News Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320 flight PK8303 crash

[Urwumpe]

Can the landing gear come down automatically during a normal deployment when the airspeed drops? Or does the crew need to cycle the landing gear lever?

When the RAT turbine is out and the engines failed, the only way to deploy the landing gear would be by gravity. Maybe that difference is why it worked after the engines failed, and failed before the first landing.

STS: Can you test how the behaviour would be like during a really steep approach? If the aircraft was really at 7000 ft when 10 NM away from the runway, instead of 3000 ft, it should be a very fast glide down. The pilot did ignore multiple calls from ATC to reduce altitude to the correct schedule for landing.

---------- Post added at 11:21 ---------- Previous post was at 11:08 ----------

When both engines failed and the RAT is out, only the blue hydraulic system will be pressurized, while the other two systems will be unpowered.

This means no hydraulic power to the landing gear after both engines failed.

---------- Post added at 11:29 ---------- Previous post was at 11:21 ----------

Found something:

"Elimination of gear lever neutral position through automatic depressurization of landing gear hydraulic supply above 260kt"

The logic there sounds like the crew has to cycle the landing gear lever below 260 kt to deploy the landing gear, if this was attempted "accidentially" above 260 kt.

 

[STS]

STS: Can you test how the behaviour would be like during a really steep approach? If the aircraft was really at 7000 ft when 10 NM away from the runway, instead of 3000 ft, it should be a very fast glide down. The pilot did ignore multiple calls from ATC to reduce altitude to the correct schedule for landing.

Will see what happens on the sim, tonight, after I come home after washing the car and taking a walk. End of lockdown!

 

[Urwumpe]

Will see what happens on the sim, tonight, after I come home after washing the car and taking a walk. End of lockdown!

Yay! You can at least complain about having a real lockdown, not this "We'd rather you would stay at home and avoid unnecessary trips" we have here.



Damn, I even had to wash my car myself (because it had a new color after some weeks of home office)

 

[RisingFury]

What reason would the pilot have for coming in too quickly?

If it was a steep approach, what reason would the pilot have for not reducing altitude gradually?

If it was a blown approach, what reason would the pilot have for not repeating the approach? Any chance the plane was low on fuel?

 

[STS]

OK, I did it.


The Airbus accelerated really fast. After I scrapped the runway, as my airspeed went down quickly, the gear came down automatically.


Then I failed both engines, (manually as per sim limitation) after I took off again, and I reproduced what is shown in pictures, gear down and RAT extended.


I was able to engage TOGA quickly, enabling the aircraft to gain airspeed again. I think that in reality, engines failed not too shortly after the scrap, causing the aircraft to fly again, but to stall shortly after.


On the video, the real action starts at 2:50, and you can ignore the end after I failed the engines, as I tried to land on a road...


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY6SnFnjliM&t=160[/ame]

 

[RisingFury]

So a reckless pilot is the best explanation we have so far?

Nicely done on the sim, STS. Even loved your attempt at a... landing. Way to take out the road

 

[Urwumpe]

I think the approach was not too far off the data (Maybe a bit less lateral motion), but you failed the engines too soon, the real aircraft had more time to climb.

Likely the oil pump and other accessoiries failed first, before the engines gave up completely. On the A320-2xx series, there is a lot of stuff directly on the bottom of the engines and likely got crushed during the landing. Also, there are some oil tanks in harms way, which likely fueled a small fire as observed by ground witnesses.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

OK, I did it.

The Airbus accelerated really fast. After I scrapped the runway, as my airspeed went down quickly, the gear came down automatically.

Only problem with this is that there is a photo that clearly shows 8303 at altitude with engine damage, RAT deployed, and gear still up.

Were the engines failed / failing when this photo was taken? Can the RAT be manually deployed while engines are running?


My thinking is that they had the gear lever down on the first approach, not realizing that the gear did not deploy due to the overspeed. As the touchdown was probably a lot rougher than they were expecting they went around, and cycled the gear handle up. They cycled the gear back down (at proper speed) as they were headed back to the airport.


My impression is that the pilot and co-pilot were way, way behind what was going on and CRM was really, really poor. The co-pilot was apparently the one one the radio, and he seemed to be just relaying the pilot's requests.



After the belly landing they lifted off and gained altitude, initially, but couldn't hold altitude. The copilot conveyed no indication of engine problems until they were approaching back and the engines failed completely, seconds before the mayday call and crash. They clearly were having engine power issues well before that, but it doesn't seem that the co-pilot either sensed the urgency or did not feel he had authority to communicate that.

 

[Screamer7]

Juan Browne, a former Boeing 777 pilot explains with detail what happened.

 

[jedidia]

Someone being stupid/drunk/asleep enough to attempt a go-around after an accidental gear up landing is even harder to imagine.

What would be the alternatives, though? You "touch down", realise your gear isn't deployed, and pull the plane up again. That seems a more reasonable reaction than going through with a gear-up landing everybody is completely unprepared for, and doubtlessly what instinct dictates. Since there really isn't any time to think this through, I can't see this going any other way.

So then you're back in the air, you start to realise that you just scraped your engines on the floor, but miraculously they're still running. Is there any actual alternative to going around, short of a convenient hudson river nearby?

 

[Urwumpe]

So, it really just boils down to the pilot flying a very risky approach... but why did he do so? And why did his copilot not intervene?

 

[STS]

I don't know very much about ATC 'flight rules', but why a "clear to land" was given, if the aircraft was way out of profile?

 

[Urwumpe]

I don't know very much about ATC 'flight rules', but why a "clear to land" was given, if the aircraft was way out of profile?

As far as I know, the ATC does not decide this, the captain of the aircraft does. The clear to land only guarantees that the runway is free and no other aircraft will intervene with the landing. This is not like landing on an aircraft carrier.



I am not even sure if a terminal controller at an airport can easily see that an aircraft is out of profile. Or that a TRACON even exists for that airport. But air traffic control was planned to be located on that airport.

 

[Notebook]

https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/...site&utm_source=sendgrid.com&utm_medium=email

 

[Thunder Chicken]

https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/...site&utm_source=sendgrid.com&utm_medium=email

That shows they were over 200 KIAS on the approach and maybe into the first touchdown. The only reason they slowed down to 175 KIAS may have been the drag of the engines on the runway. :facepalm:


This is just...unbelievable. This looks like the "landing" at the end of the movie Airplane, except they throttled up and tried to go around again.

 

[Linguofreak]

I *really* wonder what the toxicology report on the flight crew is going to show, if they weren't badly burned enough to make it impossible to tell what was in their blood stream.

Any bets on how many separate chemicals the pilot flying had stoned himself with?

 

[dbeachy1]

Simulator with actual ATC audio showing what we know so far:

 

[Urwumpe]

Simulator with actual ATC audio showing what we know so far:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO5rXxJRmf4

Am I the only one, who thinks the conversation with ground is somehow weird? How can you go to a belly landing without even announcing it?



I really hope the black boxes show something more helpful, right now everything feels like a madman was sitting on the side stick.

 

[dbeachy1]

What also struck was how the pilot defied the ATC's instructions to turn left and go around for another approach (and this was after repeatedly and explicitly defying the ATC's instructions to descend to the correct approach altitude). "Arrogant" does not even begin to cover it. Even "criminally negligent" doesn't cover it. :blink:

 

[Urwumpe]

What also struck was how the pilot defied the ATC's instructions to turn left and go around for another approach. "Arrogant" does not even begin to cover it. Even "criminally negligent" doesn't cover it. :blink:

Yes, it is like listening to a completely different flight. :huh: