Juan is the best in the business. I appreciate you taking your time to keep all of us interested informed. I look forward to all of your videos. Thank you sir!!
And even when the truth becomes apparent, if often struggles to prevail, as we live in a society where people prefer to believe what they want to instead of what actually happened.
Can someone explain why an outstanding journalist covering an important topic should be demonitized? The low quality journalists on TV still get to have ads, why not this one?
Unless you were creator or licencee, even created just a birthday video of your family, you meet terms & conditions. Didn't they rename editing / compilation to creators studio.
@@peejay1981 it is not, there is no way you should at any moment be doing 6000ft/min on approach, and the speeds...let's not even talk about that...you can do 250 to the final approach fix (4, 5 or 6 miles out from the runway) some airports even ask for it, but you have to at least be at the right altitude to slow the puppy down...you can't be fast and high and pretend to stop it...and reaching the runway at 200kts, you're never going to land that thing...it's going to float for ever, and by the time you touch down you're halfway down the runway.
Brilliant work Juan. When you get subject matter experts, like you, who can communicate it is like the dawning of a new era. But boy this crew looks like they shouldn't have left the flight simulator...the Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Some one you don't see, and you ear from him we don't need to blame him, no one is going out and decided to go and die and claim alot of life, except Germany's pilot who intentionally broth the plane down.
Please wait for the official report to be presented by the French Investigation Team, the families of crew member sare also in pain for their loss, it might be their fault but please underatand their families emotions also,..
I know it's weird and it's very easy to blame someone whose not around to defend himself, he had over 17000 flying hours. ALL I'm saying is please wait for the official report to come
I've watched a number of "crash analysis" videos of this PIA incident, but all of them fell short in almost every category. As is usual, your videos are the gold standard, Juan. I hope the voice recorder and the flight data recorder, shed some light on the last few minutes of this flight. I can't help but think that a cascade of errors and poor judgments, were at the heart of this tragedy. Its almost incomprehensible, that two commercial pilots would botch an approach so badly. As you say, Juan, following the rules, and good CRM, makes for a happy outcome. My heart goes out to the relatives and friends of the passengers and crew. This crash took only minutes, but the pain lasts for years.
The airline seniors are ex military airforce.... So I wonder if their training is generally not upto world standards... should they be allowed to operate?
These errors were so over the top and incomprehensible that it's difficult to imagine. It's as if the pilots were intoxicated and not thinking clearly.
there are other better ones, especially those by other pilots. Those by journalist or reporters or private citizens who are non-pilots are generally poor quality
Can't imagine what passengers thought during that steep descent. My first trans-con flight was from Indianapolis to John Wayne airport, back in the late 1980's. The pilot announced we'd clear mountain elevations then "play drop like a stone". His words. I remember pushing my foot into the floor like I was standing on a brake pedal. On subsequent trips to the area, I went LAX instead. The PIA descent was INSANE.
How to explain that a Captain with more than 17000 hours flight experience was responsible for that? It's a real question, not irony. It's unexplainable to me until now.
What blows me away every time I think of this is that there were 2 pilots in that cockpit. 2 people fully aware of how to fly a plane failed at flying a plane.. :(
This was a huge failure of CRM (Cockpit Resource Management) and the judgment of the other pilot in cooperating with an unstable approach. But it happens. Remember Asian 214 crashing into the seawall at SFO with four CAPTAINS on the flight deck. Noone spoke up until it was way too late to salvage the approach.
In one of Juan's earlier videos on this accident, a texted reply stated that the Pilot and Co-Pilot were related (I think the family member stated one was his Uncle and the other a Cousin), so maybe the one over ruled the other.
Could there be some technical faults in the plane reading regarding height, speed etc which might have caused such unbelievable descent? Actual readings different but plane showing different readings....they were comfortable relying upon the mistaken reading of the airplane while the actual reading/reality was different
Thank you, or he went to answer call of nature at the last minute and asked the FO not to touch a damn thing in the cockpit. After coming back he just nose dived into the ground expecting everything would work just fine
This is hard to fathom - how a trained airline crew could elect to continue an approach like this. I’m expecting the CVR to highlight a tremendous amount of human factors and CRM that likely played a very significant part in this tragedy.
A roller coaster for the passengers!! Your presentation was a clear and impartial analysis. Of course, only after the FDR analysis we will know more about the landing gear up.
@@3John-Bishop That's probably quite true, but the total destruction of an expensive aircraft & the loss of passenger lives looks even worse on ones record. It's bad for business too. But you make a good point none the less.
I heard the crew respond on the audio with control " we are comfortable now" just before they are cleared to land. I wonder what was said before that? Thanks for keeping us updated, this is a mystery to me.
Pilot's "I am comfortable" "I am satisfied" is to assure the ATController who was reminding the pilot of the issue to his awareness that he was confident and positive handling the situation, another word: no big deal.
Like most aviation accidents, this accident was the result of a series of pilot errors, not just one. The unstable approach was number 1, and it was serious. However, the crew continued with a series of mistakes. The last mistake, failing to abort the landing due to a clearly botched approach was the last chance for these pilots to prevent a tragedy. Although the accident information is preliminary, I would speculate failure to follow SOP's will ultimately be the primary cause.
Jeff V No failing to abort the landing was the second last major mistake, going around after a gear up landing was what actually killed everyone. If they had ground to a halt on the runway, wheels up, it’s highly likely all would have survived.
The initial approach was way too high and they may have captured a 'false glideslope' e.g. at 6 degrees as a result. Trying to follow it would have been another serious error.
Ladies and gentleman welcome to most important information with your captain Brown, please remain seated and enjoy the best aviation update of the website.
Thanks for sharing such great information, this has become my favorite UA-cam channel and not for the tragedies but for the explanation of such important aviation topics. Thanks !
Again....all I’ve got for these guys for the second video in a row is WOW. Myself and my first officer were discussing this today (FYI we were cruising at 46,000...before I get the people telling me not to be having social conversations in the cockpit. Also we don’t have airline rules) in the G550 and were plugging in some of these profiles Juan has showed here. In many cases the FMS wouldn’t even accept the values without issues, let alone let us actually execute them. Blows my mind. “Professional” Pilots eh? Thanks Juan!
When I worked in a nearby country (I'd better not say where) over 20 years ago it was normal for the airliners of the state airline to dive steeply to intersect the correct landing flightpath and on take off they used to fly level just above the runway and then pull up steeply, just like a fighter at an airshow. The pilots were ex military. So when I read that the pilot was 'comfortable' and surviving passenger thought it was a normal approach it makes me think that it was - for PIA!
This is the kind of REAL analysis I've always wanted in air crash investigations and Juan is really delivering beyond anyone or any other news outlet, PERIOD. Would the super steep and ridiculous decent have anything to do with the landing gear not deploying? I can't imagine what these pilots were doing...well or not doing. Passengers had to be screaming!!!
Mark Otterby - When you are hot and high, one of the things you can do is lower the gear. Once you have done that you can “push” against the gear to increase drag. You can also use speed brakes and flaps. But the flap limit speed on the A320 is fairly low (210 kts ?) removing one drag increasing option. Obviously the best option is not to be there in the first place.
On an Airbus you can command gear down but if your speed is above safe extension speed it will not drop and will give you a warning tone and display the reason for the warning on the centre display.
@@bulwinkle sure thats what was explained in a previous vid on this. My first time following a whole series of investigations and finding it really interesting how all the external resources can be compared to what could be found on the flight recorder
Thanks Juan! It seems those pilots were operating an amusement ride there at the end. Talk about asleep at the yoke. Also, I believe you meant to say ENSURE as well.😀
Thanks again Juan It seems a bit odd that the pilot claimed to the ATC they were stabilised on approach more than once when according to this data they clearly were not.
Nice video. Stabilised approach also means fully configured for landing (ie Gear Down, Flaps Set), engines spooled up, aircraft in trim, correct speed (ie min Vref max Vref + 20). But to me the key point is the discipline of regarding approach gates. Even the best pilot(s) in the world can occasionally end up with an unstable approach but if you are NOT stable at the gate (typically 1,000 ft agl with most airlines - maybe 500 ft when visual as specified in the airline's operations manual) then a Go Around is MANDATORY. I am retired but in the last company I flew for the First Officer could call a Go Around if the aircraft was not stable at the gate. Thanks for the update on the data.
Hello all and I hope all is well. My first experience here was Oroville dam coverage. What a ride this turned in to. Thank you for your knowledge and expertise Mr. Brown along with your ability to teach us how to learn.
I saw a video ones on flight crews not targeting the mark where the descend into a airport most began in order to have the right speed and angle. It’s amazing how trained pilots can miss that and not ask for help instead of trying to bring a plane down; as if they were playing a video game.
A captain that dangerous doesn’t just slip through the cracks. Someone saw his lack of skill and decision making capability in a simulator and they let him out to fly the line anyways. Shameful.
ATC: "i've got a vector to help you out" PIA: "nope" ATC: "Dear captain of our glorious national airline are you "comfortable"..." PIA: "Don't worry i got this, i used to fly f-16s while you were just a baby" ATC: "Dear captain are you "comfortable" with that approach????" PIA: "Nothing to worry about, everything is relaxed here **alarms blaring in the background**" ATC: "I have you on eyeball, are you attempting an unannounced belly landing sir???" KABLAAAAM PIA: "umm, no issues here, we are just doing a long go around (until we get our excuse straight)" ATC: "your nearest runway is X" PIA: "umm no we'll fly around to runway Y while we check things (make up an excuse for company). PIA: "oh there go the engines, i guess an extended go-around after a belly landing was another bad decision to add to the ten bad decisions i've already made during this flight".
@@ChrisLoew PIA or any other airline of Pakistan hasn't crashed an A320 of any sort until now. I wouldn't blame culture if I was you otherwise the airline wouldn't be flying internationally
@@Danial0152 PIA was banned from EU airspace for a stretch of months a few years ago. Such a ban does not just happen with 1 incident, but is usually the case after a series of incidents, that do not necessarily have resulted into accidents per se. After the ban PIA changed a number of items in crucial areas of its d2d business, protocols, procedures and certifications, after which they were allowed back into EU airspace. Could it be that the "old" PIA culture found its way back into the left seat somehow? I would not be surprised, and look forward at the results from the investigation into crash PK8303...
Chris Loew - Hate to rain on your parade!, but it is cultural, and highly prevalent in that region. Asiana, smacks into the rocks at KSFO. JAL, Pilot impales 747 onto approach lights, in the water, at KSFO.
I would like to share one story about Flight crew member Name Anam Khan Young beautiful lady was originally scheduled on 21 May to from Lahore to Faisalabad city to Abu Dubai 4 days trip but she want sepnd Eid day with family so she called 20 may to request for local flight so PIA put her UP AND DOWN flight from Lahore to Karachi she told her family living with 4 sibling ill b back by 6 pm so we can break the fast together, But God had different Plans, RIP 🙏
So heartbreaking 💔 hearing this. Immeasurable loss, not only for her young life but to all people on this flight. This will not be easily forgotten. Sometimes we really don't know how valuable every day is.
My hypothesis is that the cockpit was preoccupied before they started Karachi approach. How can you be so high above the guidelines with so much flight experience?
Airports aren't aircraft carriers. The controllers have no say in the matter once they clear the plane to land unless something is wrong with the runway at the last moment.
Im unfamiliar with the atc regulations in Pakistan however, ATC usually has the ability to tell a pilot to go around if the approach appears unstable. That is entirely workload permitting and in no way should this be partially blamed on ATC.
Thanks Juan for these updates from a non aviation expert,just an ordinary flyer(passenger) it is people like you and Mentour and others who are keeping us informed about the aviation situation and aircraft incidents.May you long continue,stay safe my friend
If I was an investigator then I would go back and analyse data records of all his previous flights too. I've a feeling that this is not a single incident, this has happened before, only thing is that he didn't crash before.
@@ریحانارشد you are probably right. The PIA air safety department, like any airline in the world have established procedures to investigate any incident occurring especially during unstabilized approach.
You name it! First, they came in too fast, too high, maybe trying to lower the gear at a too high speed but the computer did not and the crew was totally confused and supposed a landing gear failure, which, in turn, put more stress on them. (as can be seen on some video footage, the gear was down shortly before impact. So I guess it was not a technical failure). Totally stressed and without proper CRM, they then just forgot to lower the gear, and when the audio warning came up, they were even more confused and tried to go-around but it was almost too late and the engines scraped the runway at least twice. I guess the pilot flying suddenly noticed his faults when the audio warning "too low, gear!" came up, and it is in our human nature urging to make things going normal, and exactly that´s what he tried by initiating a go-around to perform a normal landing, without being aware that the engines might have been seriousely damaged. From my point of view, human error which caused a chain of events leading to a fatal end. May their Souls rest in Peace.......
This is more like PIA culture !! If I was an investigator then I would go back and analyse data records of all his previous flights too. I've a feeling that this is not a single incident, this has happened before, only thing is that he didn't crash before.
Bram Moerman - The training is one issue but the bigger one is company and national culture. Where I flew my colleagues (ground handlers, dispatchers, cleaners, cabin crew, gate staff, ops controllers, F/O’s, management etc.) would all call me Trevor and I in turn would address them by their first name. People would ask you questions when you got things wrong and I would do the same when I was unsure what they were doing. We worked together. If they called me when I got it wrong I would be grateful that they had. Part of this was company culture, part was national. Over the years I have seen airlines where the cabin crew stay in one hotel and pilots in another. Companies where people below a certain rank are not allowed to speak to the captain. Companies who sack and fire for any reason, companies where the captain must be formally addressed. How do you train a young female junior cabin crew member from Karachi to ask the captain if he is aware that there ice on the wing? Complicated technical devices and systems designed to be operated by a team must be operated by a team and their employer is duty bound to create and environment where that can happen.
I suspect that Pilots were focussed on landing (reducing speed & losing altitude for touchdown) and forgot to lower the landing gear. This video explains why the plane was too off from runway's normal touchdown area. Thanks Juan for your great work !
You are pretty accurate but There is one major flaw. Actually whatever ATC Talks they released is after first go around. In my opinion there were 2 missed approaches which you can see from Height to time chart as twice altitude increased, most of the people are getting this part completely wrong. Here is what I believe happened 1) Airplane was coming in with Unstable approach and was too high, so they lowered aircraft down very quickly (From height to time chart you can see they lowered altitude at about 8000ft/min) 2) Because of fast speed, gear was not lowered, pilots ignored the warning and scratched engines on runway and did a go around 3) Now they are coming back for landing and all released ATC Talk starts now on wards, they are having unstable approach again (Highly possible they caught false ILS Glide slope which may happen when Airplane is too High, but here they said Everything is under control, we will be able to make it, (this time) Inshalla, Plot also tells ATC that they are 3000ft from 3500ft) 4) ATC instead of warning about their height, offers them to go around, where pilot replied he is comfortable. he is established on ILS (false ILS Glide slope) and because of that he can land safely 5) Now ATC tells them that they are 5 miles from touchdown but at 3500ft (According to flight chart they need to be at 2000ft at 6 miles, so for sure they caught false ILS glide slope). Again in previous conversation they said they are down at 3000ft but ATC tells them they are 3500 ft so there may be some problem with their altimeter. You can hear warning dings in the background, at this point which may mean gears are not extended, engines have problem or something else and because of that 6) Eventually Pilot agrees to go around (you can see from Height to time chart that their altitude went up), again there are no beeps in background which means, those beeps most probably were from gear not lowered. 7) ATC tells them to turn left heading 110 and climb to 3000ft for second go around 8) ATC tells them you are dropping altitude and are now at 2000ft (Engines are having serious problems now most probably full thrust for second go around which requires 100% engine power killed whatever was left in already damaged engine, second go around was the final nail in the coffin) 9) Now they as they are losing their engine power, they talked to ATC that they are trying to maintain altitude 2000 and ATC affirms 10) ATC warns them that they are dropping to 1800 11) ATC is telling them that they appear to be turning left and Plots inform ATC that they lost both engines and will be proceeding direct (Without ILS Slope and taking shortest distance, not in line with runway as they are turning), their speed is pretty slow so landing gear came out (You can see from crash video that landing gears were out) other reason may be they did gravitational lowering of gears 12) ATC asks them if they are going to do belly landing as gears never came out during first and second approach 13) Pilot says May day May day 14) ATC says both runways are available to land and it was the last communication. 15) Everyone RIP
I have traveled a lot on domestic Pakistani airlines and this steep descent practice is considered normal. I have the aviation background and believe me commercial pilots bet each other that who will reach the limits of the aircraft and they brag in their personal meetings about it that see how Macho they are. Remember we are talking about Pakistan ( a thoroughly non-professional country in many regards).
@@kawan5851 Considering that Pakistan is in an area of the world where there's sometimes conflicts involving anti-aircraft fire then a steep descent makes some sense, but obviously not this steep. And that's usually done using a so called Corkscrew landing (See Wikipedia for that) But I think that we will not get an answer until we have the flight voice recorder info as well. Overstaying the high altitude path seems obvious, but the reason for it is unclear.
Also the co-pilot too chicken to question the commander in these countries, as they can lose their job. Most likely pilot was fasting and rushing to get home for eid iftar and gluttony, while his brain is all starved and confused.
Hello Mr. Brown , my name is Sohail Ahmed and I’m from this great city of Karachi but living in the States since 1998. I’ve watched your videos about this PIA flight. You have done a great job by elaborating this on going situation. Your have shown in great details about what could’ve gone wrong. I’m pretty sure this is exactly wat it looks like that it probably a pilots error in judgment and not following a proper protocol. I just wanted to say Thank You for doing that. I hope investigators will come up with the truth and held those (PIA) accountable.
That shed some more light on this event. But as usual it raises further questions. What is the priority of warnings and do any aural warnings “cancel out” lesser warnings? Is the EGPWS integrated into the main warning system? The reason I ask is that this aircraft will have been yelling at the crew for the last part of the approach but from one system or two? Were they “mashing” the warning acknowledgement button and as a result missing new alerts, like gear down? The next one is what were ATC doing? I’ve cocked up many approaches over the years and been with others when they have done the same. You always try and help your colleagues out by coaching and they have done the same for me. With the more interesting approaches, ATC have generally noticed as well. They have come up with questions such as “would you like more track miles?” or “Are you sure you can make it from there” or even “This will be interesting!” But they were there, monitoring what you were doing. What was Karachi ATC doing? Did they notice or was the traffic so intense? They noticed that this crew were not maintaining the go-around profile but not that they were thousands of feet high on the first approach. It’s the CVR that will really put the flesh on they bones. I’d also want to know what the crew’s blood-sugar level was.
Didn't the ATC told them to enter a downwind - and they replied with "we're on the ILS for the runway" ..? They probably saw the madness that these pilots were trying to pull off.
The ATC should have exercised his authority, and refused permission to land on such a unstable approach. The ATC actually asked him "Turn left heading 180" and upon insistence of the pilot that he is already established, backed off and cleared him to land. Probably knowing well what the result might be.
That's not ATC's duty. ATC's duty is separation, information and traffic flow. The final authority and responsibility always lies with the pilots. All ATC could have said is "It looks like..." or "I suggest ...".
@@Pune122 I doubt that they knew the result. Aviation is not as big there and its probably not even close to common to have controllers who understand airplanes there.
That is a good point - it almost sounds like ATC was indirectly trying to tell the pilot, "I wouldn't do that s**t if I were you!" by giving them that vector, but I'm not clear on the rules - unless the aircraft is in danger of colliding with other aircraft, can ATC actually tell them to go around?
I am sure ATC were trying to break him off..(PIA 8303 turn left heading 180) He responded established ILS .Maybe on the localiser but out of control vertically and IAS.
The aircraft was at 10,000' when it should have been at 4000' - or about 6000' high. Going back in time, that indicates that the top-of-descent was about 40 nm later than it should have been. So, did the crew ask for descent late? Or did the ATC delay their descent because of, say, crossing traffic? Now, if the TOD was delayed, did the crew descend in selected mode (open descent) or did they use managed descent (VNAV)? Did they select open over managed descent because they were afraid that the aircraft would dive down to meet the profile and possibly cause Vmo exceedance or high V/S? If they did not descend late, was it a power-on descent (say, using V/S) that caused them to be high later? Is it company culture that teaches a preference of V/S or open descent over managed descent? How well-versed were the pilots in using the VDEV values (PERF page) or the yoyo to manage their descent? Were speed brakes used? If not, was the PF reluctant to use them? Why? And why did the PM not suggest it? What about the power gradient in the cockpit, which made the FO reluctant to tell the Captain that he was messing up big time? Was it because the FO had low hours? Or is it the feudal nature of the society that caused him to keep quiet? A lot of questions will need to be answered during the investigation...
I'm not an expert by any means but that altitude graph plummeting down to the Earth must have been one hell of a ride for the passengers am I right? That looks terrifying. Why would experienced pilots make such a foolish choice maybe the flight data recorder will provide more insight. Incredible information from that little bit of data. Thanks again for the great video mr. Brown
The passengers will not have noticed that unless they are very experienced and really taking in information. The first thing the passengers noticed was the belly landing at the first attempt. From there, of course it would have been bad.
seems like pilots were over confident.. in the recording ATC warned 2 times about their altitude but they were determined to land without following SOP. And then controller made a big mistake of giving it clearance to land on 25L .
ATC actually did his best. The pilots were simply ignoring ATC and insisted they will make it. Eventually he had to give since there were no emergency. To me the mistake ATC might have made was not see the plane physically to warn them of gear-up.
Flew the 320 for a couple years. It was hard to get down. Lots of residual thrust at idle and a pretty clean airframe. My experience says to get a 7,000 fpm descent rate you would have a very uncomfortable nose down attitude.
I couldn't stop thinking about the family where both parents and 3 sons aboard this fateful flight ended up in ashes. What is more tragic is how preventable this crash was. Hope & pray they all rest in peace & their families find peace
Juan, as an MOB (maintenance on board) crew member during lots of maintenance check flights done after heavy C checks, I can attest that your very good analysis is on target. We tested all the aircraft flight data computer controlled flight control limitations just as you described them. As one of your commenters stated this incident could be because of repeated disregard for safety and management culture. How did they not receive a GPWS ground proximity warning at that rate of descent and that close to the ground?
It's not youtube, it's that advertisers don't want their ads to show on sad/controversial/shocking/etc videos. Any ad based platform will have same problem eventually.
I think if your trying to market your product or service or brand the advertisers just don’t want people who click on a video about a sensitive topic (people die in plane crash) to then immediately see their ad. Like I tell you this is a video about a plane crash and you see an ad for, oh I don’t know, sherwin Wiliams paint. Now back in your brain when your at the paint store since our brains associate visuals you see a plane crash. It hasn’t anything to do with UA-cam or liberals. Just marketing.
Xeldinn pressure from c suite, changing sensibilities, PR disasters. Who knows. But nobody is bidding on ads on disasters drives the prices down. Personally me I think people are too sensitive about some things, but the ethics of using people interest in a tragedy to drive people to buy your product is a tough one. At the margin it’s a net negative according to the free market, and UA-cam just simplified things to appeal to the broader market.
I would be especially interested to know if they captured a 'false glideslope' by approaching too high. Note the the PM clearly states that they are 'established on ILS 25L' but clearly they are not on the 3 degree one !
Thanks Juan. Your analysis nails this incident as pilot error. A case of too high, too fast, should have gone around from the jump. Throw in the absence of "three green" and flap overspeed and you have a disaster. This calls into question this airline's training program. Sad for all those who lost their lives unnecessarily.
To be honest I'd say it's more a reflection on ATC. The controller had no business clearing them to land unless it was a declared emergency. Whatever the case the crew must have felt like they were riding the Superman at Magic Mountain.
IdreesGhazi IdreesGhazi ATC is responsible for separation only. They do not land airplanes or tell the pilots what to do unless it involves a potential or actual loss of separation with another aircraft.
@@douglasseagrim7379 Obviously ATC does not "land aeroplanes" and responsibility should always be in the hands of the pilot since the lives of passengers are in his hands. That said - the tower also has a responsibility for the safety of airport crew and people living nearby and they absolutely have input in any decision to land. If this aeroplane wasn't flagging a declared emergency then you have to ask whether their actions were just one instance of a pattern of existing behaviour between the tower and approaching aircraft at that airport. It's a bit like the truism about the cockroach - if you see one there are thousands lurking in the shadows. A lot of questions are going to be asked of the tower crew.
I am from Pakistan and I have dealt with PIA and other government officials of Pakistan. They lack professionalism at all levels. There is no check and balance. We should remember that PIA is owned by the Government. Most of the appointments are made on a Personal and Political friendships and Merit is non-existent. This happens when governments run the airlines and do other form of businesses. The posts of Pilots and Engineers are sometimes sold in the form of bribery. So we should not expect any professionalism from this God-forsaken Airlines. Conclusion is simple that Capitalism is the key and it is not the job of the government to run professional businesses. Moreover AI should replace the pilots like these so that such human errors could be avoided.
Agree with the ai point. Still years away before it can happen. I'm from Pakistan too. And i don't know why people don't learn their lesson after so many accidents from the same airline. Never fly with PIA!
Yes, corruption in all things, not just airlines is a big problem and not just in Pakistan. However, there are national airlines where only the best veteran air force pilots get a chance to get hired.
K Awan --- Thank you for that insight. You are correct, pilots should be hired due to capability and thorough training, not government connections. A tragedy waiting to happen everyday.
Great great analysis Juan. I am from Karachi and it seems that you are physically involved in this scenario right now. Punishing attitudes of managements leads to such accidents. I hope our outstanding Prime Minister will look into this factor first.
Thanks Juan, spot on analysis. I had suspected an unstable approach based on the ATC audio that VAS shared. The pilot is heard advising Karachi Approach that he was "comfortable" whatever that means, and that he was established on the ILS. At that point Karachi Approach gives instructions to the pilot to make a turn, which prompts the pilot to say again that he is established on the ILS, and then Karachi Approach clears him to land. There are still a bunch of questions that will only be answered once the CVR and FDR are analyzed. Like, was the undercarriage ever lowered? Why was the airplane so high when he commenced his approach?
This, if true, answers a ton of questions. The terrain warning would override gear warning horn and the speed is why he touched down so far down and had the energy to go around with damaged engines.
so not only did this aircraft not have the wheels in the down position, but there were no flaps engaged due to over speed, this is crazy, thanks for making this vids makes it very understandable.
@@UzairAhmed92 The airspeed was too high for the gear to extend. If you watch update #3 from this channel, you will see that there is a safety requirement of the airspeed being under a certain speed. Since they were too fast, the landing gear did not actually come down (to protect the landing gear) when the pilots tried to put it down the first time. Once there is further information from the cockpit voice recorders, we will know why they were so busy to not notice that the gear wasn't down yet. They didn't verify the gear was down when they attempted to land the first time.
In the previous video he stated that if the airspeed is more than 260 Knots then the landing gears won't work, he was never over 260 knots..... The other more obvious reason can be since he failed to touchdown in the first one third of the runway and because his speed was high, he decided to go around to late and lifted the gears allowing for the engines to scrape the surface..
OK this aviation accident is just bizarre... From what I've seen, the gear did not deploy and they dragged the runway with the engines. Instead of crossing their fingers and ride the landing out, the pilot decided to abort and try for a go around.. Damage to both engines and tried to climb out for a go around of the airport and another landing attempt. Their luck ran out, the engines failed and the aircraft stalled out, and fell from the sky on approach.. Still a lot questions! What was that super steep dive for initial landing about?? Was GPS drunk? ( personal, and why I don't trust GPS) This wreck is a bit of a mystery.
The assumption, from other pilot's channel, is that they deployed the landing gears. The sound we heard before is effectively the landing gears not being deployed while they tried to, and maybe a result of max speed exceeded because of the important descending rate. At this point, they might have solved that issue by putting engines on idle. At the very end, while in the process of landing, they decided to go-around. They must have putted the engines back to max thrust (from idle), retracted the landing gear and flaps and raised the nose. But the delay from idle to max, and maybe sucking with ground effect (my speculation here), made the plane drop. Without landing gears out, both engines hit the ground, the plane bounced and eventually climbed as power was there finally. All of that too late, too fast to decide to "crash" in a belly landing - they were not prepare mentaly for that, all of that was a surprise and it was too late on the track to have a "safe" belly landing. Back in the air, the engines died, both. We know the rest. That's many assumptions and a terrible serie of events possibly due to their very late approach. Apparently, they were 10,000 feet instead of 4,000 to begin with. Does it make sense? After all, ATC is not aware of a "1st" belly landing tentative and that doesn't sound right anyway, you do a belly landing or you don't, you don't change your mind midway.
Why does it feel like they were flying a visual and somehow seemed to have no idea where the runway was? It almost seems like they arrived sooner than expected and Get-there-itis took over and they dove for it while trying to get the airplane configured at the same time. Trying to deploy flaps and landing gear to scrub speed on the way down without being aware of airspeed and the plane rejected all of their inputs due to them being wildly too fast.
ATC seems to not have noticed the rapid descent. Is this not regulated? If both the pilots were comfortable with the approach I wonder if it was because this was the norm, for them at least. That's why they were relaxed. All traffic needs to be analysed for the last year?
This is not the first time PIA pilots have belly landed an aircraft. A 747-200 was belly landed into ISB in 1986, flight number PK300. Google it, lots of pics. There was no failure of “automatics”. The aircraft was being flown by idiots. The first approach ended up being a belly landing because it was a rushed approach with all sorts of warning horns going off, plus they were flying at a speed above the limit the gear will deploy. They put the gear down after the go-around when they really needed to do a belly landing. Because the deployment of the undercarriage caused additional drag once the engines had failed, the airspeed rapidly bled off. The inquiry will probably find after nearly a month of fasting and sleep deprivation due to Ramadan, the pilots were not in fit state to fly a commercial aircraft.
I’m don’t know much about flying, but I have a question, if they were so high given the ‘standard approach’, why did the airport give them permission to land, and not send them around?
Bad habits. Doesn't seem to me they follow SoP by the book. I've been on similiar airlines where crew are still standing and clearing kitchen after landing gear is switched on. I never witness this with western airline. But seems to be common with domestic flights. Even in Bangladesh. They're relaxed. Pilot has last say. What a tragedy though.
@@bromnader5196 Third World or First World or whatever World on this Planet: A Pilot with more than 17000 hours logged in has to know how to land a plane safe.
Not clear if they forgot it. Maybe the gear wasn't down because of the speed, hence the alarm, which they might have mistaken for something else related to the clumsy approach. This is bizarre, something like this is unbelievable.
Juan is the best in the business. I appreciate you taking your time to keep all of us interested informed. I look forward to all of your videos. Thank you sir!!
I love how the current technology allows the public to see exactly what seems to have happened. Truth is powerful!
-Yes. Especially when 'The Ministry of Truth', controls Truth. ;
And even when the truth becomes apparent, if often struggles to prevail, as we live in a society where people prefer to believe what they want to instead of what actually happened.
@A E true...same feeling here
@A E or maybe extend radars? fyi, realtime GPS locators are expensive and would be a toll for budget airliners let alone for 3rd world airliners.
He didn't tell us, black box is still missing, as reported by officials yesterday....
Saw the live feed on mentour pilot , both of you gave the best real world talk on piloting and cockpit managing ever , thanks Bill
Can someone explain why an outstanding journalist covering an important topic should be demonitized?
The low quality journalists on TV still get to have ads, why not this one?
Their networks pay youtube.
Unless you were creator or licencee, even created just a birthday video of your family, you meet terms & conditions. Didn't they rename editing / compilation to creators studio.
This video is monetised.
@@BrianSu He says in the video that it's not. Is he wrong?
You've answered your own question.
It’s literately beyond belief that this took place!
Yes, C152 pilots are supposed to get this right let alone airline pilots.
Man this is insane. And I'm saying that as politely and respectfully as I can.
Totally agreed. Their flight looks like me on a computer game. I'm intrigued to see how any qualified pilot could think that was anywhere near ok.
CHAOS45 100% Agree!! Inexcusable.
@@peejay1981 it is not, there is no way you should at any moment be doing 6000ft/min on approach, and the speeds...let's not even talk about that...you can do 250 to the final approach fix (4, 5 or 6 miles out from the runway) some airports even ask for it, but you have to at least be at the right altitude to slow the puppy down...you can't be fast and high and pretend to stop it...and reaching the runway at 200kts, you're never going to land that thing...it's going to float for ever, and by the time you touch down you're halfway down the runway.
Speeds and descent rates are somewhat nominal, for the Space Shuttle.
@@ljfinger Yes, but Space Shuttle was a glider landing on a tremendously long runway and with drag chutes..
Brilliant work Juan. When you get subject matter experts, like you, who can communicate it is like the dawning of a new era. But boy this crew looks like they shouldn't have left the flight simulator...the Microsoft Flight Simulator.
17000 flight hours though
25 years of service with 17000 hours of flight time.. he was a very experienced pilot
@@iambilaal experienced pilots have crashed plane before
@@iambilaal Wow, then something else has gone seriously wrong.
Some one you don't see, and you ear from him we don't need to blame him, no one is going out and decided to go and die and claim alot of life, except Germany's pilot who intentionally broth the plane down.
This crew broke ALL the rules. Totally unbelievable. Now this makes sense as to why it ended up as it did.
Please wait for the official report to be presented by the French Investigation Team, the families of crew member sare also in pain for their loss, it might be their fault but please underatand their families emotions also,..
The question is did they get enough sleep before flying that plane
why those pilot Did Not Know that the landing gear was Not move out When they land that planes... weird...
I know it's weird and it's very easy to blame someone whose not around to defend himself, he had over 17000 flying hours. ALL I'm saying is please wait for the official report to come
@Asif Khan
Nobody told you guys that the "72" virgins are also men? Allah has a good sense of humor.
I've watched a number of "crash analysis" videos of this PIA incident, but all of them fell short in almost every category. As is usual, your videos are the gold standard, Juan.
I hope the voice recorder and the flight data recorder, shed some light on the last few minutes of this flight. I can't help but think that a cascade of errors and poor judgments, were at the heart of this tragedy. Its almost incomprehensible, that two commercial pilots would botch an approach so badly. As you say, Juan, following the rules, and good CRM, makes for a happy outcome. My heart goes out to the relatives and friends of the passengers and crew. This crash took only minutes, but the pain lasts for years.
The airline seniors are ex military airforce.... So I wonder if their training is generally not upto world standards... should they be allowed to operate?
I agree he is very Analytically sound clear headed talented .. i hv not seen his type on Junktube
@@sumasu4496 He was rejected by psychologist of the PIA he went to U.K got license from there & some how got his way into PIA through the UK license
These errors were so over the top and incomprehensible that it's difficult to imagine. It's as if the pilots were intoxicated and not thinking clearly.
there are other better ones, especially those by other pilots. Those by journalist or reporters or private citizens who are non-pilots are generally poor quality
Can't imagine what passengers thought during that steep descent. My first trans-con flight was from Indianapolis to John Wayne airport, back in the late 1980's. The pilot announced we'd clear mountain elevations then "play drop like a stone". His words. I remember pushing my foot into the floor like I was standing on a brake pedal. On subsequent trips to the area, I went LAX instead. The PIA descent was INSANE.
Having quite a bit of Airbus time, both in 320 and 330 all I can say is this was one of the most unprofessional approaches I’ve ever read about
How to explain that a Captain with more than 17000 hours flight experience was responsible for that?
It's a real question, not irony. It's unexplainable to me until now.
Hans R. Wahl Safety culture? Public Flightaware data show thuis was a regular occurrence...
@@vamvra5498 Is it? It sounds whacked, but I was wondering if this sort of approach happens more than we'd think. Is that what flightaware shows?
cember01 Yes sadly, search in comments Noah roth
Va MVra, unreal. I’d never step foot on one of their airliners unless it was an absolute necessity.
What blows me away every time I think of this is that there were 2 pilots in that cockpit. 2 people fully aware of how to fly a plane failed at flying a plane.. :(
This was a huge failure of CRM (Cockpit Resource Management) and the judgment of the other pilot in cooperating with an unstable approach. But it happens. Remember Asian 214 crashing into the seawall at SFO with four CAPTAINS on the flight deck. Noone spoke up until it was way too late to salvage the approach.
In one of Juan's earlier videos on this accident, a texted reply stated that the Pilot and Co-Pilot were related (I think the family member stated one was his Uncle and the other a Cousin), so maybe the one over ruled the other.
Calling those guys pilots is a bit of a stretch...
Could there be some technical faults in the plane reading regarding height, speed etc which might have caused such unbelievable descent?
Actual readings different but plane showing different readings....they were comfortable relying upon the mistaken reading of the airplane while the actual reading/reality was different
Michael H I have been on planes where we have had unstable approaches, lots of sudden drops and a bit rocky despite no winds
It looks like he suddenly remembered he was supposed to land at Karachi.
But WHY
Either, he didn't configure the FMC correctly or missed the 'Top of Descent'
Thank you, or he went to answer call of nature at the last minute and asked the FO not to touch a damn thing in the cockpit. After coming back he just nose dived into the ground expecting everything would work just fine
@@Aliii378 one shouldn’t laugh but that comment is very funny
7000 feet per minute descent!!! Even playing Infinite Flight Simulator on my phone I know that’s wayyy too fast to land the A320 without crashing!
This is hard to fathom - how a trained airline crew could elect to continue an approach like this. I’m expecting the CVR to highlight a tremendous amount of human factors and CRM that likely played a very significant part in this tragedy.
Recently read a article that majority of pilots in Pakistan had a fake pilots license. Maybe this one had too.
Wow... So essentially a driver crossing 4 lanes on the 405 to make an exit at the last second.
Excellent Analogy!!!!
Yes, He will otherwise miis the century blvd exit. He needs to catch the next flight to Karachi
At 5:30 pm on the Friday before Memorial day.
Unfortunately he slammed on the brakes in front of a semi.
Doing 120 mph.... Those poor passengers! It’s going to be interesting to get the history on this flight crew. There are usually warning signs.
A roller coaster for the passengers!! Your presentation was a clear and impartial analysis. Of course, only after the FDR analysis we will know more about the landing gear up.
Wow, one bad decision after another! It's almost like they were caught oversleeping in the cabin and rushed to land the airplane.
Yeah...snoozing on a 1.5 hr flight. Dudes couldn’t negotiate a 1 block delivery @ Dominos.
That’s what I’m thinking here, then the stereotypical machoism takes over. Another CRM case study that seems too stupid to be true.
I guess a go-around looks bad on your record. He tried his best to avoid it.
John Norris - or worse, been fasting and flying with a ridiculously low blood sugar level.
@@3John-Bishop That's probably quite true, but the total destruction of an expensive aircraft & the loss of passenger lives looks even worse on ones record. It's bad for business too. But you make a good point none the less.
I heard the crew respond on the audio with control " we are comfortable now" just before they are cleared to land. I wonder what was said before that? Thanks for keeping us updated, this is a mystery to me.
There was a rapid drop of altitude based on ATC audio I listened to.
ua-cam.com/video/CftF-IS4VU4/v-deo.html
this version seems to give more communications with the tower...
I think the atc would ve asked that u r too high to land would u b able to make it?... Before that.
Pilot's "I am comfortable" "I am satisfied" is to assure the ATController who was reminding the pilot of the issue to his awareness that he was confident and positive handling the situation, another word: no big deal.
Like most aviation accidents, this accident was the result of a series of pilot errors, not just one. The unstable approach was number 1, and it was serious. However, the crew continued with a series of mistakes. The last mistake, failing to abort the landing due to a clearly botched approach was the last chance for these pilots to prevent a tragedy. Although the accident information is preliminary, I would speculate failure to follow SOP's will ultimately be the primary cause.
Jeff V No failing to abort the landing was the second last major mistake, going around after a gear up landing was what actually killed everyone. If they had ground to a halt on the runway, wheels up, it’s highly likely all would have survived.
Problem is you can have the best procedures going, but if the pilot goes against this then it’s meaningless
FutureSystem738 spot on
The initial approach was way too high and they may have captured a 'false glideslope' e.g. at 6 degrees as a result. Trying to follow it would have been another serious error.
@@FutureSystem738 They were already past the half way point in the runway and may not have stopped although the belly landing might have added drag.
Your well balanced coverage has earned a subscribe from me, please keep up the great work Juan!
Ladies and gentleman welcome to most important information with your captain Brown, please remain seated and enjoy the best aviation update of the website.
I love the calm, factual manner in which you explain what happened or for now what is thought to have happened. Well done.
Perfect pronounciation of 'Karachi' btw
Ya surprising good, wasn't expecting from a native English speaker
I also noted this.
That's a sign of a meticulous broadcater.
You are very observant. He is as proficient with his speech as he is with his analysis.
Agree. I am from Karachi.
Us Americans learn that "r" sound when we take intro Spanish classes in school ;)
Thanks for sharing such great information, this has become my favorite UA-cam channel and not for the tragedies but for the explanation of such important aviation topics.
Thanks !
Again....all I’ve got for these guys for the second video in a row is WOW. Myself and my first officer were discussing this today (FYI we were cruising at 46,000...before I get the people telling me not to be having social conversations in the cockpit. Also we don’t have airline rules) in the G550 and were plugging in some of these profiles Juan has showed here. In many cases the FMS wouldn’t even accept the values without issues, let alone let us actually execute them. Blows my mind. “Professional” Pilots eh? Thanks Juan!
My football coach always use to say "there is no i in team" RIP too all who perished. Thanks again Juan 👍👍
Juan, your attention to detail and the way you present always keeps me riveted. Maybe you should be an air crash investigator!
When I worked in a nearby country (I'd better not say where) over 20 years ago it was normal for the airliners of the state airline to dive steeply to intersect the correct landing flightpath and on take off they used to fly level just above the runway and then pull up steeply, just like a fighter at an airshow. The pilots were ex military. So when I read that the pilot was 'comfortable' and surviving passenger thought it was a normal approach it makes me think that it was - for PIA!
This is the kind of REAL analysis I've always wanted in air crash investigations and Juan is really delivering beyond anyone or any other news outlet, PERIOD. Would the super steep and ridiculous decent have anything to do with the landing gear not deploying? I can't imagine what these pilots were doing...well or not doing. Passengers had to be screaming!!!
Yes - Juan does not speculate happily so, but the answer is yes. So Sad.
Mark Otterby - When you are hot and high, one of the things you can do is lower the gear. Once you have done that you can “push” against the gear to increase drag. You can also use speed brakes and flaps. But the flap limit speed on the A320 is fairly low (210 kts ?) removing one drag increasing option. Obviously the best option is not to be there in the first place.
On an Airbus you can command gear down but if your speed is above safe extension speed it will not drop and will give you a warning tone and display the reason for the warning on the centre display.
@@bulwinkle sure thats what was explained in a previous vid on this. My first time following a whole series of investigations and finding it really interesting how all the external resources can be compared to what could be found on the flight recorder
Thanks Juan! It seems those pilots were operating an amusement ride there at the end. Talk about asleep at the yoke.
Also, I believe you meant to say ENSURE as well.😀
Haa! a typo on top of a mis-speak...lol
Lol😂😂😂....well said
Those passengers must have been terrified.
I was thinking the same thing. Looks like they just fell out of the sky.
yes.
Who trained these idiotic pilots???
Looks like gear didn't deploy because aircraft said No
@@blancolirio Was The Captain Drunk?... Sure looks like it.
Thanks again Juan
It seems a bit odd that the pilot claimed to the ATC they were stabilised on approach more than once when according to this data they clearly were not.
Indeed! And that he neglected the ATC trying to help him.
Too high, too fast. Surely ATC could have revoked landing clearance?
Nice video. Stabilised approach also means fully configured for landing (ie Gear Down, Flaps Set), engines spooled up, aircraft in trim, correct speed (ie min Vref max Vref + 20). But to me the key point is the discipline of regarding approach gates. Even the best pilot(s) in the world can occasionally end up with an unstable approach but if you are NOT stable at the gate (typically 1,000 ft agl with most airlines - maybe 500 ft when visual as specified in the airline's operations manual) then a Go Around is MANDATORY. I am retired but in the last company I flew for the First Officer could call a Go Around if the aircraft was not stable at the gate. Thanks for the update on the data.
Hello all and I hope all is well. My first experience here was Oroville dam coverage. What a ride this turned in to. Thank you for your knowledge and expertise Mr. Brown along with your ability to teach us how to learn.
I saw a video ones on flight crews not targeting the mark where the descend into a airport most began in order to have the right speed and angle. It’s amazing how trained pilots can miss that and not ask for help instead of trying to bring a plane down; as if they were playing a video game.
This is insane. Friggin’ lunatics flying this aircraft.
Lots of la la la in the cockpit!
they were looking forward to the snak bar.
A captain that dangerous doesn’t just slip through the cracks. Someone saw his lack of skill and decision making capability in a simulator and they let him out to fly the line anyways. Shameful.
Even the space shuttle's approach wasn't that steep
I've been flowing this story...sad...one crew member ultimately deciding to risk it all...for nothing :(
ATC: "i've got a vector to help you out"
PIA: "nope"
ATC: "Dear captain of our glorious national airline are you "comfortable"..."
PIA: "Don't worry i got this, i used to fly f-16s while you were just a baby"
ATC: "Dear captain are you "comfortable" with that approach????"
PIA: "Nothing to worry about, everything is relaxed here **alarms blaring in the background**"
ATC: "I have you on eyeball, are you attempting an unannounced belly landing sir???"
KABLAAAAM
PIA: "umm, no issues here, we are just doing a long go around (until we get our excuse straight)"
ATC: "your nearest runway is X"
PIA: "umm no we'll fly around to runway Y while we check things (make up an excuse for company).
PIA: "oh there go the engines, i guess an extended go-around after a belly landing was another bad decision to add to the ten bad decisions i've already made during this flight".
Exactly! Unfortunately.
Certainly seems so, hope it is an isolated pilot and not a culture within this region where it may be going on, how many others got away with it?
@@ChrisLoew PIA or any other airline of Pakistan hasn't crashed an A320 of any sort until now. I wouldn't blame culture if I was you otherwise the airline wouldn't be flying internationally
@@Danial0152 PIA was banned from EU airspace for a stretch of months a few years ago. Such a ban does not just happen with 1 incident, but is usually the case after a series of incidents, that do not necessarily have resulted into accidents per se. After the ban PIA changed a number of items in crucial areas of its d2d business, protocols, procedures and certifications, after which they were allowed back into EU airspace. Could it be that the "old" PIA culture found its way back into the left seat somehow? I would not be surprised, and look forward at the results from the investigation into crash PK8303...
Chris Loew - Hate to rain on your parade!, but it is cultural, and highly prevalent in that region. Asiana, smacks into the rocks at KSFO. JAL, Pilot impales 747 onto approach lights, in the water, at KSFO.
I would like to share one story about Flight crew member Name Anam Khan Young beautiful lady was originally scheduled on 21 May to from Lahore to Faisalabad city to Abu Dubai 4 days trip but she want sepnd Eid day with family so she called 20 may to request for local flight so PIA put her UP AND DOWN flight from Lahore to Karachi she told her family living with 4 sibling ill b back by 6 pm so we can break the fast together, But God had different Plans, RIP 🙏
A terrible loss.
Jaxid Xima I'm very sorry. A tragic loss. Peace to her family and friends.
So heartbreaking 💔 hearing this. Immeasurable loss, not only for her young life but to all people on this flight. This will not be easily forgotten. Sometimes we really don't know how valuable every day is.
This gives me shivers..!!!
RIP.
I appreciate your fairly in-depth analysis of the available data, for the short amount of time for the video. Keep it up.
I love the birds chirping in the background!
My hypothesis is that the cockpit was preoccupied before they started Karachi approach. How can you be so high above the guidelines with so much flight experience?
Why didnt ATC wave this guy off and tell him to go around? Didnt they see him on radar way too high for the approach ??
Airports aren't aircraft carriers. The controllers have no say in the matter once they clear the plane to land unless something is wrong with the runway at the last moment.
I've seen this discussed here or on Mentour before I think, they don't really do anything like that
He asked him to turn HDG180. He denied saying they are established on ILS 25L
I believe they normally step the down once in radio contact.
Im unfamiliar with the atc regulations in Pakistan however, ATC usually has the ability to tell a pilot to go around if the approach appears unstable. That is entirely workload permitting and in no way should this be partially blamed on ATC.
I am lost for words 🤔 Thank you as always Juan ...
Thanks, Juan! Brilliant video again. 👍🏻
Thanks for your dedicated work.
Glad UA-cam is making their position clear on safety, and professional news reporting with integrity; what idiots. Thanks Juan for your great work.
Thanks Juan for these updates from a non aviation expert,just an ordinary flyer(passenger) it is people like you and Mentour and others who are keeping us informed about the aviation situation and aircraft incidents.May you long continue,stay safe my friend
I was waiting for this, thanks Juan.
Sound like pure arogant incompetence.
Agree and they are mourning his death?
If I was an investigator then I would go back and analyse data records of all his previous flights too. I've a feeling that this is not a single incident, this has happened before, only thing is that he didn't crash before.
@@ریحانارشد you are probably right. The PIA air safety department, like any airline in the world have established procedures to investigate any incident occurring especially during unstabilized approach.
Last time I saw a dive-bomb like that, the airplane was a Ju 87 Stuka.
Really? When was that?
@@dalecomer5951 It was a joke referring to the fast descent on the approach.
Dale Comer 1945 was last time I saw one in Poland
@@Moose6340 I've gotten a lot of lexical flak on this channel for stating that a fatal air crash is not a laughing matter.
@@peteparadis1619 The Stuka is one of the few aeroplanes which I hate.
You name it! First, they came in too fast, too high, maybe trying to lower the gear at a too high speed but the computer did not and the crew was totally confused and supposed a landing gear failure, which, in turn, put more stress on them. (as can be seen on some video footage, the gear was down shortly before impact. So I guess it was not a technical failure).
Totally stressed and without proper CRM, they then just forgot to lower the gear, and when the audio warning came up, they were even more confused and tried to go-around but it was almost too late and the engines scraped the runway at least twice. I guess the pilot flying suddenly noticed his faults when the audio warning "too low, gear!" came up, and it is in our human nature urging to make things going normal, and exactly that´s what he tried by initiating a go-around to perform a normal landing, without being aware that the engines might have been seriousely damaged.
From my point of view, human error which caused a chain of events leading to a fatal end.
May their Souls rest in Peace.......
I would hope that the investigation traces the training procedures for the pilots.
I highly doubt this is a training issue, if it was, this wouldn't be the first time they had a crash like this.
This is more like PIA culture !! If I was an investigator then I would go back and analyse data records of all his previous flights too. I've a feeling that this is not a single incident, this has happened before, only thing is that he didn't crash before.
Probably see more of this. Airlines cutting training and simulator time to bare minimum. All for the almighty dollar.
@@ریحانارشد agree
Bram Moerman - The training is one issue but the bigger one is company and national culture. Where I flew my colleagues (ground handlers, dispatchers, cleaners, cabin crew, gate staff, ops controllers, F/O’s, management etc.) would all call me Trevor and I in turn would address them by their first name. People would ask you questions when you got things wrong and I would do the same when I was unsure what they were doing. We worked together. If they called me when I got it wrong I would be grateful that they had. Part of this was company culture, part was national. Over the years I have seen airlines where the cabin crew stay in one hotel and pilots in another. Companies where people below a certain rank are not allowed to speak to the captain. Companies who sack and fire for any reason, companies where the captain must be formally addressed. How do you train a young female junior cabin crew member from Karachi to ask the captain if he is aware that there ice on the wing? Complicated technical devices and systems designed to be operated by a team must be operated by a team and their employer is duty bound to create and environment where that can happen.
Great work Juan. Feel so sad for the innocent passengers . RIP.
I suspect that Pilots were focussed on landing (reducing speed & losing altitude for touchdown) and forgot to lower the landing gear. This video explains why the plane was too off from runway's normal touchdown area. Thanks Juan for your great work !
You are pretty accurate but There is one major flaw. Actually whatever ATC Talks they released is after first go around. In my opinion there were 2 missed approaches which you can see from Height to time chart as twice altitude increased, most of the people are getting this part completely wrong.
Here is what I believe happened
1) Airplane was coming in with Unstable approach and was too high, so they lowered aircraft down very quickly (From height to time chart you can see they lowered altitude at about 8000ft/min)
2) Because of fast speed, gear was not lowered, pilots ignored the warning and scratched engines on runway and did a go around
3) Now they are coming back for landing and all released ATC Talk starts now on wards, they are having unstable approach again (Highly possible they caught false ILS Glide slope which may happen when Airplane is too High, but here they said Everything is under control, we will be able to make it, (this time) Inshalla, Plot also tells ATC that they are 3000ft from 3500ft)
4) ATC instead of warning about their height, offers them to go around, where pilot replied he is comfortable. he is established on ILS (false ILS Glide slope) and because of that he can land safely
5) Now ATC tells them that they are 5 miles from touchdown but at 3500ft (According to flight chart they need to be at 2000ft at 6 miles, so for sure they caught false ILS glide slope). Again in previous conversation they said they are down at 3000ft but ATC tells them they are 3500 ft so there may be some problem with their altimeter. You can hear warning dings in the background, at this point which may mean gears are not extended, engines have problem or something else and because of that
6) Eventually Pilot agrees to go around (you can see from Height to time chart that their altitude went up), again there are no beeps in background which means, those beeps most probably were from gear not lowered.
7) ATC tells them to turn left heading 110 and climb to 3000ft for second go around
8) ATC tells them you are dropping altitude and are now at 2000ft (Engines are having serious problems now most probably full thrust for second go around which requires 100% engine power killed whatever was left in already damaged engine, second go around was the final nail in the coffin)
9) Now they as they are losing their engine power, they talked to ATC that they are trying to maintain altitude 2000 and ATC affirms
10) ATC warns them that they are dropping to 1800
11) ATC is telling them that they appear to be turning left and Plots inform ATC that they lost both engines and will be proceeding direct (Without ILS Slope and taking shortest distance, not in line with runway as they are turning), their speed is pretty slow so landing gear came out (You can see from crash video that landing gears were out) other reason may be they did gravitational lowering of gears
12) ATC asks them if they are going to do belly landing as gears never came out during first and second approach
13) Pilot says May day May day
14) ATC says both runways are available to land and it was the last communication.
15) Everyone RIP
Was the pilot a former Pakistani Navy pilot trying a carrier approach. For the love of god, wow!
Pakistan Navy doesn't have aircraft carriers, just for the record.
I bet F-16, air force.
More like trying to do a tactical approach as if he was in a C-130 or C-17
I think he got his training from USA
@@wim0104 Don't tell people you are an epic idiot. The pilot was just an commercial pilot with civil background.
Juan that graph you show around 4:35 - that's an INSANELY Steep dive - bet the passengers were freaking out at that point...
I have traveled a lot on domestic Pakistani airlines and this steep descent practice is considered normal. I have the aviation background and believe me commercial pilots bet each other that who will reach the limits of the aircraft and they brag in their personal meetings about it that see how Macho they are. Remember we are talking about Pakistan ( a thoroughly non-professional country in many regards).
@@kawan5851 ---
Amazing to hear that!
I'm very sad for the victims and their families. May they find peaceful acceptance of this tragedy.
@@kawan5851 which is our safest airline then?
@@kawan5851 Considering that Pakistan is in an area of the world where there's sometimes conflicts involving anti-aircraft fire then a steep descent makes some sense, but obviously not this steep. And that's usually done using a so called Corkscrew landing (See Wikipedia for that)
But I think that we will not get an answer until we have the flight voice recorder info as well. Overstaying the high altitude path seems obvious, but the reason for it is unclear.
Also the co-pilot too chicken to question the commander in these countries, as they can lose their job.
Most likely pilot was fasting and rushing to get home for eid iftar and gluttony, while his brain is all starved and confused.
Hello Mr. Brown , my name is Sohail Ahmed and I’m from this great city of Karachi but living in the States since 1998. I’ve watched your videos about this PIA flight. You have done a great job by elaborating this on going situation. Your have shown in great details about what could’ve gone wrong. I’m pretty sure this is exactly wat it looks like that it probably a pilots error in judgment and not following a proper protocol. I just wanted to say Thank You for doing that. I hope investigators will come up with the truth and held those (PIA) accountable.
This just gets more and more strange
That shed some more light on this event. But as usual it raises further questions. What is the priority of warnings and do any aural warnings “cancel out” lesser warnings? Is the EGPWS integrated into the main warning system? The reason I ask is that this aircraft will have been yelling at the crew for the last part of the approach but from one system or two? Were they “mashing” the warning acknowledgement button and as a result missing new alerts, like gear down? The next one is what were ATC doing? I’ve cocked up many approaches over the years and been with others when they have done the same. You always try and help your colleagues out by coaching and they have done the same for me. With the more interesting approaches, ATC have generally noticed as well. They have come up with questions such as “would you like more track miles?” or “Are you sure you can make it from there” or even “This will be interesting!” But they were there, monitoring what you were doing. What was Karachi ATC doing? Did they notice or was the traffic so intense? They noticed that this crew were not maintaining the go-around profile but not that they were thousands of feet high on the first approach. It’s the CVR that will really put the flesh on they bones. I’d also want to know what the crew’s blood-sugar level was.
Thanks for a clear unbiased explanation Juan, regrets from Australia to all who died.
Didn't the ATC told them to enter a downwind - and they replied with "we're on the ILS for the runway" ..? They probably saw the madness that these pilots were trying to pull off.
The ATC should have exercised his authority, and refused permission to land on such a unstable approach. The ATC actually asked him "Turn left heading 180" and upon insistence of the pilot that he is already established, backed off and cleared him to land. Probably knowing well what the result might be.
That's not ATC's duty.
ATC's duty is separation, information and traffic flow.
The final authority and responsibility always lies with the pilots.
All ATC could have said is "It looks like..." or "I suggest ...".
@@Pune122 I doubt that they knew the result. Aviation is not as big there and its probably not even close to common to have controllers who understand airplanes there.
@@vebisopi4988 yeh! That must be it
That is a good point - it almost sounds like ATC was indirectly trying to tell the pilot, "I wouldn't do that s**t if I were you!" by giving them that vector, but I'm not clear on the rules - unless the aircraft is in danger of colliding with other aircraft, can ATC actually tell them to go around?
I am sure ATC were trying to break him off..(PIA 8303 turn left heading 180) He responded established ILS .Maybe on the localiser but out of control vertically and IAS.
The aircraft was at 10,000' when it should have been at 4000' - or about 6000' high. Going back in time, that indicates that the top-of-descent was about 40 nm later than it should have been. So, did the crew ask for descent late? Or did the ATC delay their descent because of, say, crossing traffic? Now, if the TOD was delayed, did the crew descend in selected mode (open descent) or did they use managed descent (VNAV)? Did they select open over managed descent because they were afraid that the aircraft would dive down to meet the profile and possibly cause Vmo exceedance or high V/S? If they did not descend late, was it a power-on descent (say, using V/S) that caused them to be high later? Is it company culture that teaches a preference of V/S or open descent over managed descent? How well-versed were the pilots in using the VDEV values (PERF page) or the yoyo to manage their descent? Were speed brakes used? If not, was the PF reluctant to use them? Why? And why did the PM not suggest it? What about the power gradient in the cockpit, which made the FO reluctant to tell the Captain that he was messing up big time? Was it because the FO had low hours? Or is it the feudal nature of the society that caused him to keep quiet?
A lot of questions will need to be answered during the investigation...
I'm not an expert by any means but that altitude graph plummeting down to the Earth must have been one hell of a ride for the passengers am I right? That looks terrifying. Why would experienced pilots make such a foolish choice maybe the flight data recorder will provide more insight. Incredible information from that little bit of data. Thanks again for the great video mr. Brown
The passengers will not have noticed that unless they are very experienced and really taking in information.
The first thing the passengers noticed was the belly landing at the first attempt. From there, of course it would have been bad.
seems like pilots were over confident.. in the recording ATC warned 2 times about their altitude but they were determined to land without following SOP. And then controller made a big mistake of giving it clearance to land on 25L .
ATC actually did his best. The pilots were simply ignoring ATC and insisted they will make it. Eventually he had to give since there were no emergency. To me the mistake ATC might have made was not see the plane physically to warn them of gear-up.
Thank you for the interesting analysis and information about speed ,glide slopes etc.
Flew the 320 for a couple years. It was hard to get down. Lots of residual thrust at idle and a pretty clean airframe. My experience says to get a 7,000 fpm descent rate you would have a very uncomfortable nose down attitude.
Thanks, Juan
Hearing the initial ATC recording sounded like the ATC was very surprised that they were on final. Now their confusion makes sense.
I couldn't stop thinking about the family where both parents and 3 sons aboard this fateful flight ended up in ashes. What is more tragic is how preventable this crash was. Hope & pray they all rest in peace & their families find peace
I like your every video on the topic of PIA crash 8303. I just would like to Thank You.
6000ft/min down to pick up the ILS? I'm guessing most of the cabin thought they were dead then.
Yeah I was thinking that would have been one hell of a dive.
Not bloody wrong there!
Yes, God only knows what was going through their minds.
Terrifying... one of the first lessons in becoming a pilot (besides “stay away from the shiny, spinning things”) was NEVER scare your passengers!
pretty sure the ramadan fast got them, both pilots had thousands hours of flight experience
Amazing description for the masses.
Juan, great job explaining the descent to land. My wife has viewed some of your videos and you make it easy to understand.
Juan, as an MOB (maintenance on board) crew member during lots of maintenance check flights done after heavy C checks, I can attest that your very good analysis is on target. We tested all the aircraft flight data computer controlled flight control limitations just as you described them. As one of your commenters stated this incident could be because of repeated disregard for safety and management culture. How did they not receive a GPWS ground proximity warning at that rate of descent and that close to the ground?
I really hope someone takes away the monopoly UA-cam has real soon so guys like you can make a buck for your hard work.
ABSOLUTELY!!! Bunch of Liberal Weenies stealing the content.
It's not youtube, it's that advertisers don't want their ads to show on sad/controversial/shocking/etc videos. Any ad based platform will have same problem eventually.
I think if your trying to market your product or service or brand the advertisers just don’t want people who click on a video about a sensitive topic (people die in plane crash) to then immediately see their ad. Like I tell you this is a video about a plane crash and you see an ad for, oh I don’t know, sherwin Wiliams paint. Now back in your brain when your at the paint store since our brains associate visuals you see a plane crash. It hasn’t anything to do with UA-cam or liberals. Just marketing.
@@markamber1480 Well before it was never a problem. Back in 2010-2012 you could monetize just about anything. So what has changed?
Xeldinn pressure from c suite, changing sensibilities, PR disasters. Who knows. But nobody is bidding on ads on disasters drives the prices down. Personally me I think people are too sensitive about some things, but the ethics of using people interest in a tragedy to drive people to buy your product is a tough one. At the margin it’s a net negative according to the free market, and UA-cam just simplified things to appeal to the broader market.
I would be especially interested to know if they captured a 'false glideslope' by approaching too high. Note the the PM clearly states that they are 'established on ILS 25L' but clearly they are not on the 3 degree one !
Thanks Juan. Your analysis nails this incident as pilot error. A case of too high, too fast, should have gone around from the jump. Throw in the absence of "three green" and flap overspeed and you have a disaster. This calls into question this airline's training program. Sad for all those who lost their lives unnecessarily.
7000 ft/min on final? This crew clearly had no business flying an airliner.
To be honest I'd say it's more a reflection on ATC. The controller had no business clearing them to land unless it was a declared emergency. Whatever the case the crew must have felt like they were riding the Superman at Magic Mountain.
Can ATC refuse permission to land, if plane is hot-n-high with 7000 fpm descent and at 1000 ft altitude?
IdreesGhazi IdreesGhazi ATC is responsible for separation only. They do not land airplanes or tell the pilots what to do unless it involves a potential or actual loss of separation with another aircraft.
@@IdreesGhazi786 they should have. but maybe captain was higher in rank
@@douglasseagrim7379 Obviously ATC does not "land aeroplanes" and responsibility should always be in the hands of the pilot since the lives of passengers are in his hands. That said - the tower also has a responsibility for the safety of airport crew and people living nearby and they absolutely have input in any decision to land. If this aeroplane wasn't flagging a declared emergency then you have to ask whether their actions were just one instance of a pattern of existing behaviour between the tower and approaching aircraft at that airport. It's a bit like the truism about the cockroach - if you see one there are thousands lurking in the shadows. A lot of questions are going to be asked of the tower crew.
Maybe they thought they were landing a Space Shuttle?
Absolutely incredible. What could be a reasonable explanation of all these craziness?
I am from Pakistan and I have dealt with PIA and other government officials of Pakistan. They lack professionalism at all levels. There is no check and balance. We should remember that PIA is owned by the Government. Most of the appointments are made on a Personal and Political friendships and Merit is non-existent. This happens when governments run the airlines and do other form of businesses. The posts of Pilots and Engineers are sometimes sold in the form of bribery. So we should not expect any professionalism from this God-forsaken Airlines. Conclusion is simple that Capitalism is the key and it is not the job of the government to run professional businesses. Moreover AI should replace the pilots like these so that such human errors could be avoided.
Agree with the ai point. Still years away before it can happen. I'm from Pakistan too. And i don't know why people don't learn their lesson after so many accidents from the same airline. Never fly with PIA!
Yes, corruption in all things, not just airlines is a big problem and not just in Pakistan. However, there are national airlines where only the best veteran air force pilots get a chance to get hired.
K Awan ---
Thank you for that insight.
You are correct, pilots should be hired due to capability and thorough training, not government connections.
A tragedy waiting to happen everyday.
We need to prioritize. AI is great, I agree, but it's first job should be to find my luggage. :•)
(P) lease (I) nform (A) llah
Great great analysis Juan. I am from Karachi and it seems that you are physically involved in this scenario right now. Punishing attitudes of managements leads to such accidents. I hope our outstanding Prime Minister will look into this factor first.
Nailed it Juan! As always!
Thanks Juan, spot on analysis. I had suspected an unstable approach based on the ATC audio that VAS shared. The pilot is heard advising Karachi Approach that he was "comfortable" whatever that means, and that he was established on the ILS. At that point Karachi Approach gives instructions to the pilot to make a turn, which prompts the pilot to say again that he is established on the ILS, and then Karachi Approach clears him to land. There are still a bunch of questions that will only be answered once the CVR and FDR are analyzed. Like, was the undercarriage ever lowered? Why was the airplane so high when he commenced his approach?
Juan: Bravo!
Victims: RIP
Pilots: Kamikaze
This, if true, answers a ton of questions. The terrain warning would override gear warning horn and the speed is why he touched down so far down and had the energy to go around with damaged engines.
so not only did this aircraft not have the wheels in the down position, but there were no flaps engaged due to over speed, this is crazy, thanks for making this vids makes it very understandable.
That was never a stable approach and should have gone around.
Airspeed plaque shows why no gear extension.
Could you please explain your second point? What is airspeed plaque and what does it signify?
@@UzairAhmed92 The airspeed was too high for the gear to extend. If you watch update #3 from this channel, you will see that there is a safety requirement of the airspeed being under a certain speed. Since they were too fast, the landing gear did not actually come down (to protect the landing gear) when the pilots tried to put it down the first time.
Once there is further information from the cockpit voice recorders, we will know why they were so busy to not notice that the gear wasn't down yet. They didn't verify the gear was down when they attempted to land the first time.
In the previous video he stated that if the airspeed is more than 260 Knots then the landing gears won't work, he was never over 260 knots.....
The other more obvious reason can be since he failed to touchdown in the first one third of the runway and because his speed was high, he decided to go around to late and lifted the gears allowing for the engines to scrape the surface..
OK this aviation accident is just bizarre... From what I've seen, the gear did not deploy and they dragged the runway with the engines. Instead of crossing their fingers and ride the landing out, the pilot decided to abort and try for a go around.. Damage to both engines and tried to climb out for a go around of the airport and another landing attempt. Their luck ran out, the engines failed and the aircraft stalled out, and fell from the sky on approach.. Still a lot questions! What was that super steep dive for initial landing about?? Was GPS drunk? ( personal, and why I don't trust GPS) This wreck is a bit of a mystery.
Yet on the crash footage the gear is deployed. At a loss for words here but Occam's Razor...
The assumption, from other pilot's channel, is that they deployed the landing gears. The sound we heard before is effectively the landing gears not being deployed while they tried to, and maybe a result of max speed exceeded because of the important descending rate. At this point, they might have solved that issue by putting engines on idle. At the very end, while in the process of landing, they decided to go-around. They must have putted the engines back to max thrust (from idle), retracted the landing gear and flaps and raised the nose. But the delay from idle to max, and maybe sucking with ground effect (my speculation here), made the plane drop. Without landing gears out, both engines hit the ground, the plane bounced and eventually climbed as power was there finally. All of that too late, too fast to decide to "crash" in a belly landing - they were not prepare mentaly for that, all of that was a surprise and it was too late on the track to have a "safe" belly landing. Back in the air, the engines died, both. We know the rest.
That's many assumptions and a terrible serie of events possibly due to their very late approach. Apparently, they were 10,000 feet instead of 4,000 to begin with.
Does it make sense?
After all, ATC is not aware of a "1st" belly landing tentative and that doesn't sound right anyway, you do a belly landing or you don't, you don't change your mind midway.
Why does it feel like they were flying a visual and somehow seemed to have no idea where the runway was? It almost seems like they arrived sooner than expected and Get-there-itis took over and they dove for it while trying to get the airplane configured at the same time. Trying to deploy flaps and landing gear to scrub speed on the way down without being aware of airspeed and the plane rejected all of their inputs due to them being wildly too fast.
ATC seems to not have noticed the rapid descent. Is this not regulated? If both the pilots were comfortable with the approach I wonder if it was because this was the norm, for them at least. That's why they were relaxed. All traffic needs to be analysed for the last year?
This is not the first time PIA pilots have belly landed an aircraft. A 747-200 was belly landed into ISB in 1986, flight number PK300. Google it, lots of pics.
There was no failure of “automatics”. The aircraft was being flown by idiots.
The first approach ended up being a belly landing because it was a rushed approach with all sorts of warning horns going off, plus they were flying at a speed above the limit the gear will deploy. They put the gear down after the go-around when they really needed to do a belly landing. Because the deployment of the undercarriage caused additional drag once the engines had failed, the airspeed rapidly bled off.
The inquiry will probably find after nearly a month of fasting and sleep deprivation due to Ramadan, the pilots were not in fit state to fly a commercial aircraft.
But they dont need to fast while at work. However In this case i think the Pilot was fasting.
Juan I’d love to see some additional reporting on the safety records of foreign airlines.
I’m don’t know much about flying, but I have a question, if they were so high given the ‘standard approach’, why did the airport give them permission to land, and not send them around?
Yes, a grave mistake made by ATC
Bad habits. Doesn't seem to me they follow SoP by the book. I've been on similiar airlines where crew are still standing and clearing kitchen after landing gear is switched on. I never witness this with western airline. But seems to be common with domestic flights. Even in Bangladesh. They're relaxed. Pilot has last say. What a tragedy though.
It is amazing to me, that an "experienced pilot" would "hot dog it" and take these risks.
The standards are not very high in 3rd world airlines. They need discipline and conscientiousness and not experience.
@@bromnader5196 Third World or First World or whatever World on this Planet: A Pilot with more than 17000 hours logged in has to know how to land a plane safe.
This crew had a HOST of problems way before forgetting to lower gear! And bad decision making.
Not clear if they forgot it. Maybe the gear wasn't down because of the speed, hence the alarm, which they might have mistaken for something else related to the clumsy approach. This is bizarre, something like this is unbelievable.
"TOO LOW, GEAR" - Would have been going off as soon as they approached the runway in an unstable manner.
Great analysis as usual 👍