PIA Lahore to Karachi Airbus A320 Flight Crashes

[Inam855]

A question; seeing the aircraft very high on approach (3500/5), instead of advising and offering a a left turn (presumably to come for another apch) can the controller (as per procedures) cancel approach clearance?

Apparently not if the pilot INSISTS I am comfortable and can make it. Then again, someone with better knowledge of CAA SOPs can comment.

What is the general professionalism of PIA pilots and what if any disciplinary actions get taken against them when they violate the rules? I agree that it is not fair to blame anybody in this situation till the final investigation is complete. The crew are owed that.

My question on professionalism stems from just 3 incidences that are in violation of norms (and regulations) from 2017 that were made public: Captain on flight from Europe took a nap for 3 hours in first class. Another crew allowed a woman passenger to enter the flight deck on a flight from Asia so she could post on social media. A 3rd incidence of a captain slapping a cabin crew member in Pakistan.

This is all in the same year, and is just the stuff that makes public news. If this is the sort of disregard going on for basic rules, procedures and there is no fear of enforcement, these things can eventually catch up and cause something more serious.

There are hundreds of incidents which are swept under the rug. Some, if you hadn't heard directly from a pia pilot, you would chalk up to a comedy writer, like forgetting the gear pin on a walk around at JFK, then having to dump fuel and make a landing - the consequence? promoted to instructor. Come in hot and high, land an ATR at the approach speed of an A380 and then stand around taking selfies with the airplane instead of helping the evacuation- consequence? a new Gucci outfit and bags, no one's touching you.

The professionalism of the gang members who are recruited with fake degrees and pay to pass their ATPL written exams can be judged by a recruitment process full of holes (much like swiss cheese). First the applicants undergo a written exam, the results of which are declared for a one hour period and then removed from public view. Marks are never declared, they remain part of the internal record to ensure minimal transparency. This is followed by an interview which comprises questions about your political background, land ownership, and intended gift to the panel (all senior captains). ps Mercedes are preferred. The medical test is perhaps one, that due to its nature is somewhat better - then again, some clean folks are offered huge amounts to take urine tests for others!

You can also imagine their immense professionalism from the actions by the pilot's association, like:

- an agenda focusing on manipulating hiring in PIA to prioritize palpa' member's children instead of open merit;

- an agenda that revolves around land acquisition and building housing societies instead of promoting aviation safety;

- stepping in to "Save" members who have clearly violated SOPs, and more than once endangered passenger lives

- stepping in to save members who have cost the airlines millions in diversion costs, dumped fuel, and damage to aircraft

- stepping in to save members who fail checks & miraculously pass on the next go (without any retraining mind you)

- not allowing an independent safety board to be established in pakistan

- not ONCE in the past decade having conducted a public awareness event, or any safety seminar/conference with fellow colleagues from pia/caa (happy to be corrected on this)

- not having ANY regular safety publication or seminars (happy to be corrected on this)

- no anonymous record of safety incidents (which used to be in PIA's inflight safety magazine - wonder who shut that down?)

- forcing management to make certain people known to do favors and instructors and check pilots. Do tell me, who stopped multiple failure practices in SIM and why? Should that person not be held accountable for what happened here?

- failing to FORCE their colleagues repeatedly violating SOPs to face the consequences.

- failing to force the management to warn/retrain/ground/suspend ANY pilot continuing unstable approaches below 1000'

- failing to force the management to suspend/investigate/fire ANY crew member violating SOPs or professional standards, from garbage cleaners hiding drugs in the aircraft to engineers violating SOPs to unprofessional ATCs to cabin crew hauling undeclared goods.

Specifically in the context of this investigation, the entire community of pia's "pilots" are discussing "Palpa is politically powerful, we will not let the truth get out in this case" and "everyone say he (capt.) was fasting so they don't look at other angles"? You have just lost respected colleagues and 98 innocent people who had no idea what was happening, and the reaction is we are powerful, start building a religious narrative, and we will not let the truth out because it implicates all of you? Another poster (see below) has hit upon certain PIA pilots doing a certain crime of moral turpitude to pass their ATPL exams. You can view the entire details on mobashir luqman's channel on youtube.

Simply put, the entire structure of aviation in Pakistan needs to change, from the flying clubs, to the airlines and to CAA otherwise this will keep happening. Bashing PALPA and pilots is not going to accomplish change. People blame PALPA and pilots for being a mafia and state the whole bogus ATPL fiasco as if they printed those licenses out of thin air themselves. Yes a particular collection of pilots were involved in that wrong doing, but can someone remind me who the license issuing authority in Pakistan is, and whether there was an investigation into who issued those licenses or gave out those question papers?

The entire reason everyone is questioning palpa, is because of their power & influence to have prevented such things from happening in the first place. One of these "public servants" gets paid than entire departments in PIA, a single year's increment is more than the ENTIRE salary of other employees, there is massive disparity in perks and privileges, and you wonder why these delusional sky gods should be questioned? Everyone knows palpa can pull strings to get the RIGHT action done in an instant - if the intention ever was there.Everyone knows palpa has the influence to instill safety in aviation, yet have they EVER tried? Name ONE SINGLE PUBLICATION OR SAFETY SEMINAR in the last 10 years. If you still can't see the light, maybe you arent looking right.

As for your question on the ATPL fiasco, we all know who was scared enough to take the matter to sindh high court so that caa couldnt act. Now the matter shall remain in limbo for years, maybe decades. But don't worry, just so your gang can sleep better, the matter has also been placed before ICAO. As soon as the case is over, the hammer's going to come down, be assured of that.

[Squawk_1200]

]

A question; seeing the aircraft very high on approach (3500/5), instead of advising and offering a a left turn (presumably to come for another apch) can the controller (as per procedures) cancel approach clearance?
[/quote]

Yes ATC has a full authority to advise at any time to discontinue approach. Pilots are required to comply with that new instructions.

In April of this year a tower controller at Las Vegas Airport was tested positive for corona virus , medical team arrived at the tower to take the controller to the treatment facility at that time there were 30 airplanes were inbound for landing, tower was unattended for one hour and approach control took the responsibility of directing and landing of aircraft , when pilots were reporting runway in sight they were on there own to make a safe landing.
Even at Karachi on the day of accident did not ask pilots to switch to tower , with no traffic in the vicinity of airport that wast much of an issue.
A lot has changed in the world one doesn’t have to be Lakeer ka fakeer. These are things of 1950.

[A310]

Since you seem to be in the know about CAA rules/SOPs can you please tell me if a landing clearance can be denied by an ATC if the PIC insists "I am comfortable"? Perhaps the CAA is trying to create a drama, perhaps not. The data from FDR/CVR is undergoing processing, its a matter of a few days.

Your love for PIA management resonates loud and clear from your death wishes for the CEO. If there is such a critical shortage, your gang of thugs should stop influencing the recruitment policy and allow the management to execute the summary for hiring of 125 pilots signed by NS more than two years ago. Distributing workloads is a joke, when you are paying people for flying 35 hours a day, and the training department manned by your senior captains is incompetent enough to not manage allocations & trainings in an efficient way. Have you EVER raised your voice on that? Nice points about crew scheduling, do tell which gang opposed computerized scheduling in PIA? Was it the union of delusional schedulers or palpa? Uptill now The MEL is put in by the manufacturer, so not exactly sure of your gripe with that. I sure hope that if one of your colleagues faces poor maintenance and technical snags, they report it to ATC on the first opportunity instead of "I am comfortable" - or do you actively condone concealment of critical equipment failure?

I reckon you have some difficulty in comprehending my post. I am questioning the merit on which the notice was served to PIA. If the ATC communicates something in an advisory role, there is no non-compliance if the PIC doesn’t go ahead with that. Yes he should have turned left, no questions about that but it was his decision. There are so many instances when ATC gives headings which cannot be taken due to weather in the path of that particular heading. Pilots reject that too. Is that non-compliance as well?

Can you stop being so outrageous? Never wished that for him. Just called him out for his hypocrisy as far as Shaheen 320 captains are concerned. But I think i stepped on a nerve there, cute. Moving on, please highlight when did my ‘gang of thugs’ (do have a name for them though in case you weren’t aware) stop the recruitment? It was that girl who went to court and the court stopped that hiring. She’s a cadet pilot now. But ever since that, it is this military induced excuse of a CEO or thug if I may who stopped the hiring. He hates the word ‘cadet pilot’. So much for hiring pilots, eh? As they say, apne girebaan mein jhaanko pehle. 35 hours a day? Assuming you mean 35 hours a month. No thats not the case. Get your facts right. Its 75 hours and any pilot who doesn’t fly a minimum of 50 hours without any reason is penalized. What allocations and trainings? Should those training pilots start giving birth to pilots?? They have to make do with what they have. If A320 has a shortage of captains, should they cease ATR operations to cater 320 ops? I did voice that in official capacity. Not on HOP just to please you. But who’s there to listen? Now let me come to losses as well. How many of the direct entry ATR captains passed the training? Less than 20 percent. Keep your PAF mentality limited to PAF. You’re an utter failure if you try to come to commercial airlines. Isn’t the scheduling already computerised? They acquired AIMS software and manage it though that. And it’s been like that for over 15 years. Don’t really understand what made you day that. The schedulers have all data available to them to manage operations. You can’t really come up with an excuse for them not moving their arses. Forget MEL. On so many occasions the crew call them up to cockpit to rectify a snag. And the first thing they do is check the MEL list. Why? Why don’t they do their job? Try to rectify the problem and then check that. They just say “Sir abhi jahaaz le jayen wapis ain ge tou agli flight se pehle theek kar den ge”. And this has happened so so so many times. I am talking about pre departure snags. It’s not like I’ll tell the tower about my right seat not being able to adjust height. It is these little things apart from major snags that could come up at anytime during the flight. I’m talking about the culture across the engineering department. If you want to turn a deaf ear to the other side of the story then there’s no point in arguing with you. You’re more than welcome to blame it all on PALPA given they pay the media to do that as well. No one’s gonna mind you doing that as well.

[Shershah Ahmed]

Since you seem to be in the know about CAA rules/SOPs can you please tell me if a landing clearance can be denied by an ATC if the PIC insists "I am comfortable"? Perhaps the CAA is trying to create a drama, perhaps not. The data from FDR/CVR is undergoing processing, its a matter of a few days.

Your love for PIA management resonates loud and clear from your death wishes for the CEO. If there is such a critical shortage, your gang of thugs should stop influencing the recruitment policy and allow the management to execute the summary for hiring of 125 pilots signed by NS more than two years ago. Distributing workloads is a joke, when you are paying people for flying 35 hours a day, and the training department manned by your senior captains is incompetent enough to not manage allocations & trainings in an efficient way. Have you EVER raised your voice on that? Nice points about crew scheduling, do tell which gang opposed computerized scheduling in PIA? Was it the union of delusional schedulers or palpa? Uptill now The MEL is put in by the manufacturer, so not exactly sure of your gripe with that. I sure hope that if one of your colleagues faces poor maintenance and technical snags, they report it to ATC on the first opportunity instead of "I am comfortable" - or do you actively condone concealment of critical equipment failure?

I reckon you have some difficulty in comprehending my post. I am questioning the merit on which the notice was served to PIA. If the ATC communicates something in an advisory role, there is no non-compliance if the PIC doesn’t go ahead with that. Yes he should have turned left, no questions about that but it was his decision. There are so many instances when ATC gives headings which cannot be taken due to weather in the path of that particular heading. Pilots reject that too. Is that non-compliance as well?

Can you stop being so outrageous? Never wished that for him. Just called him out for his hypocrisy as far as Shaheen 320 captains are concerned. But I think i stepped on a nerve there, cute. Moving on, please highlight when did my ‘gang of thugs’ (do have a name for them though in case you weren’t aware) stop the recruitment? It was that girl who went to court and the court stopped that hiring. She’s a cadet pilot now. But ever since that, it is this military induced excuse of a CEO or thug if I may who stopped the hiring. He hates the word ‘cadet pilot’. So much for hiring pilots, eh? As they say, apne girebaan mein jhaanko pehle. 35 hours a day? Assuming you mean 35 hours a month. No thats not the case. Get your facts right. Its 75 hours and any pilot who doesn’t fly a minimum of 50 hours without any reason is penalized. What allocations and trainings? Should those training pilots start giving birth to pilots?? They have to make do with what they have. If A320 has a shortage of captains, should they cease ATR operations to cater 320 ops? I did voice that in official capacity. Not on HOP just to please you. But who’s there to listen? Now let me come to losses as well. How many of the direct entry ATR captains passed the training? Less than 20 percent. Keep your PAF mentality limited to PAF. You’re an utter failure if you try to come to commercial airlines. Isn’t the scheduling already computerised? They acquired AIMS software and manage it though that. And it’s been like that for over 15 years. Don’t really understand what made you day that. The schedulers have all data available to them to manage operations. You can’t really come up with an excuse for them not moving their arses. Forget MEL. On so many occasions the crew call them up to cockpit to rectify a snag. And the first thing they do is check the MEL list. Why? Why don’t they do their job? Try to rectify the problem and then check that. They just say “Sir abhi jahaaz le jayen wapis ain ge tou agli flight se pehle theek kar den ge”. And this has happened so so so many times. I am talking about pre departure snags. It’s not like I’ll tell the tower about my right seat not being able to adjust height. It is these little things apart from major snags that could come up at anytime during the flight. I’m talking about the culture across the engineering department. If you want to turn a deaf ear to the other side of the story then there’s no point in arguing with you. You’re more than welcome to blame it all on PALPA given they pay the media to do that as well. No one’s gonna mind you doing that as well.

You are misinformed if you believe PALPA is a roadblock in cadet pilot recruitment, instead of the well publicized Lahore High Court ruling of cancelling the 2018 ad on the apparent lack of female quota, and the subsequent ridiculous Supreme Court ban on recruitment that has been in place for more than 2 years now.

[Abbas Ali]

After PK8303 crash, a number news channels reported that at least one flight attendant had duty changed from a Muscat-bound flight to Lahore-Karachi-Lahore sector flight to spend Eid with the family.

The Muscat-bound aircraft probably was going to return to some other city in Pakistan instead of Lahore.

Is it normal and permitted practice in PIA to get flights duty changed by cabin crew?

Sometime ago, there were reports about automated/computerized roster/scheduling system for PIA crew without human intervention.

Abbas

[A310]

After PK8303 crash, a number news channels reported that at least one flight attendant had duty changed from a Muscat-bound flight to Lahore-Karachi-Lahore sector flight to spend Eid with the family.

The Muscat-bound aircraft probably was going to return to some other city in Pakistan instead of Lahore.

Is it normal and permitted practice in PIA to get flights duty changed by cabin crew?

Sometime ago, there were reports about automated/computerized roster/scheduling system for PIA crew without human intervention.

Abbas

The Muscat flight was originally scheduled to land at Lahore as well. It was routed MUX-MCT-LHE for both cabin and cockpit crew. But the quarantine rule was in place at that time. According to that the crew had to get tested for COVID after arrival at Lahore and then wait for the results before being allowed to go home. Till that time they’re quarantined at the hotel. Thats how she would’ve missed Eid. The quarantine rule wasn’t in place for domestic flights.

Yes all crew are allowed to exchange flights with mutual consent.

Actually a human less scheduling system would be great and free of politics. But for that I think first they need to overcome crew shortage on all equipments. But i still doubt if such a system could work flawlessly in Pakistan without any obstacles.

[Abbas Ali]

^ Thank you for the info.

Abbas

[Abbas Ali]

Downloading and decoding of PIA Airbus A320 (AP-BLD) FDR and CVR data on the request of Pakistan's Aircraft Accident Investigation Board (AAIB) completed by France's BEA. Data analysis to continue.

Pakistan's AAIB on a later date will publish a preliminary statement on the accident based on downloaded data. The investigation is led by Pakistan's AAIB.





Abbas

[umar744]

Yes or no landing gear fault?
yes or no CAA & PIA & AAIB interview Capt Omar Malik LHE-MUX-LHE flight 21st May?
how many flight trip for AP-BLD?
Do you think PIA force Capt Sajjad Gul to fly everyday daily?

[Abbas Ali]

Work to remove engine and landing gear from a two-storey building will start on June 8. The wreckage pieces are under concrete debris and modern machinery will be used to remove them carefully.

Under the supervision of engineers, necessary support will be provided to affected building's structure to prevent it from collapsing during operation to recover aircraft engine and wreckage pieces.

Abbas

[TAILWIND]

Airbus released this regarding DFDR/CVR download. Does it not imply that there weren't any design or major technical issues!

[inducedrag]

Airbus released this regarding DFDR/CVR download. Does it not imply that there weren't any design or major technical issues!

Airbus has no specific safety recommendations to raise at this stage of the investigation.“

[Abbas Ali]

Indicating human error caused the crash.

Abbas

[Abdulrafeysiddiqui]

I saw the video of PIA ATR landing at Gilgit. Sharing here the link below as I thought it would be interesting that ATC mentioned to self-check landing gears are locked and green before giving clearance to land. Fast forward to 1:58 for ATC communication.



ATR is AP-BHO, which crashes in 2016 in Havelian.

[Squawk_1200]

Indicating human error caused the crash.

Abbas

. Not just one error , there are sequence of errors.