On Friday a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) A320 crashed on approach to Karachi, which is incredibly tragic. The world is going through a tough enough time already, and to see so many lives lost in an accident like this is heartbreaking.
It’ll probably be months until a full investigation is completed, but there are some interesting details emerging, so I wanted to look at those, focusing on the facts rather than speculation.
Just as a reminder of the very basics:
- The plane attempted to land in Karachi and executed a go around
- After the first go around the crew reported that they “lost engines,” and then shortly thereafter declared a mayday
In this post:
The plane was descending steep during the first approach
Here’s the ATC audio with some useful visualization of what happened during both the first and second landing attempt:
No emergency was declared during the first landing attempt, though the ATC audio on approach is interesting:
Pilot to ATC: Sir we are comfortable now and we are out of 3,500 for 3,000 established ILS 25L.
ATC to Pilot: Roger. Turn left heading 180.
Pilot to ATC: Sir, we are established in ILS 25L.
ATC to Pilot: You are five miles off? 3,000?
Pilot to ATC: Roger.
ATC to Pilot: Pakistan 8303, cleared to land 25L.
The issue here is that being at an altitude of 3,000 feet five miles out is very high. That means they’d have to descend 3,000 feet over 26,400 feet, which is unusually steep for a standard approach.
ATC tells the pilots to turn left heading 180, as he was intending to have them vector so they can lose altitude and have a more standard approach. But clearly the pilots seemed to think they could descend at such a fast rate.
We don’t yet know what caused such a steep descent, and also don’t know why the pilots decided to follow through with it rather than taking the vectors.
For what it’s worth, this was an experienced crew, in particular the captain — the captain had over 15,000 hours, while the first officer had over 3,000 hours.
The landing gear wasn’t lowered during the first approach
A PIA spokesperson has confirmed that the landing gear was not fully lowered prior to the first approach. We don’t know if it was partially lowered or just wasn’t lowered at all, and I’m sure the investigation will determine this. Generally speaking an alarm would go off if you’re at a low altitude without the gear extended (in the ATC audio above we hear some alarms going off, though I’m not sure what they’re for).
The crew didn’t communicate any emergency to air traffic control during the first approach, which would typically be standard if there was a known gear issue.
The plane’s engines made contact with the runway
For whatever reason, the plane’s engines made contact with the runway during that first approach (which turned into a go around). We know this because:
- There are scrape marks on the runway, between 4,500 and 7,000 feet (that’s nearly half a mile)
- A picture allegedly taken of the plane after the first go around shows dark marks along the bottom of the engines, towards the back
Further scrape-mark evidence on runway 25L corroborates to the scenario that both engines contacted the runway during the 1st landing attempt of #PK8303 @official_pcaa pic.twitter.com/oaP2Ay54X6
— JACDEC (@JacdecNew) May 24, 2020
Allegedly #PK8303 final minute images before it crashed in a Karachi suburb. The Ram Air Turbine (RAM) is deployed. White puffs of smoke can be seen coming from the engine as well as dark marks on both engine undersides. @PlaneSpottersPK pic.twitter.com/AtR8M3u1U2
— JACDEC (@JacdecNew) May 22, 2020
Those are the facts we know, but what we don’t know is:
- What happened that caused the engines to impact the ground? If there was a gear problem, why did the crew get so close to touching down?
- Was this an actual attempted belly landing, even though that intent wasn’t communicated to air traffic control?
- How did the plane have enough power to get airborne again after engines scraped the runway for up to 2,500 feet, which would cause a massive amount of friction?
- Engines were “lost” after the first go around, but what exactly caused that?
There were two survivors on the flight
When you see the wreckage of the crash it’s hard to imagine there would be any survivors, but there were.
The survivors were seated in seat 1C (in the first row, near the exit) and in seat 10C (also an emergency exit row).
CCTV footage that has since been released shows the plane descending rapidly with a nose-up attitude, so it’s not surprising that any survivors would be near the exits towards the front of the plane.
Bottom line
We’ll have to wait for the full investigation to see what happened, though I do find the above details to be interesting. The most surprising detail is that the plane’s engines both scraped the ground during the first go around attempt.
The big question revolves around why that happened — why did the plane have an unusual approach the first time around, what was going on with the gear etc.
With time I’m sure all of these things will be determined…
(Featured image courtesy of Anna Zvereva)
Sheer incompetence! Pilots with fake time and ratings? Very possible! Shame on this airline!
Great article and information, and thank you Ben for referencing my ATC Interpretation YouTube video.
Crash kind of reminds me of the one with the American 757 jet that crashed near Cali Columbia back in 1994. The common thread is trying to do too much in a short period of time. PIA 8303 tried to bleed off altitude but could not bleed off the speed. They pulled the lever for the landing gear but failed to notice that the 3 green lights did not appear. As with the American jet,...
Crash kind of reminds me of the one with the American 757 jet that crashed near Cali Columbia back in 1994. The common thread is trying to do too much in a short period of time. PIA 8303 tried to bleed off altitude but could not bleed off the speed. They pulled the lever for the landing gear but failed to notice that the 3 green lights did not appear. As with the American jet, trying to reconfigure a different approach, didn’t recheck the new beacon code and didn’t retract the spoilers during their GPWA. Again the authorities need to take another good look at CRM. With this crew and with all ethnicities and religions in general, there maybe cultural considerations that affect behavior in times of stress and crisis. A TOGA is not a sign of weakness. It would seem to me a much less experienced crew would have aborted the initial approach into Karachi. Experience can sometimes breed invincibility, machismo, and being cavalier. A bad mixture for aviation.
After careful review from data already provided, it would appear that the landing approach into Karachi was botched. Descent was initiated to late. The extremely high descent rate, at times reaching 7000 ft per minute is beyond acceptable standard procedure in anyone’s book. Now take into consideration that this particular aircraft has speed thresholds for setting flaps and lowering the landing gear when configuring the aircraft for landing like for all other aircraft in general....
After careful review from data already provided, it would appear that the landing approach into Karachi was botched. Descent was initiated to late. The extremely high descent rate, at times reaching 7000 ft per minute is beyond acceptable standard procedure in anyone’s book. Now take into consideration that this particular aircraft has speed thresholds for setting flaps and lowering the landing gear when configuring the aircraft for landing like for all other aircraft in general. It seems obvious that after listening to the ATC recording that alarms were going off thus signaling that the aircraft had exceeded speed limits for flap deployment. Also of particular interest is that the airbus 320 will not allow the pilot to lower the landing gear above 260 knots. It is already known that the pilots of PIA 8303 ignored warnings and concerns about the planes high altitude and high speed on approach. So now u have a 75 ton aircraft making heavy contact with both engines on the runway beyond the acceptable limit of 3000 ft. way above acceptable touch down speed. Why, because the landing gear did not lower on there command due to above airspeed threshold, a protection feature to avoid possible structural damage. So I suspect this “belly landing” came as a complete shock to them. Plus coming in fast and touching down at mid rwy. left them the the poor decision to get airborne again with damaged engines. Had they kept the plane on the ground they most probably would have went beyond the rwy threshold because of no wheel braking. Who knows maybe the aircraft could of came to rest with minimal casualties, but definitively a lot more survivable. Don’t know what this experienced crew were thinking. Should of waved off landing and executed TOGA.
Here is a very good analysis by another Pilot. He has similar points as ATC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEYiiZdvNh4
Can't add much to what's said already- this is so tragic and that it was avoidable makes it even sadder. But I wanted to single out ATC for his/her detailed, educational, and sane commentary. Very informative, and without any of the sensationalism we so frequently encounter in the news.
Mauricio, you may be interested in this graph of Mode S altitude and IAS:
https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/PK8303-Altitude-and-IAS.png
If this graph is accurate, they arrived at the runway at 200 knots after an extremely steep descent.
There were 98 people on board and only two survived. One was Zubair, and the other was Zafar Masud, the CEO of one of Pakistan's biggest banks.
As an A320 pilot, I’m troubled by a few issues with this incident. The first of which is the lack of gear during such a steep approach. During my training, we executed close in high approaches as purely a demonstration of the drag requirements of the A320 in such situations. From 5 miles out and 3000 feet, I can’t conceive of any way to arrive at the threshold in a landing configuration and reasonably expect...
As an A320 pilot, I’m troubled by a few issues with this incident. The first of which is the lack of gear during such a steep approach. During my training, we executed close in high approaches as purely a demonstration of the drag requirements of the A320 in such situations. From 5 miles out and 3000 feet, I can’t conceive of any way to arrive at the threshold in a landing configuration and reasonably expect to touchdown in the touchdown zone without dropping the gear. I would expect a seasoned Airbus crew to know this and go for the gear immediately upon realizing they are high. That the gear appeared down during the video suggests they were operable. I can’t understand how, given how pivotal the gear are to salvaging such an approach, that the crew wouldn’t know they weren’t down. She just won’t drop without the gear, and experienced pilots would know she’s not dropping as expected if they weren’t down. I can’t offer an opinion because I can’t get past this fact alone. As to the GPWS, there are CFIT incidents that strongly point out how drift from SOP can cause pilots to ignore the warnings. There have been crews that flown planes into mountains with the GPWS going off as they did it. Disorientation, stress of operational factors, and previous successful out comes in similar situations can collide to produce a disastrous event. Makes me wonder what the CRM/TEM culture was like at PIA. What threats were this crew facing? I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s determined they were overwhelmed and just didn’t have the culture that forced strict reliance on CRM/TEM.
@Buckeye Bob - The pilot always has the final say, always. ATC can advise, but their role is to provide the flight crew with all the info, resources and assistance the pilot needs to operate the flight safely. The roles are clearly defined and separate. Speaking as a pilot, ATC's comments above are spot-on.
Being a pilot carries profound responsibility - something many people don't understand. The lives of everyone on board are in the...
@Buckeye Bob - The pilot always has the final say, always. ATC can advise, but their role is to provide the flight crew with all the info, resources and assistance the pilot needs to operate the flight safely. The roles are clearly defined and separate. Speaking as a pilot, ATC's comments above are spot-on.
Being a pilot carries profound responsibility - something many people don't understand. The lives of everyone on board are in the PIC's hands. Every pilot knows that, and should never forget it. That's one reason that commercial pilots flying large passenger aircraft have been (traditionally) paid quite well. Like a heart surgeon. As Stan Lee said, with great power comes great responsibility...
ATC staff are important partners, highly respected and greatly appreciated (IME except by a very small number of idiot pilots), but ATC doesn't have skin in the game. The pilot has supreme authority - always. Pilots can intentionally break rules if they need to do so to be safe (they may have to justify doing so after the fact, but staying safe carries a lot of weight even with bureaucracies like the FAA). It's generally rare, but there are times when breaking a rule, disregarding or refusing ATC instructions is the appropriate action. Like pilots, ATC staff are human, too. Humans make mistakes. Judgement and experience is important.
There are a lot of ways the systems can fail. Most of the time those failures are small, sometimes too small to even notice, and usually everyone gets away with it. But a string of failures, or one major failure, can lead to tragedy, as we see here. Hopefully "we" collectively learn some lesson from each tragedy. Unfortunately, humanity being what it is, sometimes we have to learn the same lessons over and over.
@Buckeye Bob,
Controllers do not and never will fly the plane for the pilot.
ATC is there to prevent aircraft hitting other aircraft, vehicles etc and to maintain a safe, orderly and expeditious flow of traffic not to make judgement calls on how the airplane is being flown.
In this case if there is no ATC reason to withhold landing clearance (eg obstruction on runway) then it should not be withheld. We are...
@Buckeye Bob,
Controllers do not and never will fly the plane for the pilot.
ATC is there to prevent aircraft hitting other aircraft, vehicles etc and to maintain a safe, orderly and expeditious flow of traffic not to make judgement calls on how the airplane is being flown.
In this case if there is no ATC reason to withhold landing clearance (eg obstruction on runway) then it should not be withheld. We are not on the flightdeck, we do not know what is going on, it is not up to us to interfere with how the airplane is being flown and I doubt there is any pilot in the world who would want us to.
In this case the controller I think comes out of this quite well. He recognised the aircraft was way off profile and queried the crew. The crew stated they were comfortable (Insane) and perhaps due to misunderstanding the controller actually offered to break them off the approach to do a 360 and back round again. The crew then doubled down on continuing, at this point there was nothing more for the controller to do than clear them to land as there was no reason from his operation not to do so. Twice the controller tried to lead the crew into re-considering their approach and twice they determined to press on which is just incomprehensible.
The only thing I can think from an ATC point of view is that I would expect a tower controller if he saw an aircraft coming into land with no gear down to prompt the crew (for example: Just confirm gear is down and locked, does not appear to be down from here?) but there are many reasons that it might have been missed.
The controller might have been providing more than one function (eg tower and ground or even tower and approach) so there may have been other aircraft that needed attention, or its also quite possible that due to the way the approach would have had to have been flown that the aircraft was still quite nose down very close to the runway so the gear may not have even been visible until the last second. Also visibility isn't always great from the tower cab, sometimes its the sun angle, haze or heat haze, sometimes its support beams, sometimes its light poles or just distance, there can be many things.
So unless there is a safety issue from the ATC operation we can't determine whether an approach is safe on the pilot's behalf because we simply don't have enough information to make that call.
Not a pro but a FF. Why would ATC not wave the pilot off if the landing approach was unsafe? ATC obviously questioned it as he asked for confirmation...
Pilot to ATC: Sir we are comfortable now and we are out of 3,500 for 3,000 established ILS 25L.
ATC to Pilot: Roger. Turn left heading 180.
Pilot to ATC: Sir, we are established in ILS 25L.
ATC to Pilot: You are five miles off? 3,000?
Pilot to ATC: Roger.
ATC to Pilot: Pakistan 8303, cleared to land 25L.
@Sendingprayer
I disagree with your premise. PIA is not to blame for what appears to be incompetence and astounding lack of discipline by the flight crew. At this stage there does not seem to be anything pointing to mechanical failure, it really seems to be crew related. There might be an argument to state that such behavior should be against rules and should never have been tolerated. In the final analysis this experienced pilot did himself and many others in.
Very sad day.
I agree with ATC’s assessment. Accident history tells us that this is far more likely with an experienced crew. A rookie pilot would’ve taken the vectors.
Sendingprayer It is not irrelevant. Aviation is built around learning from previous mistakes and accidents, and that can only happen if we find out who did what when and where. It does not take away from the sadness of the tragedy, but rather makes sure something positive can come from it.
Who did what when where, all of it is irrelevant. Only 2 souls survived, everyone else, perished.
It's a sad day in aviation when any soul is lost in a plane crash.
This tragedy happened a day before Muslim holiday of EID. Think of it as equivalent to Christmas. Now put yourself in the shoes of the deceased souls loved ones and ask yourself, what investigation.
ATC, I applaud you for your...
Who did what when where, all of it is irrelevant. Only 2 souls survived, everyone else, perished.
It's a sad day in aviation when any soul is lost in a plane crash.
This tragedy happened a day before Muslim holiday of EID. Think of it as equivalent to Christmas. Now put yourself in the shoes of the deceased souls loved ones and ask yourself, what investigation.
ATC, I applaud you for your in depth explanation of the final approach.
I pray that the family of the deceased can find solis and that may God give them courage through this difficult time.
PIA, an airline once revered in the world for its class and service, has been completely stripped down to the bones by the corrupt politicians of the past, and any and all culture of safety has slowly been compromised.
Lucky! You are the only blogger thats following this tragedy and updating the audience, please, stick to facts. We all love to read your blog because you report the facts.
Pilots might have established on a false glideslope at 3000’/5mi...doesn’t excuse ignoring their mark 1 eyeballs which likely would’ve shown them they should’ve knocked off the first approach.
Configured, dirty, steep approaches are best left to special airfields and sim rides.
I have nothing to do with aviation - just a distraught Pakistani - a few questions for the experts.
1. My understanding was that the surviving passenger suggested that they flew in the air for another 10-15 minutes after taking off (going around) from the runway post engine touch down. This suggests to me that the ATC recording you are recording is not from the initial approach but actually from the second approach -...
I have nothing to do with aviation - just a distraught Pakistani - a few questions for the experts.
1. My understanding was that the surviving passenger suggested that they flew in the air for another 10-15 minutes after taking off (going around) from the runway post engine touch down. This suggests to me that the ATC recording you are recording is not from the initial approach but actually from the second approach - or the ATC recording has been tampered with/edited so is not in real time. Is it quite possible that they were too steep in the initial descent, but also in another attempt during the go around?
2. Could the Landing Gear have actually been down in the first attempt but as they were coming in too fast they made a call for a go around just prior to touch down by which time they retracted the landing gear, but the sink rate (due to instability of the plane) caused the engines to scrape on the floor by which time they had already started to take off? ie they reported no emergency or belly landing to ATC, because there was no issue up until this point aside the excessive speed and steepness but they had over-ridden ATC's request on this already it seems.
3. Does anyone know who is speaking to ATC - is it the first officer or the pilot? It is my understanding that the first officer may have been on the controls but had significantly less experience than the Pilot?
Whatever the explanation, it is sad to hear fellow travelers have died. Rest in Peace all.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1559253/question-mark-over-probe-body-composition
From the picture of the plane after the go around: 1) both engines have been substantially scraped on the underside. 2) The Ram air turbine (RAT) is extended. Accessory gearboxes are attached to the engine. Some of the gearboxes are near the area showing damage. The gearboxes control oil, hydraulics, electrical power and fuel flow. The RAT extends to provide emergency power and hydraulics in the event of system failure(s). Other than he was way...
From the picture of the plane after the go around: 1) both engines have been substantially scraped on the underside. 2) The Ram air turbine (RAT) is extended. Accessory gearboxes are attached to the engine. Some of the gearboxes are near the area showing damage. The gearboxes control oil, hydraulics, electrical power and fuel flow. The RAT extends to provide emergency power and hydraulics in the event of system failure(s). Other than he was way high, way fast & and had “some sort of problem” while landing/go around - the rest is just an assumption at this time.
Great to hear from an actual A320 pilot............
My question would be given the energy this attempt to salvage the landing from the position they were in, would there be any point at all in which the GPWS would have stopped sounding?
I'm guessing its absolutely possible they could have been in a nose down attitude with the GPWS hollering at them virtually until the 'touchdown'.......
In that case would the GPWS pull up...
Great to hear from an actual A320 pilot............
My question would be given the energy this attempt to salvage the landing from the position they were in, would there be any point at all in which the GPWS would have stopped sounding?
I'm guessing its absolutely possible they could have been in a nose down attitude with the GPWS hollering at them virtually until the 'touchdown'.......
In that case would the GPWS pull up and sink rate warnings override the too low flap/gear warnings that might otherwise have also been triggered?
Also in the case that the gear was lowered above 260kts but did not deploy because of the speed, my understanding is the gear has to be completely recycled in order for it to deploy. Would the too low gear warning still sound if the gear handle is in the down position but the actual gear is still up? I'm not sure of the logic used to trigger the gear warning.
I'm really curious too on how they got to be so far off profile in the first place and for the pilots out there, how could you possibly get into the mindset that 3,000ft 5 miles out could ever be salvaged, I mean everything would just be so wrong from visual cues let alone what the airplane was telling them and they even pressed on when the controller a) Queried them and then actually broke them off the approach with a 180 heading.
If the gear didn't come down because they were over 260kts that would mean they were at least 100kts too fast (most ILS approaches are 160 or 170kts to the marker in the old days or 4DME nowadays!) and over twice the altitude they should have been at, I just can't for the life of me imagine how an experienced crew could have disregarded the multitude of signs that this was an unsaveable approach and gone around far, far earlier. It just seems utterly reckless to have even attempted to land from where they were.
@Ole That was an over exaggeration, of course I have, but lately haven't been often. Our airline was heavily involved with SESAR and developing green approaches, so we're encouraged to try and avoid. Though we mostly overfly the major airports like LHR and AMS on our way to warmer places and less congested airports, even our hubs in Scandinavia aren't really that congested ;-)
Quite possibly they recognized the gear up situation just before runway contact and initiated a go around. However their sink rate was such that they made contact anyway but, having already committed to the go around, proceeded to keep flying.
Thanks for posting Ben and to ATC for the additional color.
According to this below 750’ according to the radar altimeter all airbus aircraft will illuminate a “L/G Not Down” warning light. Below 500’ RT the audible warning “Too Low Gear” will be triggered.
https://www.airbus.com/content/dam/corporate-topics/publications/safety-first/Airbus_Safety_first_magazine_12.pdf
Oliver, do you fly at busy airports where you usually are sequenced in? In meetings and talks with pilots I often get feedback that quite major speed reductions 10-15 NM out (even as little as from 200 to 170) results in early gear down and not that green approaches. So never in 10 years seems quite impressive.
Regards,
Approach controller
@Amos the short answer is, yes it would have sounded if the gear wasn't extended properly. But I can also think of a number of reasons why it wouldn't have, from sensor failures and glitches to the fact that they could have indeed turned it off. The latter has happened in accidents before, and it's not terribly hard to do.
You should check out Juan Brown on YouTube. He’s a 777 pilot.
https://youtu.be/EFhGnCOtcc8
Engines were “lost” after the first go around, but what exactly caused that?
The accessory gear box is located toward the bottom of the engine. It takes power from the N2 (?) shaft and provides it to the generator, fuel pump, hydraulic pump etc. If it’s damaged that would cause fuel starvation not to mention loss of electrical and hydraulic power.
...You should check out Juan Brown on YouTube. He’s a 777 pilot.
https://youtu.be/EFhGnCOtcc8
Engines were “lost” after the first go around, but what exactly caused that?
The accessory gear box is located toward the bottom of the engine. It takes power from the N2 (?) shaft and provides it to the generator, fuel pump, hydraulic pump etc. If it’s damaged that would cause fuel starvation not to mention loss of electrical and hydraulic power.
You can hear on the ATC a series of bells. Juan says it’s the unsafe gear warning. I’m not sure if that means not down or they don’t have three greens.
I know the Airbus has a “Woop Woop Too Low Gear” warning so you’d think they would notice that.
This Airbus A320 pilot of almost 10 years for one tend to think what @ATC wrote so elaborately seems to work with what we know thus far of the accident. Time will tell! Though, I can't remember when I lowered my landing gear 10 miles out at 3,000... every drop of fuel that can be saved these days ;-)
@ATC your theory is highly probable but for one point — if the gear is not down and no three greens, wouldn’t the GPWS kick in throughout the glideslope? There doesn’t seem to be any audible warning from the tape. Did they turn it off? It seems unlikely that any trained pilot would choose to ignore the GPWS at least they should glance at the gear indicator.
Thanks, ATC. I'm just a humble pilot but all the details you contribute sound spot-on.
What astonishes me is the sound of the pilots on the recording. Seems they make one terrible decision after another after another, and they never sound like there's much (or any) recognition of the seriousness of their situation. They came down very hot, botched the approach, completely failed in their attempt to land the plane, actually hit the damn runway,...
Thanks, ATC. I'm just a humble pilot but all the details you contribute sound spot-on.
What astonishes me is the sound of the pilots on the recording. Seems they make one terrible decision after another after another, and they never sound like there's much (or any) recognition of the seriousness of their situation. They came down very hot, botched the approach, completely failed in their attempt to land the plane, actually hit the damn runway, then proceed as if it was just an uneventful, garden variety no-big-deal go around. The engines (the lowest point on the aircraft) hit the pavement - no doubt they had to be aware that that happened - and their decision is to just go around? And they decided to not mention that fact to the guys in the tower, no emergency declared. Wow.
Yes, let the investigation run its course, but at first glance this looks like a chain of breathtakingly bad pilot errors. It makes me wonder what kind of safety culture exists in that airline. RIP to all and sorry to sound harsh, but the decision-making seems just unbelievably bad.
I love to read opinions from people who actually know what they're talking about. Thanks ATC.
As an ATC myself, I concur with ATC above.
With the info provided, it makes sense to me that with everything going on during the unstable approach, they could have missed a gear warning.
All speculation, of course, but educated speculation. One error may have led to a greater error.
While of course nothing will be official until the report is released, it is human nature to speculate and there is nothing wrong with some informed speculation and opinion based on what is known.
...We know that the aircraft made a highly unstabilised approach. It went around and both engines contacted the runway. During the go-around both engines failed and the aircraft did not have sufficient height to make it back to the airport.
While of course nothing will be official until the report is released, it is human nature to speculate and there is nothing wrong with some informed speculation and opinion based on what is known.
We know that the aircraft made a highly unstabilised approach. It went around and both engines contacted the runway. During the go-around both engines failed and the aircraft did not have sufficient height to make it back to the airport.
Firstly, this is an attempted landing that should never have been made.
Unstabilised approaches are an absolute no-no at every major airline and the single most significant cause of landing accidents.
This approach was a level beyond unstabilised and I am honestly having a hard time believing this crew ever thought about salvaging it.
OPKC is 100ft above sea level, so on a standard 3 degree glidepath should be 3,000ft 10 miles from the threshold.
Looking at the ILS chart at 4DME they should have been at 1362ft.
That they were 5 miles out at 3000ft almost double the altitude they should have been at should in every circumstance result in abandoning the approach and trying again.
The rate of descent and speed required to make this approach work would have been astronomical.
Secondly we know both engines contacted the ground, the only explanation for that happening is that the landing gear was not down at all. Both engines cannot contact the ground with the gear down, and if it was a case the gear was down but retracted early on a go-around then the main gear doors would have been left behind on the runway during gear retraction as they come down below the height of the engine nacelles.
So some reasonable deductions.............
1) If there had been a known gear problem before landing it is absolutely inconceivable that the crew would have said nothing. This is an emergency situation in every circumstance.
Gear is normally lowered on glideslope intercept around 8-10 miles out, on a stable approach that is plenty of time to re-cycle and if unsure request an inspection from the ground and a go-around to troubleshoot and if necessary prepare for a belly landing, which over the years we have seen can be safely achieved almost every time.
2) We know the approach was highly unstable. The rate of descent required from that position to make the runway would have been at least 2-3 times the normal descent rate. Such a high energy maneuver so close to the ground is incredibly dangerous. It would also make it impossible to slow the aircraft down. Its basic physics that an airplane can't go down and slow down.
3) Doing what they were attempting to do would have set all kinds of alarms off in the flightdeck. The GPWS would have been going crazy with "whoop, whoop pull up" and "sink rate" warnings
4) Its highly possible that there were so many warnings that some less severe warnings would have been supressed. For example the "Too low gear" warning would not override a GPWS Pull Up.
5) As Stuart described the A320 gear will not lower above 260kts. However the gear lever will move to the down position. Its possible that the crew lowered the gear lever but being above 260kts the gear did not extend. Given the many rushed elements we know of this approach its very plausible that the landing checklist was either not completed or very hurried. Rather then verify "3 green" they may have seen the lever down and believed the gear was extended.
6) Once the engines contacted the runway they would have been severely damaged. Its highly probable that oil began leaking out of both engines until they ran dry and failed. That would have happened quite quickly. From the video we can hear on the readback of the climb instruction the thrust increasing, so we know the engines were producing thrust initially after the go-around. Fuel exhaustion can likely be ruled out.
So while we will have to wait officially to see what happened one thing is certain, the first chain in the incident was the decision to continue with a badly unstable approach.
This is not an issue confined to one particular part of the world, it is a curse industry wide.
Many of the leading airlines now download random samples from flight recorders looking for breaches of SOP's. Responsible operators have a zero tolerance policy for unstable approaches and any crew caught landing from one, even a successful and uneventful landing can be subject at a minimum to disciplinary action.
Unstable approaches have killed far too many people over the years, its really time to drop the hammer on airlines and pilots that still think its OK to salvage a landing from an approach that has become a little unstable never mind one like this that should never have even been attempted.
4 years ago, a PIA crashed during Ramadan. Pilot error was the nominating factor whilst dealing with an engine failure.
Yesterday we see another accident in the month of Ramadan. If this accident was caused by yet more pilot error, then there must be an investigation to see if the crew were observing their fasts whilst operating. I think this may be an underlying issue with pilot judgement and decision making.
Is the most probable explanation that they forgot to lower the landing gear on the first go around, which caused the engines to scrape the runway, and then caused the engines to malfunction?
@Stuart
GPWS should have audible warning if landing gear was up. Either the pilots override the warnings or the redundancy falsely confirm landing gear down.
And no I'm not PhD or A320 pilot. I just fly (crash) many times on the flight sim.
@Ole - always one PHD that will throw shades on writing that is not some definitive finding but just reasonable opinions.
From what I have read in Av Herald they most likely had no idea that the landing gear failed to extend. Most pilots there have pointed out that if above speeds of 260 on the A320 and you try and extend the gear, it will fail to do so. They would then have to reset and extend it again at a speed below. They never did for whatever reason. And ignored the warnings, assuming there...
From what I have read in Av Herald they most likely had no idea that the landing gear failed to extend. Most pilots there have pointed out that if above speeds of 260 on the A320 and you try and extend the gear, it will fail to do so. They would then have to reset and extend it again at a speed below. They never did for whatever reason. And ignored the warnings, assuming there were any? They seemed to only realize the failure after both engines scraped the runway and initiated a go around.
There is a lot of factual errors here, and I think you should avoid speculating so much. Presenting facts is one think, but one should refrain from suggesting and speculating what might be the causes. Let the AAIB do its job.
"The plane attempted to land in Karachi and requested a go around"
You never "request a go around". The missed approach procedure is part of any instrument approach and does not require any...
There is a lot of factual errors here, and I think you should avoid speculating so much. Presenting facts is one think, but one should refrain from suggesting and speculating what might be the causes. Let the AAIB do its job.
"The plane attempted to land in Karachi and requested a go around"
You never "request a go around". The missed approach procedure is part of any instrument approach and does not require any clearance. Then they were cleared for ILS 25L, they were also cleared for the missed approach procedure of that approach.
"Engines were lost after the first go around, but was that due to fuel starvation or damage to the engines?"
What in the world would make you speculate that this could be due to fuel starvation? Do you have any idea how how fuel planning works?
I love the presentation of the interpretation of the ATC. That should be done for every active incident that is worth reviewing. I would love to see the throttle positions from the data recorder from the time the engines allegedly contacted the runway through the crash sequence. It is hard to imagine a pilot bringing a plane down low enough to the intended runway to make contact with the engines when they could have lowered...
I love the presentation of the interpretation of the ATC. That should be done for every active incident that is worth reviewing. I would love to see the throttle positions from the data recorder from the time the engines allegedly contacted the runway through the crash sequence. It is hard to imagine a pilot bringing a plane down low enough to the intended runway to make contact with the engines when they could have lowered the gear and just touched down. Yes the chance of overshooting the runway would have been high but what a judgement call on this.