Pakistan plane crash: Jet carrying 107 people crashes into houses near airport

[Evan]

"this accident proved to be a unique case"

Well that's reassuring. I was worried that it might be the new normal.

[flashcrash]

Final Report in English: 1 (caapakistan.com.pk)

The comment in the Executive Summary stating "Owing to an un-precedent (sic) combination of technical malfunctions, this accident proved to be a unique case" is at best misleading, at worst an attempt to cover-up or deflect from the real cause. IMHO the violation of the sterile cockpit rule and the prolonged unresponsiveness of the flight crew at the start of the approach should feature prominently in the Executive Summary.

[Evan]

193 in this case but ok

Okay, that was a bit of an exaggeration but even 193 is just two knots shy of the A320 195kt tire limit. This guy would need an F1 pit crew between flights.

[Gabriel]

Touching down at 250+ kts

193 in this case but ok

[Evan]

As a side (or central?) note, given this, who know how many times this captain did similar things and they managed stop, and he got away with it because nobody cared (the famous and stupid no-harm-no-foul philosophy).

This is what I was thinking as well. Basic Stuka airmanship. Although you would expect the company to get on him about all the brake pads and tires he's going through. Touching down at 250+ kts must burn a lot of rubber.

[Gabriel]

Not that it forgives any of this, but what do you think would have been the outcome if the gear had been extended?

They could have stopped with max breaking and max reverse. Not what I think. It's what Airbus engineering study concluded.

As a side (or central?) note, given this, who know how many times this captain did similar things and they managed stop, and he got away with it because nobody cared (the famous and stupid no-harm-no-foul philosophy).

After the accident, flights of Captain for last 12 months were analysed which indicated, numerous triggers during Approach related to High Speed, Path High, High Rate of Descent, Long Flare Distance and GPWS Warnings. There was no Go-Around initiated and several Unstabilized Approaches were continued.

In AvHeralald I posted a comment where I qualified my "stoned clowns" remark with this:

Totally utterly stoned clowns

And yet, it's not their fault:

"After the accident, flights of Captain for last 12 months were analyzed which indicated, numerous triggers during Approach related to High Speed, Path High, High Rate of Descent, Long Flare Distance and GPWS Warnings. There was no Go-Around initiated and several Unstabilized Approaches were continued."

That's a negative corporate safety culture, which is always on the leadership and management. You can see ATC and the FO knew there was something wrong. Possibly the same in the "numerous" previous instances. And this was a top captain with 17000+ hours total, 7000+ of them as captain, and in the A320 he had 4800 hours all of them as captain. So no way that nobody noted. Also no way that he was the only one. Or that all this behavior did not take place with management and leadership knowledge (not to mention approval and encouragement).

In a good-culture environment this captain would have not behaved like that, or he would have not lasted 1 month in the job.

[Evan]

Not that it forgives any of this, but what do you think would have been the outcome if the gear had been extended?

[Gabriel]

(Note Karachi's elevation is 1000ft)

a) At 09:32:46, 3,090 ft baro altitude, 5.7 NM from R/W 25L threshold, CAS 242 kts, selected target speed CAS 225 kts and SLATS / FLAPS CONF1 was selected (VFE CONF1=230 kts). Pitch angle was -12.6° and still decreasing.

(b) At 09:32:46, Karachi Approach called, “Sir, you are five Miles from touchdown still passing 3,500”. At 09:32:51, PIA 8303 responded, “Roger”. Karachi Approach again cautioned that aircraft was still too high on the Approach path, however flight crew continued to press on high Approach.

Auto-Pilots (APs) Disengagement

(a) At 09:32:47, 2,730 ft baro altitude, 5.5 NM from R/W 25L threshold, pitch attitude reached -13.7°. This led to both APs disengagement due to excessive pitch down, as it exceeded 13° nose down. Rate of Descent reached 6,800 ft/min.

Totally utterly stoned clowns.

[Gabriel]

Karachi Approach asked PIA 8303, “Sir orbit is available if you want”. Captain verbalized, “Say it’s OK”. After 6 s, FO replied to ATC, “Negative Sir we are comfortable, we can make it, Insha-Allah”.

Well, Allah didn't will it.

Final report is out. Not that we are going to learn anything radically new. It was a simple non-sterile cockpit not following standard procedures (or even reasonable cowboy pilot procedures) that came way too high, way too fast, missed / ignored warnings from the airplane and from ATC, landed gear up damaging the engines, and did a go around where the engines didn't last long enough to make it back.

https://avherald.com/h?article=4d7a6e9a/0000&opt=0

[Evan]

Actual footage of the plane scraping the engines on the runway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bxbna7yu_o

The speed is also startling. I have to wonder how many other high speed landings this pilot pulled off.

[Gabriel]

Actual footage of the plane scraping the engines on the runway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bxbna7yu_o

[3WE]

Or get rid of the automation altogether.

What?

[ATLcrew]

Not surprisingly...


Thank you.
And if you manually move the levers out of CLB or idle, will they automatically return to CLB and idle? (always with the AT on)

Affirmative.

[ATLcrew]

AFIAK, there are only two ways to get out of OP DES/idle thrust on the A320:

- arrive at the selected altitude entered in the FCU (assuming it's not 0, as sometimes has been the case).
- manually select another vertical mode.

Is this correct?

Or get rid of the automation altogether.

[Evan]

I'm afraid you're incorrect. For LVL CHG climb thrust will go to CLB, for LVL CHG descend thrust will go to idle. Provided A/T is on, of course.

AFIAK, there are only two ways to get out of OP DES/idle thrust on the A320:

- arrive at the selected altitude entered in the FCU (assuming it's not 0, as sometimes has been the case).
- manually select another vertical mode.

Is this correct?