Airbus A321 crash

[samen]

An Airblue A321 plane crahed today in the morning due to bad weather and thick fog . All people have been confirmed dead. Fourth plane crash this month I think.

[MdMax]

I saw this... here's a link:

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20100728-0

[MaidenFan]

I know a guy in Florida who saw an old T6 Texan crash right in front of him.

[samen]

The pilot was too old for flying as a commercial airline pilot atleast thats what the Tv news channels are saying. They are also blaming the navigational law used in Pakistan and that there are too less restrictions on pilots flying. The pilot had flown a plane from Italy before this flight and in Pakistan a pilot can fly up to 12 hours in a day.

[Lukasz]

From my experience, TV news are the least valuable source of information in such cases. I'd wait for the official statement. Besides 99% of air disasters are caused by twists and cascades of unfortunate events, instead of only one cause.

Rest in peace.

[samen]

The things stated above were taken through interviews with the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) and the GM of Airblue and the MD of PIA. So I will say there is a slight chance of them being correct.

[Lukasz]

Maybe. It's still too early to say anything other than some general opinions and assumptions. On the other hand, if they knew of all these things before, then why didn't anyone took action? Maybe the crash could have been averted then.

[samen]

That is something you will learn when you come and live in Pakistan.  They have a history of doing things very late. There are many incidents but I am sure that we dont want to get into politics here.

[Lukasz]

At least they do something, late or not. Here where I live, nothing seems to being done and results are even more horrible and tragic. But indeed, let's stay away from politics  :-X

[samen]

The metar at the time of the crash was this

OPRN 280300Z 05016KT 2000 RA FEW015ST SCT040 BKN100 FEW030TCU 24/23 1006.5

[Lukasz]

Today I've read a relation of a man who saw the plane moments before the crash. He told, that the plane was flying as if it was unstable, weaving and rocking. After that it went behind a hill and that was it

[samen]

Yes that was it. In a TV show an eye witness explained that the plane was banking heavily and that he could see the belly of the plane easily. Two planes landed before it that are known to be much bigger than this plane and they landed safely. Another cause being ruled out is wind shear and that the bigger planes have less effect on it. Other than that all TV anchors are being smart A**es and acting like Aviation experts even when they dont knwo a single thing about planes and are giving out wrong information. The plane is in alot of pieces and I mean alot and dead bodies are in so many pieces that rescue workers have reported that not even one body has been found intact and unburnt. There are videos of bodies being shifted around in small bags. I think that this is mostly pilot error according to a summary I found between the Air Traffic control and the pilots but I dont think it is that reliable. The black box has still not been found. I checked the site of the plane crash using co-ordinates on Wikipedia and if the plane was to clear that hill it has to be at around 3850~3900 feet but it would do that barely.

The approach to RWY 12 OPRN was as follows.

The plane will intercept ILS to RWY 30. When the RWY will be in sight the plane will stop the approach turn right and fly a sort of a circuling approach. in which it will fly downwind for a specified time, turn left 90 degrees fly a specific time and then finally turn 90 degrees again and perform a visual approach. The plane conducted a go-around after the first try and was instructed to fly a circuling approach again this time not going to intercept the RWY 30 ILS. This is where the things would have gotten wrong. The Margalla hills are a good 15 NM from the airport and the pilot might have either been faster than the specified speed and taken too long a turn and covered a much larger distance and thereby veering onto the Margalla hills. Another CAA official blamed pressurization as a cause of the crash but I am still not clear of why this might have caused the crash. Eye witnesses at Margalla hills also reported the plane being lower than 3000 ft (Did the person check his own altitude) and disappearing into the clouds while maintaining a sharp banking angle and that they heard a bang sound after a few seconds. The plane had climbed to 3000 ft and I think that since the plane crash was a bit higher than the 3000 ft the pilot must have started climbing as a result to any terrain avoidance warning systems but he might have been unable to get to a safe flight.

In another report it was specified that the plane was to climb to 3600 ft and it did but suffered a loss of 400 ft due to weather ad then it collided. seieng the wreckage one can deduce that the plane was indeed at a very high speed prior to the collision and therefore the crash was spread in three different sites according to rescue staff. Its clear that the cause might be easily known if the blackbox is decoded once it is found. Airbus officials are due to come today (dont know if they are there yet) to help with the investigations. The path to the crash site has still not been cleared and people are going there through the thick and dangerous forest (presence of wild animals). There are some bigger pieces of the wreckage that the rescue staff was unable to lift and there are dead bodies still there and there is a chance that the blackbox is under that wreckage. Since machinery can not be taken up there it might take a hefty man force to clear the crash site.

The conversation between the ATC and pilot:

ATC: You are heading away from the Airport.

Pilot: We have the runway in sight.

ATC: The Margalla hills are ahead of you, Turn left immediately

Pilot: We can still see the RWY.

BTW for those who want to check out the Crash site enter this into you FMC

+ 33.739722 +73.058056.

EDIT: One cause I forgot to mention is the lack of navaids towards rwy 12. An airliner when landing on RWY 12 is like a pilot landing a General Aviation on a small landing strip. The landing is largely based on the approach to RWY 30 and I would partly blame the CAA for the lack of interest in installing any sort of navigational aid towards that side of the airport apart from just visual aids which are only advisable for mostly VFR approaches in small aircraft. When they did allow airliners to come and land here they should have made better improvements rather than just do half the job. This will change with the new airport but will they let such things happen until the new one will open.

[Lukasz]

Looks like the pilots were trying hard turn in last seconds of flight, maybe after seeing what is going to happen. The approach itself, as you've described it, seems to be a some sort of circle-to-land procedure. From what I understand, it's not the safest way to get down, even in small aircraft inder VFR, to say at least.

[samen]

I remember once flying into Islamabad and the circle to land approach. My brother thought that the pilot was giving us rides in that plane although I was in an Airbus A300 at that time it did get alot of turbulence. Its these monsoon rains. They have a characteristic of changing wind directions and magnitude very quickly and because of this once my sisters' flight changed cruise altitudes quite a few times. Its like hell trying to come in and land in the monsoon. Too much water and winds. Floods further north have killed about 200 people and in the neighbouring city to Islamabad a

building collapsed the same day. All in all its not good news for Pakistan

[Baber20]

Because of ANO 4 system introduced in Pakistan by Civil Aviation Authority and PIA, pilots aren't allowed to rest properly. Fatigue of a 65 year old pilot can be one of the reasons here. But the question is, what was the first officer doing ? Who was watching the altitude and heading ? There can be many reasons for this crash. Only Blackbox can disclose the secrets.

[samen]

Yes I was referring to ANO 4. I think in the rest of the world ANO3 is implemented?

[Baber20]

Yes, ANO 4 is in Pak only.Today The Chairman of Airblue, Mr.Shahid Abbassi said in a conference that Captain Pervaiz wasn't fatigued at all and had 25000 hours of flying experience plus he was a Captain in PIA and had a vast experience of flying the 747's. He made his last successful flight on 26th July on the same A321 aircraft. The First Officer had 1700 hours ( 300 hours on the A321 ). He further said that the plane had no technical problems at all and it was in a perfect condition before taking off. He says that experts from Airbus company have also joined the investigation and they'll share any news regarding the crash with public as soon as they uncover the hidden truth.

[Lukasz]

There are three things, that make me thinking about that what happened.

1) How many planes have to crash and how many people have to die, before authorities start installing ILS systems on both ends of runways and start publishing proper, safer landing procedures? There were similar accidents before, even over a flat terrain and it seems that no lessons were taken from them.

2) Why the pilots didn't go to alternate after the first go-around? I strongly believe in a "one pass - haul ass" rule, no matter if landing or doing a bombing run, as luck doesn't last forever in such bad conditions, as they were during that fatal approach.

3) I'm not very familiar with Airbus cockpit and instrumentation, but I believe, that there is a system, that shows selected procedure, current location as well as groundspeed. Also ATC clearly informed the crew about imminent flight into mountains. I wonder, what the pilots actually did with all that informations?

I'm far from accusing anyone or formulating theories, as to what has happened. Certainly bad weather was an important factor. I just want to understand, what went wrong

By the way, lately I've read about an incident not so long time ago, with similar Airbus encountering wake turbulence at high altitude. The plane rolled and jumped rapidly and as the autopilot was trying to correct, the crew actually thought that the autopilot or flight control system had a malfunction. Crew then tried to correct the plane, what led to pilot induced oscillations and structural damage. Fortunately, they were able to make an emergency landing. I wonder, if it would be possible to have similar situation after encountering mountain wave/turbulence? METAR shows moderate winds that day.

[samen]

I will just reply to your answers point by point

1) First of all Chaklala airbase/Benazir Bhutto International Airport is an army base and partially converted for commercial use. Work on the new airport begain in 2005 which will have ILS systems installed. On such a limited budget on all projects they dont think it as important ot have ILS installed at RWY12. Other than that the planes would need to go over the Margalla hills which is a no fly zone.

2) I think that the first Go-around was instructed by the ATC. I am not sure of this but if this is the case when the ATC did tell them to go around the pilots did not feel it was the bad weather. Checking the Metar the winds were not that powerful. Perhaps it was that frequency jam the pilots were talking about. Two planes had landed before the A321 and they were able to make it down safely.

3) The converssation with the ATC is still not reliable information. I am not sure who reported this but if this is the case then this might explain the high banking angle of the plane. Due to the supposed frequency jam the GPWS was not working properly and so wasnt the GPS.

[samen]

The blackbox has been found. Atleast now some light will be shed over these speculations