PIA Lahore to Karachi Airbus A320 Flight Crashes

[fawad]

People are saying that a narrative is being built against the pilots...sure there will be. Who was flying the plane? ATC controllers/Director flight safety/CEO of PIA or was it the pilots?

Any of those may get secondary blame for making things more efficient. Even if it was pilot incompetence, then it is the responsibility of management that they shouldn't hire incompetent people but then again...almost all of PIA appointees are political. We, as a nation, get self-satisfaction if a senior person is blamed or fired because we think they earn too much. But I don't know how blaming a CEO would have prevented this? Or if changing a CEO will change anything? CEO has limited powers here since all of PIAs overstaffed, lazy, and incompetent employees are politically appointed to which the CEO can do nothing. MNAs and courts always intervene to give incompetent people even more benefits than they were getting before along with arrears.

Suppose it was a maintenance error, wouldn't the question still arise as to why they did not declare it to ATC and go for emergency landing? Who is to blame for pilots agreeing to land from such altitude in such a short time and say "I am comfortable"? CEO of PIA? Who was supposed to mention landing gear problems (if there were any)...Dir flight safety? As far as Sindh govt. object, they will object to any and everything not handled by Zardari or his thugs. They will insist to include a representative of PALPA mafia who will say hire even more Sindhi people, increase pay and perks, for a lower amount of work and distribute plots amongst all pilots, and ask CEO to be in the cockpit to handle cases we are incompetent to handle.

My rant would sound harsh and it is based on history, not necessarily these pilots. I will give them the benefit of doubt until a more complete picture arises. They do appear to be prime 'suspects' though not culprits at this stage. It happens everywhere and it is due to data available so far. I do not recall anyone jumping to blame pilots in ATR (JJ plane) case or Fokker (Multan) case because the immediate data showed problems in the plane. Maintenance was blamed, and by transitivity, PIA management if they are pressuring people to cut corners. The same goes internationally too. Boeing 737max was grounded pending final investigation due to leaked data even before guilt was formally established.

[oozeman64]

People are saying that a narrative is being built against the pilots...sure there will be. Who was flying the plane? ATC controllers/Director flight safety/CEO of PIA or was it the pilots?

Any of those may get secondary blame for making things more efficient. Even if it was pilot incompetence, then it is the responsibility of management that they shouldn't hire incompetent people but then again...almost all of PIA appointees are political. We, as a nation, get self-satisfaction if a senior person is blamed or fired because we think they earn too much. But I don't know how blaming a CEO would have prevented this? Or if changing a CEO will change anything? CEO has limited powers here since all of PIAs overstaffed, lazy, and incompetent employees are politically appointed to which the CEO can do nothing. MNAs and courts always intervene to give incompetent people even more benefits than they were getting before along with arrears.

Suppose it was a maintenance error, wouldn't the question still arise as to why they did not declare it to ATC and go for emergency landing? Who is to blame for pilots agreeing to land from such altitude in such a short time and say "I am comfortable"? CEO of PIA? Who was supposed to mention landing gear problems (if there were any)...Dir flight safety? As far as Sindh govt. object, they will object to any and everything not handled by Zardari or his thugs. They will insist to include a representative of PALPA mafia who will say hire even more Sindhi people, increase pay and perks, for a lower amount of work and distribute plots amongst all pilots, and ask CEO to be in the cockpit to handle cases we are incompetent to handle.

My rant would sound harsh and it is based on history, not necessarily these pilots. I will give them the benefit of doubt until a more complete picture arises. They do appear to be prime 'suspects' though not culprits at this stage. It happens everywhere and it is due to data available so far. I do not recall anyone jumping to blame pilots in ATR (JJ plane) case or Fokker (Multan) case because the immediate data showed problems in the plane. Maintenance was blamed, and by transitivity, PIA management if they are pressuring people to cut corners. The same goes internationally too. Boeing 737max was grounded pending final investigation due to leaked data even before guilt was formally established.

You make a fair point, and i agree with you to some extent. Yes, if the narrative being speculated about the landing gear not being extended at all or retracted too early by pilots is true, then yes, pilots are to blame.

However, we dont know if its true yet. We dont know what really went on inside the cockpit, there are too many possibilities at the moment for us to choose one and start concluding opinions or speculations as facts on mainstream media.

[Hassan777]

What’s really surprising and sad is that since the Golden age of PIA,Pakistani governments have failed to appoint a good CEO for PIA, Whenever a civilian was chosen we saw corruption, whenever a Air force official was appointed we saw nepotism, hell we even had a foreigner who too saw the opportunity to benefit his country and stole a A310 ,Only good chairman PIA had was Nur khan , Even Arshad malik is biased to an extent, he let the 2 sister pilots off the hook just because allegedly they were daughters of some high ranking Army officer , one of them destroyed an ATR and other caused the embarrassment of PIA 777 being chased by jets , If she had been made an example of maybe we wouldn’t have seen this , Gilgit too was a high and hot approach. Isn’t There even 1 competent man in 22 crore people?

[ammad]

Even Arshad malik is biased to an extent, he let the 2 sister pilots off the hook just because allegedly they were daughters of some high ranking Army officer , one of them destroyed an ATR and other caused the embarrassment of PIA 777 being chased by jets.

This part i don't understand as well. Destroyed an ATR aircraft and still employed with PIA: If this continues, after a year or so, you will see her laughing and joking about ATR incident while still employed with PIA.

For the B-777 incident, are you sure her sister was on control or at least PNF?

[Abbas Ali]

Was November 10, 2018, incident in which PIA ATR 72-500 (AP-BKY) overran runway at Panjgur Airport also due to late touchdown?



July 20, 2019, accident in which PIA ATR 42-500 (AP-BHP) overran runway at Gilgit Airport apparently happened due to late touchdown.



No investigation reports of both incidents available on CAA website.

Abbas

[AA]

@Flyer1015, I asked this a couple of posts back, but I'll ask again. A photo taken from crosswind (Reportedly) shows slats and flaps fully retracted. Can you point out the significance & time required for full flap retraction on the bus?

Normally Flap deployment is dictated by the plane’s speed. It begins when the speed is below 250 kts. We can say, before use of Flaps starts, the speed would usually be closer to 200 kts than it would be to 250 kts.

A standard configuration profile is something like:

- 15 miles to touchdown: 4000-3000ft, speed 180 kts, Flap 1
- 10 miles to touchdown - 3000ft, speed 180 kts, still Flap 1
- 8 miles to touchdown - 2500ft, speed coming back to 160 kts, Flap 2
- 7 miles to touchdown - 2000ft, Landing Gear down, speed 160 kts, Flap 2
- After Gear is down and locked - Flap 3 and Flap Full are selected consecutively.
- 5 miles to touchdown - 1500ft, Coming back to final approach speed of 140 kts.

Importance of the Flaps is: without the utilisation of the Flaps, the plane cannot be flown at the slower speed that is required for the plane to be able to stop safely within the length of the runway. Just like anything else, the faster you are, the more distance you require to stop. So the slower speed is vital and hence proper utilisation of Flaps is a vital part of the landing.

I thought I'd share this interesting info (cross posting from elsewhere)



I believe the crew would never have received a TOO LOW GEAR warning during the first approach; they would have received TOO LOW TERRAIN instead (or another mode if that would have priority). I can see how a crew would discard the latter GPWS warning as being erroneous/nuisance when approaching a runway in VMC, especially a crew that had already lost their situational awareness due to extreme (probably self-induced) tunnel-vision.

Really good find.

What you have said cannot be ruled out, it is possible. My personal opinion is that it’s not likely, but I’ve been wrong many times before. I’ll try to explain why below. Sorry for the long post!

My understanding is Mode 4C applies to a climb out profile only. As for the rest, let’s break it down into altitude and speed.

Starting with the speed, I think it’s fair to say that even the most cavalier of Airline Pilots would know they cannot land successfully with a final approach speed of around 200 kts. Typically when close to the runway (inside 5 miles), the aircraft would be flying with a speed of around 140-160 kts. For more context, coming in to land, if the plane’s speed is just 10 kts faster than normal, this would cause the plane to significantly float down the runway before the wheels touched the tarmac - maybe halfway or beyond. With that in mind, coming in to land with a speed of 60 kts faster is unfathomable. I also mentioned above how Flap configuration is dictated by the speed so the Pilots would really need to bring the speed back to realistically be able to make a successful landing - the Pilots wouldn’t be able to extend the flaps if the plane is too fast.

Next if we consider altitude and speed together, it’s very unlikely a Pilot would continue to try and land if they found themselves below 500ft with a speed close to 200 kts. This is double trouble. In this scenario the plane is now close to the ground and not much time left to try and recover the situation (to a safe landing). This would almost certainty result in the Pilots performing a go-around. Based on these statements (just my opinion), considering realistic ‘speed vs altitude’ scenarios and if we compare them with the diagrams, I think you are more likely to hear ‘too low flaps’ or ‘too low gear’ than you are to hearing any of the alternatives.

[Hassan777]

Even Arshad malik is biased to an extent, he let the 2 sister pilots off the hook just because allegedly they were daughters of some high ranking Army officer , one of them destroyed an ATR and other caused the embarrassment of PIA 777 being chased by jets.

This part i don't understand as well. Destroyed an ATR aircraft and still employed with PIA: If this continues, after a year or so, you will see her laughing and joking about ATR incident while still employed with PIA.

For the B-777 incident, are you sure her sister was on control or at least PNF?

Someone in this forum had said that she was her sister and many media outlets reported that the Gilgit accident’s Pilot was a daughter of some Army official.

[siddhi817]

Yes, she and her sister are daughters of a retired army officer.

[SM]

Yes, she and her sister are daughters of a retired army officer.

Maryam Masood and Erum Masood are sisters. Maryam destroyed an ATR last year at Gilgit and Erum first ran a 777 off the side of the runway in the UK and got it stuck, and then very recently, was in the flight deck with a Captain for a good 50 minutes with all radios offline, cockpit door locked per procedures, and the aircraft on autopilot while it passed from Germany => Czech => Hungary => to finally wake up in Romania where she re-established contact with local ATC. Besides this, both sisters have consistently failed almost every simulator check.

[siddhi817]

Oh she was the one with radio silenced.

[umar744]

Yes, she and her sister are daughters of a retired army officer.

Maryam Masood and Erum Masood are sisters. Maryam destroyed an ATR last year at Gilgit and Erum first ran a 777 off the side of the runway in the UK and got it stuck, and then very recently, was in the flight deck with a Captain for a good 50 minutes with all radios offline, cockpit door locked per procedures, and the aircraft on autopilot while it passed from Germany => Czech => Hungary => to finally wake up in Romania where she re-established contact with local ATC. Besides this, both sisters have consistently failed almost every simulator check. However, since every cloud has a silver lining, I am happy to report that Irum Masood recently became Mrs. Iram after she married a recently retired Director of Flight Services from PIA. Hopefully, this will bring better luck for her, the airline, and its passengers.

what date what month what year which LHR or MAN or BHX and what aircraft registration number AP-B.... 777 did she accident?

[Hassan777]

Yes, she and her sister are daughters of a retired army officer.

Maryam Masood and Erum Masood are sisters. Maryam destroyed an ATR last year at Gilgit and Erum first ran a 777 off the side of the runway in the UK and got it stuck, and then very recently, was in the flight deck with a Captain for a good 50 minutes with all radios offline, cockpit door locked per procedures, and the aircraft on autopilot while it passed from Germany => Czech => Hungary => to finally wake up in Romania where she re-established contact with local ATC. Besides this, both sisters have consistently failed almost every simulator check. However, since every cloud has a silver lining, I am happy to report that Irum Masood recently became Mrs. Iram after she married a recently retired Director of Flight Services from PIA. Hopefully, this will bring better luck for her, the airline, and its passengers.

Are their any photos of the incident?

[Flyer1015]

@Flyer1015, I asked this a couple of posts back, but I'll ask again. A photo taken from crosswind (Reportedly) shows slats and flaps fully retracted. Can you point out the significance & time required for full flap retraction on the bus?

That photo is the second and final approach. The RAT is fully deployed and at this point the engines have pretty much stopped functioning (both generators tripping off is what deployed the RAT). I would expect in a go around that the aircraft clean up its flaps on schedule.

Based on that video by Juan, if in fact it is indeed true that the aircraft's first original approach was no slower than 200 kts at a very high rate of descent, then they would only have flaps 1 out. They would not have been slow enough to get the next notch (flaps 2). After going around, at acceleration altitude which is 1,000 above ground typically, you clean the wing up. That means bring the flaps to 0 which is no flaps/slats. Since this airplane made it to at least 1,800 ft for the second approach, it makes sense that the slats and flaps are fully retracted.

Time required for full flap retraction on an A320 is fairly quick. Less than 30 seconds.

[Abbas Ali]

Meeting chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan to receive briefing on PK8303 crash.

Search area has been widened to find missing CVR of the crashed aircraft.

More wreckage pieces of the aircraft shifted from crash site to Karachi Airport today.

Abbas

[Hassan777]

Reports of PIA safety director promptly running to the crash site alone on the day of the crash, who is allegedly a pilot and an active member of PALPA, could he have taken the CVR? Like is this possible don’t we have SOPs for accidents? Wasn’t the area sealed by rangers?