PIA A-320 crash in Karachi

[vc10man 732]

3 hours ago, w6kd said:

It's hard to imagine a trained crew flying through all the warnings to a gear-up landing

That was the bit I was mulling over, late last night.

I know all about access to Berlin because I was at Gatow. Oddly, enough, yesterday, just by sheer chance I found a stamp on something made/placed at Checkpoint Charlie

[Christopher Low 5,354]

It's sad to think that they may actually have made it to the airfield if they had kept the gear retracted..... 😢

[HighBypass 2,339]

Hard to say really - we don't know where the plane was when it lost both engines. The distance they had to glide may have been too long... gear up or down... 😢

[Chock 17,769]

5 hours ago, w6kd said:

It's hard to imagine a trained crew flying through all the warnings to a gear-up landing

Difficult to imagine, but not unknown, especially when things go pear shaped and the pressure is on. As mad as it seems, this sort of thing can and does happen, check this video out for example, it's unbelievable that the warning was ignored, but it was. Both pilots in this aircraft were very experienced with thousands of hours and one was an instructor. There are three people in the aeroplane and not one person bothers to go: 'is that warning noise normal?':

There are unfortunately several very serious examples of 737 crews ignoring or misinterpreting aural config warnings, or not monitoring systems as they should, leading to fatal accidents. Just off the top of my head I can think of three such airliner incidents, not the same type as was involved in this accident, but one which is certainly as commonplace as the A320:

LAPA Flight 3142 attempted to take off from Buenos Aires without the flaps deployed, the crew proceeding all the way down the runway trying to lift off whilst ignoring the continuous take off config warning, to eventually overrun the end of the runway crashing into cars and a gas station, resulting in 63 fatalities.

Helios Flight 522 took off from Larnaca without the crew checking that the cabin pressurisation was controls were in their correct (auto) setting following them having been altered to a manual setting by engineers for a ground pressurisation test. Checking the panel's settings is is part of the standard pre-flight checks, being something the first officer would typically operate following a checklist item. The crew subsequently misidentified the cabin pressurisation warning which sounded when they reached 12,000 feet shortly after departure as a fault with the air conditioning and continued their climb up to 34,000 feet, resulting in everyone on board becoming unconscious and the aeroplane eventually running out of fuel after having flown all the way to Greece on autopilot following the FMC's plan. The crew had spoken to their engineers on the ground after the warning had sounded; the engineer who conducted the pressure test did ask the crew to check that the pressurisation panel was set on auto, but the crew continued to suppose it was an air conditioning issue and did not check the setting.

Turkish Flight 1951 had an issue with its radar altimeter, which made it incorrectly read the aeroplane's altitude. This triggered a 'too low, gear!' audio warning when the aeroplane was still high on its approach, but since the radar altimeter was indicating that the aeroplane was near the ground when it was in fact still at over 2,000 feet, the autothrottle retarded for touchdown. The crew manually increased thrust, but the autothrottle again retarded since it was still receiving data that indicated touchdown being imminent. The crew failed to monitor this, and did not monitor the reducing airspeed either. Additionally, because the approach was not well stabilised, the crew probably should have initiated a go around, but they did not and it wasn't until the aeroplane was nearly dropping out of the sky (its airspeed went down as low as 89 knots before impact) that the crew attempted to throttle up for a recovery, by which time the aeroplane was too low and too slow, causing it to crash on the Schiphol airport's perimeter, causing 9 fatalities and injuring most of the passengers.

Of course it is easy to be wise after the event and critical of crew actions when we are sat comfortably with plenty of time to coolly analyse things, particularly when, in some cases the triggering of an alarm can lead to some confusion over its cause and origins, as the above examples show. But then again, airline crews have a big responsibility and so they are, and should be, held to a high standard. As with any job in aviation or any other field where safety and procedures are critically important, if someone is not up to the task of maintaining that high standard, they really should not be doing the job. That is not to say I am saying the actions of the crew in this most recent incident were the cause, that is for an air accident investigation to determine when in possession of as many facts as can be uncovered.

Unfortunately, although we like to think of air crews as all being competent, we do occasionally find that this isn't always the case. I do hope this is not one such case. Nothing we or anyone else says or does at this point can bring back the people who have been killed in this incident, but as unpalatable a notion it is to occasionally learn that failings on the crew's part can sometimes be the cause of an accident, it is important to acknowledge that it is something which can happen, even when it is hard to believe, so that measures can be taken to mitigate the possibility of a repeat.

The changes to systems and procedures which occasionally result from discoveries of systematic and occasionally human failings in incidents like this, are known in the industry as 'tombstone technology' for somewhat grim, if obvious reasons, but they have resulted in the reduced possibility of such things occurring again. An example of this is the change to the checklist procedures for the 737's cabin pressurisation system, as a direct result of the findings from the Helios 522 accident investigation, when one would perhaps reasonably suppose that such procedures would have been pretty much perfectly set in stone by that point, for an aircraft type which at that time had been in continuous use by airlines on a daily basis for 39 years.

Edited May 23, 2020 by Chock

[mtr75 653]

The engines obviously hit the ground. Whole thing was a poo-show. Five mile final at 3,500 feet on the initial approach. Sound good? ATC offers a 30-degree vector to lose altitude, pilot turns it down. Flap overspeed warning heard on the ATC tapes. Either forgot to put the gear down, or hit TOGA in the flare (which probably ate up a lot of runway at the speed they must have been going) and pulled the gear up too soon and the plane settled onto the engines. They spooled up, but were too damaged to keep running. Second approach was (per ATC) to any runway. Chose 25L, which is over the neighborhood. Approach to 25R is over flat, uninhabited ground. Sidestick clearly hauled all the way back rather than trying for best glide. 

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard Pakistani International Airlines - good luck!"

Edited May 23, 2020 by mtr75

[Chock 17,769]

1 hour ago, mtr75 said:

The engines obviously hit the ground. Whole thing was a poo-show. Five mile final at 3,500 feet on the initial approach. Sound good? ATC offers a 30-degree vector to lose altitude, pilot turns it down. Flap overspeed warning heard on the ATC tapes. Either forgot to put the gear down, or hit TOGA in the flare (which probably ate up a lot of runway at the speed they must have been going) and pulled the gear up too soon and the plane settled onto the engines. They spooled up, but were too damaged to keep running. Second approach was (per ATC) to any runway. Chose 25L, which is over the neighborhood. Approach to 25R is over flat, uninhabited ground. Sidestick clearly hauled all the way back rather than trying for best glide. 

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard Pakistani International Airlines - good luck!"

Why don't you say what you really think? 🤣

Not sure I'd be quite so inclined to rush to such a conclusion before all the evidence was in, but from personal experience at work, I do know PIA doesn't exactly have a stellar reputation. It is a fact that they don't exactly have a great safety record - thirty hull losses in their history (not all crashes to be fair, some hijacking incidents), but they have had 20 fatal accidents and have come pretty close to risking many more on numerous occasions, including allowing some flights to take place with passengers literally standing in the aisles for the entire duration of the flight (yes, really), so that's not a great reputation.

I was told some years ago (by a BAe engineer) who had worked on doing the thorough checks on a PIA B747 at their facility, that when they removed the paint from the fuselage to check for fatigue cracking, rivets were literally falling out of their panel holes; they were only being held in place by the paint, having been loosened from the stress damage incurred during some heavy landings. He joked with me that since I lived near the airport, I'd better take an umbrella out if a PIA jumbo flew over, because it would be raining a shower of rivets down as it passed overhead.

Edited May 23, 2020 by Chock

[Ray Proudfoot 8,958]

1 hour ago, mtr75 said:

The engines obviously hit the ground. Whole thing was a poo-show. Five mile final at 3,500 feet on the initial approach. Sound good? ATC offers a 30-degree vector to lose altitude, pilot turns it down. Flap overspeed warning heard on the ATC tapes. Either forgot to put the gear down, or hit TOGA in the flare (which probably ate up a lot of runway at the speed they must have been going) and pulled the gear up too soon and the plane settled onto the engines. They spooled up, but were too damaged to keep running. Second approach was (per ATC) to any runway. Chose 25L, which is over the neighborhood. Approach to 25R is over flat, uninhabited ground. Sidestick clearly hauled all the way back rather than trying for best glide. 

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard Pakistani International Airlines - good luck!"

Has any of this been made public? Unless it has I suggest you refrain from speculating as it's both disrespectful to those who have died and is pointing to the crew as being responsible which is uncalled for.

Leave discussion until the facts are known.

[mtr75 653]

2 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Has any of this been made public? Unless it has I suggest you refrain from speculating as it's both disrespectful to those who have died and is pointing to the crew as being responsible which is uncalled for.

Leave discussion until the facts are known.

PPRUNE. All of it is out there. ATC tapes, flight profile, the lot. Same thing happened in an A320 in Tallinn A few years back, on a training flight, forgot the gear (God only knows how) and scraped the runway. But they flew a teardrop on the second approach, so when the fans stopped working they still managed to auger in on airport property. I believe both pilots survived. 

Edited May 23, 2020 by mtr75

[mtr75 653]

Here it is: 

https://avherald.com/h?article=4b57c3dd

[Ray Proudfoot 8,958]

2 minutes ago, mtr75 said:

PPRUNE. All of it is out there. ATC tapes, flight profile, the lot. 

That's a discussion forum for pilots etc. Not an official site for Air Accident investigators. This is what the BBC are reporting. Very little of your post is in theirs. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-52780289

As I said, keep discussion to known facts.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,958]

1 minute ago, mtr75 said:

Here it is: 

https://avherald.com/h?article=4b57c3dd

That is nothing to do with the Pakistan crash.

[mtr75 653]

39 minutes ago, Chock said:

Why don't you say what you really think? 🤣

Not sure I'd be quite so inclined to rush to such a conclusion before all the evidence was in, but from personal experience at work, I do know PIA doesn't exactly have a stellar reputation. It is a fact that they don't exactly have a great safety record - thirty hull losses in their history (not all crashes to be fair, some hijacking incidents), but they have had 20 fatal accidents and have come pretty close to risking many more on numerous occasions, including allowing some flights to take place with passengers literally standing in the aisles for the entire duration of the flight (yes, really), so that's not a great reputation.

I was told some years ago (by a BAe engineer) who had worked on doing the thorough checks on a PIA B747 at their facility, that when they removed the paint from the fuselage to check for fatigue cracking, rivets were literally falling out of their panel holes; they were only being held in place by the paint, having been loosened from the stress damage incurred during some heavy landings. He joked with me that since I lived near the airport, I'd better take an umbrella out if a PIA jumbo flew over, because it would be raining a shower of rivets down as it passed overhead.

Wow. 
 

My summary is the consensus opinion in PPRUNE. They either forget the gear or yanked it up too soon on the go around. Tower clearly saw they had hit the ground, as they asked the crew about it. 

[mtr75 653]

2 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

That's a discussion forum for pilots etc. Not an official site for Air Accident investigators. This is what the BBC are reporting. Very little of your post is in theirs. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-52780289

As I said, keep discussion to known facts.

I wouldn’t expect the Beeb to report anything of what I said. There are pictures of the scrapes on the nacelles, you can listen to the tapes yourself. One of those two things happened. We know it hit the ground. We know it was a ridiculously unstable approach. We know they went around, the engines quit, and they augered in. And they had fuel. 

[mtr75 653]

55 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

That is nothing to do with the Pakistan crash.

Yes, that's correct. That’s the similar incident in Tallinn I mentioned. 

Edited May 23, 2020 by mtr75

[Ray Proudfoot 8,958]

6 minutes ago, mtr75 said:

I wouldn’t expect the Beeb to report anything of what I said. There are pictures of the scrapes on the nacelles, you can listen to the tapes yourself. One of those two things happened. We know it hit the ground. We know it was a ridiculously unstable approach. We know they went around, the engines quit, and they augered in. And they had fuel. 

No because they reports facts and not speculation. I have no wish to hear the tapes. If you want to discuss known facts that's fine but leave it at that.

5 minutes ago, mtr75 said:

I know. That’s the similar incident in Tallinn I mentioned. It is important not to rush when trying to contradict everything. You miss details. 

Be careful. Every accident is different.