F/O who is either brand new or timid or both. This shouting and the extreme approach puts the F/O behind the aircraft trying to keep up with the orders and checklists and seating the cabin crew and radio calls, so he has no time to think except to do what the Captain is ordering. Captain barks "Gear down" 30 nm out and the F/O complies, his mind paralysed. As they get to short finals the Captain - who has forgotten the gear is already down - barks "Gear Down" and the F/O moves the lever, but because the gear was already down he actually raises the gear. As they flare; the F/O realises what has happened and miserably, finally manages to speak up and calls go-around to avoid a crash landing.

The Captain at last realises that he has severely f****d up and hasn't got away with it this time, so he obeys the go-around call, hoping he can rescue the situation and be able to explain the disastrous approach away somehow. But then the engine accessory gearboxes and oil pumps are badly damaged and the subsequent fatal accident is inevitable.

This is the sort of thing that F/Os need to be able to deal with, (and all Captains need to be aware of), but in years of CRM courses, I have never seen it properly addressed. Cabin crew are given specific training and role playing about how to deal with angry or unreasonable passengers but I have never seen F/Os trained to deal with angry or unreasonable Captains.

Why isn't there a Like button on Tech Log posts?

Uplinker: :D

That's more like it tho my own take is that the whole cockpit environment was a bit more insidious and places a little bit more blame on the FO but maybe helps explain why the FO acted as he did. As follows:-

Autocratic but laid-back Capt sets the scene of "lets wing this flight as usual" right from the Departure Gate and the FO sort of goes along with it as the Capts reputation of bawling out FOs is well known - maybe these 2 have flown on previous occasions - and so "non-standard" is the accepted norm. Indeed, the Capt appears quite amicable on the day as they are reported to be chatting about this and that - but his reputation is there as someone who can "turn"........

The FO, while seemingly playing along with the "lets wing this flight as usual" gets more and more concerned during the approach and finally starts to suggest the hold is the solution to get back on profile - but here the Capt gets annoyed and rejects the hold suggestion from both the FO and ATC and then just takes over.

The FO, by now, is very unhappy and increasingly stressed both at the lack of a hold to sort things out - something he's wanting to do and hence the gear coming up - but, wait, now he's just had control whipped from him....... The Capt has consistently rejected buying time and seems intent on seeing "Plan A" through to it's conclusion and has now made that abundantly clear. After all, he's even said that he'll show ATC what he can do as a skilled aviator!!!! But, because of the way the whole flight has been conducted so far, the Capts not really on top of the aircraft anymore .... hence the gear......

At that point the FO seems to simply enter into a sort of "sod it" mode and what rational thinking he was doing now seems to leave him (certainly WRT remembering the status of the gear). The rest is as we see until the Capt finally realises that it's all gone South as you say.

WRT to the comment that this is the sort of situation FOs need to be able to deal with, I was on a Training Course with several guys from Pakistan - all really nice guys. But, when it came to working scenarios (moving aircraft about on the ground) when we all role-played, there was in their group a "No 1". The guys would consistently turn to this guy for direction even if he was playing a "minion". Whenever the guy who was managing the move issued an instruction - Brit or one of their team - they would immediately look to this guy for his approval. It drove the Instructor nuts as they refused to do otherwise - their No 1 had the final say on everything - end of! That was "the way" and, had I not seen it myself, I'd never have believed it. CRM would have a tough time in breaking down such thinking. But, as I said, a nicer bunch of guys you couldn't find!

Anyway, a thought...... FWIW! :ok:

I don't buy your scenario, the F/O voluntarily retracted the gear because he wanted to go around, but didn't anything about either going around nor retracting the gear.

However your last point is more than valid.
At my airline we received some guidance to help us deal with overwhelmed captains. And some advice about what to do with this type of behavior. Not a huge training but definitely some guidance.
It does not resemble in any way or form to manipulating important controls in the back of the captain and trying to take decisions in his back. On the contrary, in the end you have to work as a team until the airplane is landed. Then, once safely at the gate, not one minute before that, you will make as many reports as you need and call management to explain why you don't want to fly with the guy anymore.

I know first hand accounts from friends, of pilots using this type of method in very exceptional cases.

​​​​​​​It's not IMC or VMC but IFR or VFR. IFR plan has to be stabilised by 1000ft unless the pilot has cancelled IFR.

Per the report analysis, before the FO could start the go-around the Captain took controls from the FO.

I haven't backed up enough to see how coming in too high and too fast originated, but the FO was generally in charge of the controls until the Captain decided to grab them. Had the Captain not done so, the FO had clearly prepped to go around, having retracted the gear, the speed brakes, and seemed to be prepping to follow through on the PULL UP, SINK RATE, and TOO LOW TERRAIN warnings.

This was a maximally dysfunctional team. Either one by themselves would likely have landed safely, but the failures of basic communication became overwhelming and the Captain, who was monitoring, didn't seem to monitor in spite of warnings from the plane and from the ATC.

I am unsure if the Captain at any time was aware of just how badly this approach was going. I am unsure if fasting can carry the full blame as the report indicates the Captain had a number of unstabilized approaches that he continued with, but fasting could certainly have made realizing how bad the situation was unlikely.

The entire thing leaves me sad.

Hi Vilas,

the stabilization gate is based upon IMC/VMC conditions for Airbus STD.
​​​​​​​

Great post as usual Uplinker.

Over this last part I would like to emphasize the fact that when operating within the boundaries of proper Aviation Safety Agencies and proper NAA, there should be no place for any Operator to have highly unsuitable crew members at the controls.
Generally speaking we do not expect pilots to reach those kind of extreme behaviors (even though I remember some time ago a couple of pilots from a National Airline fighting in the cockpit but luckily that was on the ground…). Problematic Captains should be stopped by Flt Ops at the very first signs that something is going out of the loop.

A general word For all the FOs, especially the youngest ones: remember that the Captain is there also for YOUR safety. If you don’t feel safe with someone go ahead and fill up reports. Always be factual, never give Your opinions, so that will work even if some guys “have connections”.
Remember that the Legal implications of seating up front, especially in the LHS, are HUGE. Always do Your best to keep everyone safe.

Not correct. Only for thrust,it can be idle below 1000ft but at 500ft. Should be at approach thrust.Thats due to often ATC wants higher speed. If you are doing a circling approach which has to be in VMC then stabilized by 300ft.

Hi Vilas,

Yes, it is correct ;-) VFR/IFR, as you mentioned, has nothing to do with IMC/VMC.

It is up the Operator to define which gates must be complied with.
Generally speaking most operators require the landing configuration to be achieved by 1000 ft AAL in all conditions regardless of IMC/VMC. Other parameters such as speed and thrust can be achieved by 500 ft AAL under specific conditions as You mention, which could be an ATC speed restriction for example. For example at my Operator, we are allowed to achieve all the parameters (including landing conf) by 500 ft AAL if VMC conditions are present.

Of course it is strongly recommended to be stable by 1000 ft AAL in all conditions and to have landing Conf achieved by 1000 ft AAL, but again it’s not a violation.
The circling approach is another “beast”. It can be flown in wx conditions lower than VMC (I.e. 5km visibility) and specific stabilization criteria apply.

Trying as a lot of us are to make some sense of the sequence of events as described in the report. We are hampered by having only some extracts from the CVR and FDR data. What does strike me very strongly is lack of coherence between the pilots as to who was “in charge” of the flight, and responsible for starting a chain of events which then became catastrophic, with an almost unimaginable failure to adhere to the proper way to operate a modern aircraft. Much of what follows is speculative but here goes anyway….

Typically SOPs are written down with a basic assumption that Captain (rank) = Pilot in charge (role) = Pilot flying (function). This results in a single Rank authority (Captain) determining the aircraft trajectory. The F/O (rank) as PM (role) is supposed to assist in achieving this trajectory (functions), BUT also somehow over-ride if he/she detects the trajectory to be flawed. So far, in theory, so good.

Then, most operators and indeed manufacturers like to encourage distribution of experience and skills between pilots with “leg and leg” flying with varying restrictions on how and when it is done. These restrictions transfer varying amounts of authority to the F/O, while notionally transferring ALL of the roles and functions, including responsibility for initiating things. It may work perfectly with crew members who can be considered as equally qualified in all senses, and adequately the vast majority of the time. But flaws in this concept look to me like one of the “holes in the Swiss cheese” in this appalling event. They are underlying system failures which meant that when put to the test, both pilots completely failed to meet their responsibilities, with a Captain in particular who was truly unfit to occupy that position.

On this flight the F/O seems to have been NOMINALLY “in charge” (as PF) to start with, and expecting eventually to make the landing - certainly from before the start of the descent, although the report isn’t explicit about this. But not only did he lack the Captain’s FORMAL authority (RANK), it appears that the Captain’s personality further diminished the F/O’s “in charge” capability to determine the aircraft’s actual flight path.

The Captain’s rank as “Aircraft Commander” meant he still retained his overall ability to determine what the crew collectively prioritised and how things were done. Only a Captain (in this case twice the age of his F/O and with 8 times the experience) can create or allow the atmosphere of “conducive and cordial” chat about “various topics not related to aircraft operations”, continuing even below 10,000ft. In my opinion this must have been a major factor in the failure to conduct any kind of briefing and hence get mentally prepared with a mutually understood plan. That was the starting point for this particular tragedy.

So it’s quite hard to determine who was actually “in charge” as things started going wrong. ATC communications are normally a PM function, yet prior to descent at 09:15:00 it’s specifically stated that the F/O made the request for descent to ATC. After getting clearance and starting descent they then seemed to have changed radio frequency without being asked to do so, mistuning the approach frequency in the process (probably by the Captain?) and losing ATC contact for about 8 minutes, chatting about “various non-operational topics”. Meanwhile the autopilot was doing its own thing, with no announced monitoring of its modes, resulting in the high profile with the extra miles of the hold in the FMS horizontal track.

It's at 09:30:35 that a call from ATC seems to have triggered an initial concern, although it’s unclear which pilot responded to ATC with “affirm”. The CAPTAIN then instructs the F/O to take the hold out and “tell Karachi established on localiser” – implying that the F/O was now in the role of PM and doing the radio.

At 09:30:44 and 15 miles out the aircraft was at 9200’ and 245kt, and someone extended the speedbrakes. Subsequent communications don’t show which pilot was doing them (normally PM function) or who told ATC “no problem sir”, but the use of the subordinate’s term “sir” might imply it was the F/O rather than the Captain, who was known to have a more arrogant and dominant personality and perhaps less likely to call ATC “sir”.

About a minute later the gear was extended: while the gear was in transit, ATC asked if they wanted to orbit. The Captain’s response is “say it’s OK” and after a significant (6 second) gap the F/O transmits “Negative Sir we are comfortable, we can make it, Insha-Allah”. To me this suggests he was already unhappy about it, and the final phrase “Insha-Allah” – “if God wills it”? - might indicate a recognition that events were not entirely in the control of the crew – certainly not himself. But that of course is pure speculation on my part.

These and subsequent calls indicate to me that the Captain had now effectively assumed the PF role and functions, without saying so. My suspicion is also that as the autopilot was still manipulating the physical controls, it would have been the Captain who actually leaned across and extended the gear, which would normally be an action by the PM – his nominal role.

The F/O had now been cut out of the control loop. The Captain had used his command authority, amplified by his personal attitudes and possibly exacerbated by local cultural factors (respect for age and experience etc) to take complete charge, and was now carrying out functions that should have been split between PF and PM, with the F/O theoretically PF but in reality reduced to being an increasingly concerned subordinate to the Captain.

At 5.5 miles and 2730ft, the autopilot tripped out due to excessive nose down pitch attitude, with a descent rate of 7400 fpm. The F/O reacted with 2/3 full stick back for 10 seconds, but didn’t change the thrust. During that period the sequence of overspeed and GPWS alerts started and the gear and then speedbrakes were retracted starting at 09:32:57 – the report says, probably by the F/O - and overall he reduced the pitch to 0 and ROD to 2000 fpm. This was not the initiation of an actual go-around but would make sense if he wanted to reduce the extremely high descent rate, especially if the gear had been put down by the Captain, interfering earlier to increase the descent rate.

Manual control remained with the F/O (presumably, since there’s no comment about dual inputs for a further 50 seconds), during which the flaps were extended to conf 2, and then conf 3. The F/O suggested making an orbit but had it rejected by the Captain and the descent continued in compliance with the Captain’s evident intention as aircraft commander to proceed to landing.

The Captain pressed his sidestick button at 09:33.37 (about 1050ft,) and there were conflicting inputs for about 4 seconds, which the report classifies as the Captain “taking control”. My recall of the A320 system is very hazy but since the autopilot was already disconnected, what practical effect on control inputs would this PB press have had (as it did not seem to be a 40 second “deactivate other sidestick” push)? However since there’s no subsequent mention of dual inputs it appears that the F/O must have stopped trying to influence the flight path directly through the sidestick. Since there’s no record of instructions here it’s my conjecture then is that the Captain had made the flap selections himself and the F/O simply recognised that with the runway clearly visible at 1000ft the Captain was determined to try complete the landing.

It seems likely to me that the Captain’s thought processes had gone from being blithely overconfident and casual to being completely dominated by his own plan continuation bias to land at all costs, and he was operating as a “one man band”. He knew he had put the gear down himself, but forgotten or not registered that the F/O had retracted it when the autopilot disconnected. His landing determination was so strong it drowned out all other inputs including the multiple GPWS and gear alerts, and would done the same to any gate parameter exceedances even if the F/O had called them, which he did not appear to have done. I suspect that the F/O had become like the proverbial “rabbit in headlights”, frozen by conflicting inputs. “We can see the runway, the Captain’s taken over and to do the landing now (“things are OK”) but there are these instrument readings and warnings saying “it’s not OK”; he was effectively frozen by events that had spiralled out of control.

The Captain’s continuation bias was so extreme that once over the runway, a long way down but still airborne, he selected full reverse thrust, and applied maximum brake pedal inputs as the engines nacelles hit the runway.

The crew then had conflicting reactions to the ground contact and made diametrically opposed inputs, with the F/O’s desire to go-around even so belatedly (“takeoff, Sir, takeoff”) eventually winning out after several seconds of Engine 2 Fire alerts.

Ironically, had the Captain stuck with his original determination to stop it might possibly have saved a few lives in the subsequent over-run. As it was they took an unflyable aircraft back into the air and killed everyone.

I have my own views on how the chances of this sort of thing can be reduced, but the above is my opinion on how this particular disaster came abouit, for what it's worth.

Steve

Edit: there's no reference in the report to checklists being called for or actioned, and configuration changes are said "not to have been verbalised by either pilot " hence my suggestions that e.g. they were not made as a result of both pilots being involved.

Thank you !
FYI, the hot n high situation arose from the F/O's failure to identify that his FMS computed descent profile wasn't in accordance with the intentions of the crew (ie, not doing the pattern)

You gave the following parameters at the time of gear retraction : 1500ft AGL, 5 nm from touchdown. This gives us exactly on the profile, 3° slope, but too fast. Maybe around 210-220kt ?
With gear down and flaps, you lose approximately 10kt per 100ft, on the 3° profile. That doesn't account for spoilers. So, with gear down, whatever flaps they had, full spoilers, they would have lost at least 15kt per 100ft. So by 1000ft they would have been at 150-160kt. They would have extended more steps of flaps, and there's even a good chance they would have been stabilized by the book at 500ft.

Also, the captain had a good technique consisting of diving at high speed, where the drag is the worst. Diving at high speed with all drags out then reducing speed with a shallow path is a very efficient technique for reducing speed and meeting the stabilization criteria.

So, that was a hot n high approach but it could have been stabilized, by the book, by 500ft AGL.
Many airlines allow approaches to be stabilized at 500ft VMC according to Airbus's criteria.
I've never read this fact (I think it is a fact, it would take a performance study to know for sure, but it's very likely) anywhere.
On the other hand, on many incident occurrences, the report will point out that the crew could have done differently without problems. For example, for the British 350 tailstrike following go around, the AAIB points out that disregarding the touchdown zone rule would have not led to a runway excursion. Hence, implying in a soft manner than it's sometimes better to disregard rules ?
How come such scenarios are sometimes pointed out, sometimes not ?
Does this fact change your view on the crew performance on this flight ?

The approach was not unrealistic at all. It was a bit further than the limits because they tried to extend flaps at too high speeds. But nothing deserving to die for.
The F/O failed to imagine that he could be wrong about thinking the approach was not feasible. It was.

As a young F/O, my first months were a bit uncomfortable because I was aware that I lacked experience. So I had two choices : learning from the captain when they put themselves in "risky" situations. Or refusing to do anything I wasn't comfortable with, and learning nothing.
The drawback in the second case is never developing my knowledge, experience and skills. The drawback in the first case is that I wasn't able to know what really was too much. So I just expressed my doubts. But of course, without ever digging our tomb by doing idiotic things in the captain's back.