PIA Airbus Crash

You know what they say on the "Moments from Disaster" series: " Accidents don't just happen they're caused by a series of events that lead to the crash". I'll wait for the conclusion of the investigation before I have any thoughts on the matter. Very sad though.
 
Originally Posted by double vanos
You know what they say on the "Moments from Disaster" series: " Accidents don't just happen they're caused by a series of events that lead to the crash". I'll wait for the conclusion of the investigation before I have any thoughts on the matter. Very sad though.




It is very sad and considering the location the investigation may not reveal the facts.
 
If that picture is legit and that pilot went airborne again after a belly landing....WOW. That's all I have to say.
 
Originally Posted by PowerSurge
If that picture is legit and that pilot went airborne again after a belly landing....WOW. That's all I have to say.


Don't think that is possible in Karachi.. In fact, it seems only possible in a small part of Los Angeles...
 
Passenger account supports initial jolting belly bounces and failed go around...

"The plane was coming very smoothly, 8303 of PIA. My seat was 8F. When
it was reaching Jinnah International Airport, the pilot announced that
‘we are landing, fasten your seat belts'. We fastened seat belts.
While landing, the plane jolted three times. Then it came on the
runway and was on it for a brief time. Then I don't know what
happened, that the pilot adroitly lifted the plane off the ground,"
Zubair, who is being treated for burns in a hospital in Karachi, said.

"The pilot then flew the plane for 10 or 15 minutes. He again
announced that the plane was landing. When this announcement was made,
I looked down and it appeared to me that we were (flying) over the
Malir Cantonment (area, where it was to land. Then when it was about
to land, suddenly (it crashed)," he said.

"When I opened my eyes it was a dark place. I heard cries. I saw some
light and tried to walk towards it after undoing my seat belt. There
was fire everywhere and no one was visible," said Zubair from his
hospital bed in a video clip circulated on social media.
 
Last edited:
From what I've read on the dried fruit site, the pilots made the first approach from 3500' only five miles out. The tower controller offered a circling right turn at that point to allow the crew time to bleed off altitude and energy. The crew declined this and continued the approach.
The plane arrived at the runway with way too much speed. The crew finally decided that this wasn't going to work, so they initiated a bulked landing. The gear was sucked up just in time for the aircraft to settle to the runway before the engines could spool up enough to provide sufficient thrust and the nacelles got dragged. This damaged the generators, so AC power was lost which brought the RAT out. It's speculated that the oil lines were also damaged and the engines were run out of oil and therefore died after briefly running at the commanded TOGA power. The crew were now trying to go around with what amounted to a large glider without enough altitude to make the airport. The A320 was probably in either Alternate or Direct law at this point and the crew, with no good forced landing site in sight, probably pulled back in desperation, stalling the aircraft into the ground. Supporting this theory is that there isn't a wider spread of debris, indicating that the aircraft probably came down at a high rate of vertical speed and low airspeed. You can also see one of the engines in some of the various post-crash photos and given the lack of fan damage it doesn't appear to have been running when the aircraft hit the ground.
The irony is that they were only seconds away from a clear area ahead and had they made it the aircraft would have ended up written off but with no or minimal loss of life. These single-aisle Airbuses have proven to be plenty strong in off-runway excursions.
Had the crew gone around when they should have recognized that there was no way their approach was going to work, nothing would have happened. Had the crew not attempted their late effort to get the plane back into the air, the aircraft would have plowed into the clearway at the departure end of the runway, the aircraft would have likely been written off, the pilots would have been looking for new jobs but nobody would have died.
A really sad chain of events.
 
So they retracted the gear on a go around before establishing a positive climb much less before TOGA was reached?
crazy2.gif
 
According to The Aviation Herald:

http://avherald.com/h?article=4d7a6e9a&opt=0

Quote
On May 24th 2020 Pakistan's media quote a CAA official speaking on condition of anonymity that the aircraft made two attempts to land. During the first approach it appears the landing gear was still retracted when the aircraft neared the runway, the pilot had not indicated any anomaly or emergency, emergency services thus did not respond and did not foam the runway as would be done in case of a gear malfunction. The marks on the runway between 4500 feet and 7000 feet down the runway suggest the engines made contact with the runway surface, it is possible that the engines were damaged during that contact with the runway surface leading even to possibly fire.

On May 24th 2020 a spokesman of the airline said, the landing gear had not been (partially or fully) lowered prior to the first touch down. The crew did not call out the standard operating procedures for an anomaly and no emergency was declared. Most likely the crew was not mentally prepared for a belly landing and went around when they realized the engines were scraping the runway.


And alleged photos of the runway in question.

https://twitter.com/jacdecnew/status/1264541006122364930?s=21

[Linked Image]
 
Which also makes perfect sense.
An inadvertent gear up touchdown followed by an ill-advised attempt to go around.
Either way, everyone including the crew soon learned that they would have been way ahead simply leaving the aircraft on the ground and riding it out, although hindsight is always 20:20.
Loss of career beats loss of life for the crew, the FAs and all but two of the passengers.
 
I don't see how you forget the gear. I mean you could hear the chime going off in the ATC recordings. That's something that's part of the before landing checklist and was drilled into my head in complex training in a Piper Arrow.
confused2.gif
 
IIRC - on the A320, at 750', with landing flaps selected and gear retracted, you get an audible and visible warning of gear not down. It's very noisy.
 
Originally Posted by Yah-Tah-Hey
Clowns in the cockpit. Only way to explain this. Incompetent bozos upfront.




That's a bit harsh Hosteen considering they cannot defend themselves now. We may never know what exactly transpired up front.

Some additional speculation from the dried fruit forum that was referenced before mentioned the possibility of Ramadan fasting having a part of this. Again we may never know.
 
Originally Posted by PimTac
Originally Posted by Yah-Tah-Hey
Clowns in the cockpit. Only way to explain this. Incompetent bozos upfront.




That's a bit harsh Hosteen considering they cannot defend themselves now. We may never know what exactly transpired up front.

Some additional speculation from the dried fruit forum that was referenced before mentioned the possibility of Ramadan fasting having a part of this. Again we may never know.


That's a ridiculous assertion.
 
Originally Posted by john_pifer
Originally Posted by PimTac
Originally Posted by Yah-Tah-Hey
Clowns in the cockpit. Only way to explain this. Incompetent bozos upfront.




That's a bit harsh Hosteen considering they cannot defend themselves now. We may never know what exactly transpired up front.

Some additional speculation from the dried fruit forum that was referenced before mentioned the possibility of Ramadan fasting having a part of this. Again we may never know.


That's a ridiculous assertion.

It is not. It is Pakistan in the end of May. Fasting would go around approximately 11.45hrs. That means no water, no food, no cigarettes (it is Pakistan after all).
 
Reckless, yes.

Wreck-less? Clearly not.

The severely unstable approaches that I've seen get very noisy, with GPWS and perhaps EGPWS warnings, I could see that drowning out the gear warning.

The decision to continue an unstable approach was the bad decision in this case (assuming what we know to be factual, and the jury is still out on much of the detail). Everything after that was a crew trying to catch up...
 
Spelling and grammar escapes me today... I still can't believe they tried to salvage such an unstable approach, if you can call it that. It was more like a dive. That -7000 fps descent must have felt great in the back!
 
Sorry....couldn't resist!
lol.gif


But to your point: absolutely agree about that approach. If the data is accurate, horribly unstable.

Horribly.

I've been close to that high, and fast, and took the 360 on final - only way to salvage a lousy situation created by approach control.

I've been hosed by ATC many times, and while I can generally see the soup sandwich developing, and get the gear and all the drag out to salvage their mistake, on many occasions, I have had to do a go-around.

Sucks. But it's not worth taking any risk to fix their mistake.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Just a civilian pilot
Air France A350 tail strike/Go-Around CYYZ , Toronto.
Replies
18
Views
973
Number_35
y_p_w
Alaskan bush pilot dies in Piper PA-18 crash - was husband of Alaska's lone representative in Congress
Replies
5
Views
822
LDB
ctechbob
Francis Scott Key Bridge (Baltimore) hit by Cargo Ship and Collapsed
14 15 16
Replies
318
Views
11K
Donald
supton
F9F vs MiG-15s
Replies
7
Views
2K
supton
J
  • Locked
Chinese airliner
2
Replies
29
Views
8K
BalticBob
Back
Top