Pakistani airliner crashes in Karachi

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jase05

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Terrible news with a PIA A320 carrying 99 passengers and crew onboard crashing into a alley in Karachi.
76 confirmed dead and 2 possible survivors so far

 
Sad news. I saw on Instagram it was captured on CCTV. Also images showing soot on the underside of both engines just prior to the crash. I have no idea of the relevance or what that might imply.
 
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The theories don’t sound all that realistic. I think this is a somewhat strange one.
 
The Aviation Herald report. I don't understand the pics after the go-around, with 'scrape marks on both engines' - the two 'go-arounds' weren't from a wheels/ground-contact situation, I think? EDIT: A no-landing gear gear first landing attempt speculated in TAH comments (they are usually entertaining)

 
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Can you elaborate?
Are you suggesting something sinister?
Sinister? Goodness no. People have an almost infinite ability to get things wrong. And then others have the same level of ability at misreading their intentions.

I have first hand experience of self proclaimed experts interpreting images, and getting the most minute details out of them. Except that I knew they were wrong, 'cos I was there.
 
Sinister? Goodness no. People have an almost infinite ability to get things wrong. And then others have the same level of ability at misreading their intentions.

I have first hand experience of self proclaimed experts interpreting images, and getting the most minute details out of them. Except that I knew they were wrong, 'cos I was there.
Ah, fair enough. Thanks for that.
Hopefully the truth comes out after the investigation
 
Flight data recorder remains in the country and contents being examined

French investigation authority BEA says the coughpit recorder “has not been found to date”.

Preliminary evidence strongly indicates the aircraft touched down with its landing-gear either retracted or only partially deployed, resulting in damage to the engines from runway contact, and a loss of power during the subsequent attempted go-around.

https://www.flightglobal.com/safety...h-yet-to-be-found-inquiry-team/138552.article
 
French investigators are to handle the downloading of flight-recorder data from the Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320 which crashed in Karachi on 22 May.

The coughpit-voice recorder has been located, days after the flight-data recorder was retrieved, French investigation authority BEA states.

BEA says it has received a request from Pakistani authorities to “repair” the recorders and handle data download operations in France.

French representatives from Airbus and engine manufacturer Safran are supporting the Pakistani-led inquiry into the crash involving flight PK8303 from Lahore.

Flight PK8303 came down in a populated area of Karachi

Preliminary evidence strongly indicates the aircraft touched down with its landing-gear either retracted or only partially deployed, resulting in damage to the engines from runway contact and a loss of power during the subsequent attempted go-around.

Pakistani investigators have yet to release any formal details of initial findings on the accident. Only two of the 99 occupants survived.


 
I guess I may have said this before, but I cannot imagine what this coughpit must have been like, if they really did a 'crash and dash' with the gear retracted. The aircraft would have become increasingly upset with them as they got lower, with very loud "too low gear" and probably "pull up, terrain" calls constantly happening. I've heard them in the sim, and it is beyond belief that some people can continue with them going off.

They are stupidly high energy on the approach. A go around was obvious from miles out. Altitude isn't the only arbiter of your energy state, but that is all that's being shown here. You can be very high on approach, but still land safely, if you have the speed under control. As an example, at 10 miles a 767 would usually have been at 3,000' and about 180 knots, but you could be as high as 7,800 as long as you had the correct configuration and the speed was as low as possible. From what I'm seeing elsewhere their speed was never within limits, or even reasonable.

All very sad.
 
JB ( or @AviatorInsight if you are about), I’m amazed that any aircraft could lift off again after “landing” (? Contacting the ground) without or with minimal gear, especially after the length of scrape marks pictured on the runway.

Is that something you can easily picture happening?
 
The reports are that the length of the scrape is about 2500feet.

If the aircraft speed was say 200 knots (speculation), the duration of scrape would be about 7 seconds
 
How do you lose so much altitude and speed in a short time?
A lot of drag. You start to configure and drop everything. Flap, gear and speedbrakes. There’s a limit on the 737 as to how much flap we can take with the speedbrakes but watch it drop like a rock. If you need to take all three you’ve stuffed it.

From 10,000ft to 2,000ft it looks like it was doing on average 2,500fpm. Not so weird at 10,000ft but down the bottom? If we’re doing more than 2,000fpm below 2,000ft that’s our first part of a stabilised criteria and go around.
 
JB ( or @AviatorInsight if you are about), I’m amazed that any aircraft could lift off again after “landing” (? Contacting the ground) without or with minimal gear, especially after the length of scrape marks pictured on the runway.

Is that something you can easily picture happening?

Thanks for the tag. Aircraft are a lot stronger than you think there’s a lot of incidents out there to justify just how strong an aircraft could still fly even though it looked like it had been in a war zone.

For the aircraft to get airborne again after scraping the runway doesn’t surprise me as much, but obviously the impact itself was a lot harder and damage caused the engines to flameout.

What does surprise me is the fact that this should have been an obvious go around from earlier on in the approach phase, but for whatever reason they decided to press on and have all those alarms blaring in your face approaching the runway, it is incredibly loud! Disclaimer: Experience from the simulator only.

Also, intercepting the glideslope from above is almost a dead giveaway that it is unstable and should be an early sign that something is wrong.
 
The general rule for fixing a vertical offset is to fix the speed first. So, fly level, speed brakes extended, taking the gear and flap as soon as you hit their speed limits. Once you get to flap 20 (767/747), or 2 in the AB, you push the nose down. Do not let the aircraft accelerate. None of the aircraft will readily slow down, and go down at the same time.

The reason for not taking any more flap is to avoid the engines spooling up to a higher idle once you hit a landing flap setting. Nevertheless, in any headwind, it might be advantageous to take all the flap, and slow to the minimum speed.

These are good games in the sim, but they’re often put there to demonstrate how it is pretty much impossible to fix one of these offsets without breaching company sink rate rules.

Failing to kill the speed (kinetic energy) and just diving off the height, will get you low all right, but you’ll still be way too fast. This does seem to be the case here.
 
A lot of drag

Trivia:
Reminds me of another scenario of coming in high and fast - the Space Shuttle approach and landing.
The training for that included using engine reversers inflight along with all the other drag inducing mechanisms to simulate the drag characteristics of the so called “Flying Brick” - the sink rate of the SS was apparently about the same as the terminal velocity of Sky Divers before chute deployment
Obviously Go Around was Impossible.

 
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