PIA A-320 crash in Karachi

[threexgreen 3,139]

Sadly, a 12 year old girl has passed away from her injuries yesterday. She was one of the 4 initial survivors on the ground.

[CYXR 257]

At the request of the Government of Pakistan, both black boxes of AP-BLD /  PIA's Flight 8303 have been flown to Le Bourget France onboard of an A-330-800NEO prototype aircraft in the absence of regularly scheduled flights to allow France's BEA to continue the investigation into the causes of this horrific crash. 

https://www.aerobuzz.fr/breves-transport-aerien/les-boites-noires-de-lairbus-de-karachi-sont-arrivees-au-bourget/
 

 

[fluffyflops 1,858]

On 6/1/2020 at 12:34 PM, Chock said:

Yup, simplest explanation is usually the correct one. A bit of the old 'get-home-itis'. Not usually a good idea, but probably responsible for more aeroplane accidents than anything else ever.

Many moons ago at my first airline I worked for, on the first day we had a talk from the then head of department of the safety department. 

I was taken aback because the opening part of his speech he made. A joke something along the lines of 'if people actually knew what went on at the airline industry they would never get on an aircraft' 

The point of him saying was that we all have a duty to report anything that is deemed as a safety issue, regardless. 

Anyways that was over 20 years ago and to this day I still could not agree more.  'if people really knew what happened within the business you'd never get on an aircraft' 

The first 10 years of my career as cabin crew I saw quite a few things, I had a few scrapes with medical problems aboard, probably the worse was someone going onto labour as we opened the door and the jetty was attached (they had the baby on the jetway) 

I've done flights where a deportee got up and decided to urinate all over the aisle so we had to come back onto the stand so he got another 6 months at the detention centre. 

And I've had 2 unplanned emergencys, one where the f/O lost all his side of instruments etc etc and we had to divert into Gander. 

The other was we lost all the lighting and all the radios, the whole lot. we were in ditch darkness, and had to secure the cabin with torches, on the 747. 

Now if I was to say on all these occasions the flight deck handled it well, I would be lieing.  The fact of the matter is like everything in life there are good pilots, bad pilots, amazing pilots and downright terrible ones.  

The same as there was good cabin crew, bad cabin crew, amazing cabin crew and downright terrible ones. 

Now fast forward another 11 years in operations one of the reasons why I love it is everyday is different and you get the deal with alot of crazy things and hear what's going on across the airline. You also get to hear and see all the safety reports and hear why someone has been taken off the line.  Without going into too much detail to echo what I was told on my first day its absolutely 100 correct. 

To give you an idea, we just had a guy (a training captain no less) a few weeks ago decided to show one of the cabin crew (a young girl) 'how the rudder works'. So in mid flight at m. 85 they put her in the seat put her feet on the pedals and told her to push/use the pedals, and look at the ecam at the rudder moving. 

The aircraft then automatically sent us an scars in ops telling us of an abnormalities.   We got the emergency handbook out ready for a divert. 

Now These where two guys who have been at the airline years and have just thrown away their careers at the possible worst time to do it to show off to a bit of fluff who was 20 years old on the premise they might bonk her on the nightstop. 

I could tell you hundreds of similar stories of either stupid pilots or just plain word not allowed ones. 

Getting back to topic, I'll agree with chock if I was to give a list based on my 21 years experience of factors that can cause silliness and accidents. 

1. Bad training 

2. Booze - Ive lost count how many pilots / crew I've seen suspended or sacked due booze, probably around 50.  Every other LAS flight we do we normally operate one crew down on the way back due 'unfit to fly' 

3. Trying to impress women or being influenced by women.  It's staggering to see how grown men can do stupid stuff when thinking with their second head not their first.  Even more incidents probably than booze.  Especially now with the advent of tinder and instagram

4.  bombing to get home for whatever reason to be hours for their nice next duty.

Or To get to the hotel/home due person reasons 

Or to not have to go into more than an hours discretion (which means they have to write a report as well as us) 

Or they just are rushing or panicking. 

Ive mentioned before on here about the tower in Luton called us up once because the same pilot kept gunning it down the ils and they couldn't control the flow with him being reckless. 

I had Gatwick Tower once call me and told me a skippers ask to hold for 30 mins to get out of his Tenerife the next day. 

Ive had Gatwick again call me up and tell me a pilot had asked for at 30 mile final to beable to land after midnight to get a day off payment. 

Point in making is most pilots are good guys and girls.  Issue is theres some awful ones too, and looks like this PIA was pilot error.  They can unfortunately fall into the second category, as hard as that is to swallow. People make errors and are not well trained or good at their jobs. 

 

 

Edited June 8, 2020 by fluffyflops

[Murmur 3,941]

Very interesting post flufflyflops.

45 minutes ago, fluffyflops said:

'if people actually knew what went on at the airline industry they would never get on an aircraft'

Reminds me of the Bismarck quote: "If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made".

What do you mean"preplanned emergencies"? Maybe you meant "unplanned"?

 

[fluffyflops 1,858]

19 minutes ago, Murmur said:

Very interesting post flufflyflops.

Reminds me of the Bismarck quote: "If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made".

What do you mean"preplanned emergencies"? Maybe you meant "unplanned"?

 

Unplanned. Typo,  been up all night on a 14 hour  night shift.

Edited June 8, 2020 by fluffyflops

[fluffyflops 1,858]

20 minutes ago, Murmur said:

Very interesting post flufflyflops.

Reminds me of the Bismarck quote: "If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made".

 

 

The guy is still around and is funnily enough very high up now at another company. 

I thought it was a nuts thing to say, especially on our first day, but he was one of the best blokes I ever worked with. 

[Chock 17,769]

Just in case anyone is imagining that sloppiness is rife throughout the airline industry because of such tales which might 'put you off flying', to provide some balance, I can actually say with a good deal of confidence that everyone I know, at the service agent company at Manchester Airport where I work, and indeed at all of the other service agent companies too (since we all know each other at all these different companies and see each other all the time) takes their job and the meticulous approach to safety it demands, very seriously indeed. Sure, people occasionally make mistakes and sometimes things go awry, but everyone owns up to such things if they occur and checks are very rigorous, so I can honestly say that I know of no instances where anyone has deliberately done things in a half-@rsed way, or taken stupid chances with an aeroplane at EGCC.

To illustrate how seriously we take this stuff, a few years back, at EGCC, the fuel pumping system which sends fuel to all the stands via underground pipes so that the pumping trucks can connect up to the outlets on each stand in order to refuel the aeroplanes, was struck by lightning and was damaged. This meant that for a large part of one particularly hot summer weekend, there was no fuel available at Manchester Airport. Many workers were sent home, but this meant those of us who had stayed in work had to run around sorting out the few aeroplanes which would typically land, unload and then perhaps decide to depart going to other airports to refuel before continuing to the intended destination. So we were very busy on what was a scorchingly hot day.

One such flight I dealt with (among many that day), was an SAS Boeing 737 which was on Stand 65. There were only two of us available to work on this flight, me and one other guy. Because of the situation, we commenced unloading the aeroplane and were going to leave it at that and move onto the next one, but then the SAS crew said they would fly elsewhere and asked us to put the bags back on board, so we did. Then they changed their minds and we unloaded it again, then we loaded the outbound bags onto it, then they changed their minds again, and so we took those off, then they said they were going, so we put them back on again, then they offloaded some passengers, so a new load plan was created which meant we had to offload the bags again so that we could reload them according to the new plan. Now by this time, I had stripped off to the point where I only had a high vis jacket on and my work pants - no t-shirt or anything else on my upper body - because I was the only person in the hold stacking and unstacking these bags repeatedly, whilst the other guy was loading stuff on and off the trailers and checking the load plans.

So I was sweating like mad. Now, understandably, at this point, the other guy lost count of the number of bags we'd put on board as he was loading things onto the conveyor, doing the count, following the load plan and having to deal with a despatcher who kept changing things. Miscounting the onloaded bags is a big 'no-no' because the number actually loaded has to match the paper load plan to avoid the potential for a rogue bag, with potentially a bomb, drugs, weaponry etc, in it.

So he shouted up to me 'how many bags on so far?' to which I replied '65 so far.' because I usually keep a count myself in order to make sure of things. 'I make it 66' said my colleague, but 65 tallies with what is left on the trailer, so do you want to go with your count, if you are sure?' Now considering how knackered and hot I was from all that offloading and onloading, and I was sure I'd counted correctly, I would have liked to have said 'yeah', but I just couldn't bring myself to let a discrepancy go, when someone else's count differed from mine. So I said, 'nah, we'll have to get em off again and re-do the count.' so we did, and I was right, it was 65 that I unloaded ready for us to reload them, but there was no way I was going to take a chance on it, because I would not want to be on a flight myself where someone was not equally diligent, and we are all like that at EGCC. We would never take a chance on stuff, even when we are exhausted. It just doesn't happen with us lot.

Now having said that, what might actually put you off with airliners (not that it actually is a real problem), is the visual appearance of some of the aeroplanes when you get up close and work on them. If you think airliners are all pristine and gleaming, I can tell you they aren't, they are generally fairly filthy and they have a lot of dents and scrapes on them. Now all of this stuff is checked to makes sure that it is airworthy, in fact it is among my responsibilities to do those checks if I'm on the headset and making the walkaround check, so these airliners are fine from a functionality standpoint, because I would never let one go out if I did not know this to be the case, but if you saw the state of some airliners, you might not think they actually were fit to fly, because they do accumulate a lot of dings and scrapes, you just can't see them from the distance you are typically at when looking at one.

So don't be put off or overly worried by the scare stories you may hear, they are rare tales and sometimes played up a bit in the retelling in order to sound interesting. But the reality is that it's rare to come across someone who does not take their responsibility very seriously when they work on the airliner you are going to board.

[HighBypass 2,339]

4 hours ago, fluffyflops said:

...we just had a guy (a training captain no less) a few weeks ago decided to show one of the cabin crew (a young girl) 'how the rudder works'. .

Don't know if it's an Airbus you're referring to or not, but apparently the pilot's tray tables are good for supporting 90kg according to Captain Joe (on YouTube)... 😜

2 hours ago, Chock said:

...what might actually put you off with airliners (not that it actually is a real problem), is the visual appearance of some of the aeroplanes when you get up close ..

I've been flying Manfred Jahn's Beverley around recently, thus I am not at all worried by a lack of eye candy, nor the thought of a sweaty Chock in a hiviz vest! 😉

But we digress, sorry. (Good stories and info from both of you BTW)😎

[fluffyflops 1,858]

i could type 100 stories for you, alas its wasnt the airbus it was on the jumbo before lock down.  The girl even got someone to take pictures of her in the seat which was what got them all suspended in the end.

the problem with OPS/OCC is you only deal with the issues that come up not the flights that dont have issues which is obviously 99 compared to one that does have the issues.  Then you can go for months and months without any "excitement" and then have a week where its non stop.. Normally in end Aug/Sep when the crew are knackered.  Due this is I think that whats makes OCC staff very skeptical/fickle.  We only deal with problems.  Probably the same with Police, you spend a lifetime dealing with problems.

alas, one of my mates who was at CLA (not anymore) was sent to Russia last year to look at Airbridge Cargo's ops /rostering/flightplanning for a week to get an idea of how Air Bridge did things as they where pressurising CLA (their subcompany to abopt a more "Russian" attitude)

He came back from a week in Russia and was shocked how they operated,  no proper FTLS, no CRM, They didnt bother to put stuff in Tech Logs if it meant a/c was then going to be AOG.  They had a love of speed tape, the crew where just told "get on with it" 

One of their tricks was if  the FDP on a duty was too long they would just take an hour off the block times on the roster and then on the day when they went over the FDP they just wrote it up as bad winds on the day.  For those of you in the business youll how much of a no-no fudging FDPS are to that extent,  alas they did it the whole week as if it was normal.  No one in the Russian CAA is question it, dont worry he was told.

he came back and said to me over a beer Im not surprised theres no many accidents in Russia.  I imagine Pakistan is much the same   

   

  

Edited June 8, 2020 by fluffyflops

[threexgreen 3,139]

5 hours ago, Chock said:

Then they changed their minds and we unloaded it again, then we loaded the outbound bags onto it, then they changed their minds again, and so we took those off, then they said they were going, so we put them back on again, then they offloaded some passengers, so a new load plan was created which meant we had to offload the bags again so that we could reload them according to the new plan.

Don't forget the joy of loading 180+ into the hold and then have a pax not show up so you have to find and remove their bag and the more bags you unload the clearer it gets that it's one of the first ones loaded all the way in the back. So you basically loaded up two airplanes in one and when it's all back loaded up again the pax does show up and you did it all for nothing.

Talking about safety, there was this one day when a patient of a nearby psychiatry escaped, ran all the way to the airport, climbed over a fence, jumped down onto the apron and began sprinting full throttle heading directly to an airplane that had just been pushed out and had its engines running already. It was not until he was getting closer to the running engine that a colleague came flying in from the side to tackle him down in a way that would get him drafted straight up into the NFL had any league scout seen that maneuver. We were told later that guy's motives were that allegedly his family was on board the airplane and he had to catch it. Fun day...

[HighBypass 2,339]

I wonder if the recent Southwest accident (unknown person on runway) was similar?

[threexgreen 3,139]

1 hour ago, HighBypass said:

I wonder if the recent Southwest accident (unknown person on runway) was similar?

Yes it was very similar. Near KAUS is a homeless camp and the person who got hit by the aircraft on the runway was a homeless person from that camp who had climbed over the fence. Apparently this has happened before at the airport.

[threexgreen 3,139]

The preliminary report is out. http://avherald.com/h?article=4d7a6e9a&opt=0

In short, the pilots did not follow standard callouts and did not engage in proper CRM for the whole flight. Instead of focusing on flying the aircraft, they discussed COVID-19 during descent and approach. Even when ATC queried about excessive height on final approach, the pilots, after responding that they were comfortable, continued to discuss COVID-19 even on final.

In order to try and get back onto the descent profile, the landing gear was lowered at around 7000 ft and speedbrakes extended. However, at around 1700 ft, the gear was retracted (speedbrakes too). The aircraft was way too fast and descending too fast and multiple warnings on initial approach and final approach were ignored (including gear up).

Going around, the gear lever was briefly put into the down position and almost immediately back up, which suggests they were actually unaware that it was not down and only realized at that point (retraction of the gear on final was likely because they were thinking it was still up; they seem to have forgotten they put it down during descent).

ATC and approach discussed the gear being up on final and touch down with each other via telephone but never told the pilots.

All in all, shocking pilot performance.

[HighBypass 2,339]

To the layman, this reinforces the fact that the plane had a lot of excess energy during that wheels-up landing.

Quote

 Flight crew applied reverse engine power and initiated a braking action. Both engines scrubbed the runway at various locations causing damage to both of them.

The crew applied reverse thrust AFTER which they managed to get the plane back in the air - they didn't just kiss the runway,throttle up and climb..

Forgive me if this has already been covered, but can the RAT supply necessary systems power and hydraulics like the APU would. Mind you by that time the airliner was a glider anyway and fully working control surfaces don't work in a stalled state...

Some of the comments below the article make for interesting reading...  Among which: 150 aircrew grounded under rumours of fake licences....

https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/pakistan-karachi-crash-pilots-dubious-licenses-air-traffic-control-report-pakistan-international-airlines-grounds-pilots-1692714-2020-06-25#:~:text=Cash-strapped Pakistan International Airlines,tragedy that killed 97 people.

 

[scott967 62]

Seems you can select reverse thrust but nothing happens without "weight on wheels" (WOW) sensor.

 

Without CVR readout hard to know why gear was selected up on first approach.  Could be as speculated they assumed they were lowering when actually raising, but that seems to me a pretty big assumption.  But given the obvious problems with the approach I suppose can't just be discounted.

 

scott s.

.