PIA A-320 crash in Karachi

[threexgreen 3,139]

1 hour ago, scott967 said:

Could be as speculated they assumed they were lowering when actually raising, but that seems to me a pretty big assumption.

It's more likely at least than consciously retracting the gear on final approach because... well, why would you?

[Chock 17,769]

Report just kind of confirms what most people initially thought from seeing the descent profile and hearing the ATC recordings a month ago, that is to say...

7,000 feet higher than they should have been at one point on the approach, so hardly what one could call stable, then coming down like a grand piano with lead weights attached to it, at speeds way over the limit for one stage of flaps, let alone suitable for deploying the landing gear. No sterile cockpit discipline, no CRM alerting, etc. 

In such circumstances, it's hardly surprising that other stupid things such as raising the landing gear lever on finals, bellying it in from a descent rate of 2,000 fpm, hitting reverse thrust and then changing your mind and going around occurred. It's quite clear that these pilots were way behind the aircraft all the way and unprofessional to the point where they might just as well have let one of the passengers have a crack at landing the thing because they couldn't really have done a worse job of it.

And it is clear that in going around after having twatted both engines onto the deck which is obviously going to break them, there was no way these guys were ever going to manage a Sully-style Miracle on the Manora if they couldn't even manage a normal approach when they actually had engine power. ATC were not exactly on the ball either, but to be fair, things are going to happen fast when a crew override your instruction to abort the landing and then they come over the fence at about 100 mph over the Vref and smack it down on the engines approximately half way along the runway, so it's difficult to know what ATC could have done in the face of such terrible piloting and one can only hope the controllers are not made scapegoats instead of addressing what is quite evidently some appalling piloting at PIA.

And now on top of this, we learn that it is suspected up to half of PIA's pilot roster might have got their ATPLs out of a lucky bag. Still, this does at least potentially explain why some of them didn't appear to have a clue when I talked to them on the headset. Prior to this incident, I wouldn't have boarded a PIA aeroplane if you'd paid me, but now I guess I certainly won't be alone in that opinion.

[him225 51]

Is it possible to be in that much confusion that one mix up gear lever up and down position, or something else happened?

[Christopher Low 5,353]

This is a shocking report. When a passenger boards a flight at the gate, they expect the guys up front to know what the hell they are doing at all times. It sounds like these clowns were doing nothing more than juggling with the lives of their passengers......and sadly they dropped all of the balls

[Chock 17,769]

6 hours ago, him225 said:

Is it possible to be in that much confusion that one mix up gear lever up and down position, or something else happened?

When things happen thick and fast, yes unfortunately all humans can 'lose the plot' and make what seems like unbelievably stupid mistakes. This is exactly why it is critical to follow checklists and their related procedures in an extremely rigid fashion, which this crew clearly did not.

An interesting example of where stressful situations can make you do stuff which seems ridiculous, is the excavation of muzzle-loading rifles from many historical battle sites. It has been found when recovering such weapons in archeological digs, many soldiers who were equipped with muzzle loading rifles, had apparently rammed multiple shot loads into their weapons, but never actually fired the weapon. There have been examples of civil war rifles found with as many as ten shot balls loaded and rammed home but never fired. This seems ridiculous to the point of being unbelievable, particularly since discharging your weapon toward the enemy in a war, even if you don't aim especially well, is what could potentially save your life if it stops the enemy from advancing, but that is evidently what stress can do to you.

Edited June 26, 2020 by Chock

[HighBypass 2,339]

Regarding lucky bag ATPL's - you can be my wingman any time, Chock! 

Goodness knows how ATPL holders, who had to put a lot of work and dedication in gaining such a licence, feel about the current PIA investigations..

Sad days indeed when armchair simmers (like me and many others) can see stuff going wrong, let alone any real pilots.

[Chock 17,769]

1 minute ago, HighBypass said:

Regarding lucky bag ATPL's - you can be my wingman any time, Chock! 

Goodness knows how ATPL holders, who had to put a lot of work and dedication in gaining such a licence, feel about the current PIA investigations..

Sad days indeed when armchair simmers (like me and many others) can see stuff going wrong, let alone any real pilots.

Yup, it's a sad state of affairs when a hobby flight simmer on his or her own with a copy of FSX and a few practice flights could probably have done a better job of landing the thing than two allegedly professional pilots managed. Of course it is easy to be a Monday morning quarterback so to speak, but it really does look like there's little doubt as to how bad the performance of the crew of that PIA was.

[fluffyflops 1,858]

On 6/25/2020 at 4:44 PM, threegreen said:

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.

i was reading about the ATPL issues.  shocking.  

[Bob Scott 7,720]

On 6/25/2020 at 9:44 AM, threegreen said:

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.

This is so bad that one has to wonder why toxicology results for the pilots aren't included in the report...this was so stunningly incompetent that I'd be looking for alcohol, THC, meth, or opiates as a cause.  And maybe their training dept and corporate execs should be tested as well...

 

[threexgreen 3,139]

22 minutes ago, w6kd said:

This is so bad that one has to wonder why toxicology results for the pilots aren't included in the report...this was so stunningly incompetent that I'd be looking for alcohol, THC, meth, or opiates as a cause.  And maybe their training dept and corporate execs should be tested as well...

I would say the entire airline should be tested for just about anything based on their record and the recent news. It's bad enough if one pilot slips in who shouldn't be there (think of the Atlas 767 accident approaching Houston) but 150 without a proper license at one airline? I wouldn't be surprised if these two were among those with a "dubious" license based on their performance in this accident.

In any case, this is not just pilot error but plain criminal.

[HighBypass 2,339]

Tongue in cheek.... I'd prefer to know where I can get the fake ATPL - purely to spend time in various simulators of course - in the vein of Catch Me If You Can  

Plenty of people, within the aviation industry and without, will be awaiting the findings regarding PIA (especially if they are made public..)

[Chock 17,769]

With regard to fake credentials, I am inclined to suspect some of the problem is cultural and geographical, in that it is more acceptable/possible in some places than others. I personally know of occasions where the parents of students from African and Asian countries (not exclusively so, but more often than not from these locales), have approached the lecturers of university courses in the UK where their son or daughter was studying, and genuinely expected to be able to write a cheque out to the lecturer to have their kid pass in spite of that student not meeting the standards, which is why the parents had been called in for a meeting in the first place. They had then been surprised when told by the lecturer this was not going to happen, which makes one surmise it would appear to be possible elsewhere if they were A) trying it, and B) surprised to find their bribe being refused.

But this sort of thing does go on closer to home too. Here's an interesting story from Spain concerning the issuing of a 'licence'. This one is absolutely true and also points up why investigations into such things often never get very far...

A relative of mine who now lives in the UK most of the time, but occasionally in Spain, was for many years a full-time resident in Spain, having been there even when Franco was still alive as a result of marrying a Spaniard. As such, my relative is well fluent in Spanish (and several other languages) and well versed in all the local culture etc. Her and her Spanish husband owned several restaurant/bars over there, and so they occasionally wanted to have music acts on, but were told by the local police that they could not do so without a 'music licence' for their premises, so they made a few enquiries concerning this.

Turned out that a 'music licence' was a euphemism for throwing a bribe at the head of the town's local government, whereupon the police would no longer hassle them for having musicians playing at their venue, providing the necessary wheels were greased, and they had knocked up an official-looking bit of paper which was framed and put on the wall of the venue to show they had 'a licence'.

Needless to say, other bar/restaurant owners were a bit miffed to not be allowed to have musical performers play at their venues, being told that my relative's venue 'had a music licence', so was allowed to have such acts on. But since most of the other bar owners were ex-pats, thus not so fluent in Spanish and therefore not so well-versed in how the wheels were greased in such matters, if they themselves tried to find out where they could apply for such a licence, they'd find it was not possible to locate which office you would go to for an application, since was in fact no such licence at all.

Effectively the above is of course a protection racket, run by the local government boss and the local police under his command. You would think that this sort of thing only occurred in movies and wouldn't really go on in an EEC country, but it absolutely did, and still does.

That'll be how those dodgy pilot licences came about, with similar stuff to the above two examples going on. Of course the problem with that is that since that kind of thing goes up to local government officials and such, these officials are often in a position to block investigations into such matters, or can even end up being the ones assigned to investigate their own dodgy practices, with predictable results of course.

So in spite of reports that there will be an investigation into the matter with regard to PIA pilots with dodgy licences, if anyone imagines that everyone involved will be caught, or even that the practice will be completely curtailed, they're probably going to be disappointed, because PIA has had a dodgy reputation for years, and so clearly that sort of thing has been going on for years too and I'm willing to be that more than one airline pilot finding himself in the cockpit owing to such practices, has effectively 'learned on the job', either with, or without their P1's knowledge.

Edited June 29, 2020 by Chock

[threexgreen 3,139]

Time to blacklist PIA.

[HighBypass 2,339]

Can we even use that word these days? But yes, you're right threegreen