Passenger plane crash in Islamabad

[Interceptor]

Possible factors that brought Airblue plane down

Friday, July 30, 2010

By Shakil Shaikh

ISLAMABAD: A probe into the horrifying crash of Airblue’s Airbus into the Margalla hills, which killed all 152 persons on board, has been started to find out all possible factors that contributed to the disastrous accident.

Already dubbed as one of the worst accidents in the aviation history of Pakistan, experts in the aviation industry told The News on Thursday that it was not possible that a single factor resulted in this crash of the jet into the Margalla hills, located on the northern-most side of the federal capital.

“There is a set standard that in case the pilot loses visual contact of airfield, he is supposed to adopt misapproach procedures,” said one aviation expert. Some concerned people said that the plane coming from Karachi was supposed to land from Gujar Khan side i.e. 30 to Benazir Bhuto International Airport but the Air Traffic Control (ATC) had reportedly directed the professional and experienced pilot Parvaiz Iqbal Chaudhry to adopt “misapporach procedure” by circling the plane from 30 to 12 (from the side of Satellite Town).

However, the pilot took a longer circle, which took the plane outside the mandatory 5 miles vicinity, and it crashed into the Margalla hills, though some people say that the final exchange of communication would be revealed after the recovery of the Black Box (original colour of the Black Box is orange). Aviation experts, however, count six to seven reasons which might have contributed towards the Airbus crash:

Management Pressure

It is defined that the management of the airlines often pressurise pilots not to “divert” the plane, though the diversion plan of a flight is always there in case the plane fails to land at its destination. In this case, the pilot did not opt for “diverting the flight” and adopted “misapproach procedure” to land from 12 (Satellite Town side) by circling the jet while trying to keep the visual contact with the airfield.

Age Factor

The pilot was around 64 years of age and had joined Airblue, a private operator, after his retirement from PIA in 2006. He was considered a professional and highly experienced pilot. But experts say that benchmarks of age should always been seen in toto, and not in isolation. This includes “alertness” of the pilot at that age, his “physical fitness” in all respects and strict monitoring of the performance of the pilot by operators.

Weather Factor

Much weightage is being given to this factor as weather was reported “cloudy with heavy showers” on Wednesday. The investigators will have to take into consideration whether there was opposite direction wind, whether the clouds were as low as 200 ft, whether the visibility was marginal or not.

Some say that pilots know that they would never take their flight into “Cb Clouds (Cumulonimbus Clouds).” Such clouds are extremely dangerous and hazardous for flying objects, as such clouds carry “thunderstorms” with “downdrafts”, which is so severe that it creates “flash floods” when rain-water starts coming down heavily. They also contain heavy lightning. They say if a plane comes under such “downdrafts”, it often starts coming down with pressure and there is no chance of survival except a miracle. The Cb clouds with “windshear” play havoc with flying objects. The known example of an aircrash of a plane (under such conditions) took place at Dallas (the US) some 20 years back, as Cb Clouds are tall and very large in size with mushroom shape with as high as 75,000 ft from the ground and pilots are supposed to refrain from entering such clouds. These clouds often result into “slant visibility” and the pilot might have lost his visual contact with the airfield.

Fatigue

The fatigue factor also often plays havoc with a normal flight and pilots have to take proper rest and stay alert before piloting a plane and in this regard experts profusely criticise change of Air Navigation Order from IIIA to IV on 20 April, 2010, and it was major mistake on the part of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which did not evolve a consensus but released the ANO-IV dictatorially. This ANO-IV deals with flight and duty time limitation, rest period and several other important matters.

Maintenance Factor

It deals with serviceability of the aircraft and its machine, and normally the flight is allowed after taking clearance from the concerned engineers.

Loading of Aircraft

It deals with load on the aircraft, including fuel and luggage, etc. There are different repercussions of loading and, if not done properly, it shifts the CG (centre of gravity) which would prove dangerous because of nose down and nose up positions during the flight.

“Not a single factor results in such accidents but several factors contribute to such disasters,” said an expert, who described pilot as the “last line of defence.”

The investigators will look into the wreckage of the plane, engine and other parts of the plane, and it would demonstrate the conditions of the machine, so is would be easy to make an assessment about the maintenance of the aircraft.

“The Black Box will reveal about 80 to 90 percent of the facts which led to the crash of the plane,” said an expert, who raised the question as to why the ATC allowed the pilot to take the plane towards the Margalla terrain. The ATC should have commanded the pilot not to proceed towards the hilly terrain, he added, and his command had to be accepted by the pilot.

Some guess that there might also be a possibility of “inevitable accident” as once the pilot assessed that the aircraft would meet the accident, he himself took the plane towards the hills in a bid to save the damage to be caused had the plane crashed over a building or populated area of the capital city. “We cannot say with any definite word, but every possibility would be looked into before concluding the matter,” said a senior official in the CAA.

Possible factors that brought Airblue plane down

[sonicboom]

Crashed Air Blue flight's black box found
Saturday, 31 Jul, 2010

ISLAMABAD: Investigators searching the site of an airliner crash near Pakistan's capital in which 152 people died have found the plane's black box, a minister and a civil aviation official said Saturday.

“The investigating committee found the black box from the Margalla Hills this morning,” Junaid Ameen, director-general of the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority, told AFP by telephone.

The 10-year-old Airbus 321, operated by Airblue, slammed into the hills overlooking Islamabad in heavy rain and poor visibility on Wednesday as it came into land after a morning flight from Karachi.

“The black box was found from the bulk of the wreckage of the crashed plane. It is going to be a central part of our investigation,” Ameen said, adding that it would be sent to “foreign experts” for decoding.

Interior minister Rehman Malik also confirmed the find.

“I have received the confirmation that the black box of the crashed plane has been found,” Malik told private Geo television.

“It will very helpful in the investigation.”

Ameen said the black box was recovered at 12:55pm (0755 GMT) by a joint team of French experts, the Civil Aviation Authority, the Capital Development Authority and Islamabad police.

“The black box is now in our possession. Its condition and other things will be analysed. Let's see what we are able to get from the results,” Ameen said.

A five-person team from Airbus, based in Toulouse, France, was assisting with the recovery and using cutters to slice through the wreckage.

Pakistan does not have the proper expertise to decode information stored on the recorder, so it plans to send it elsewhere, according to the Civil Aviation Authority.

The authority's spokesman, Pervez George, said Friday that the decoding process could take a month.

The bodies of 102 people have been returned to their families and 62 relatives have given blood that is now being used to DNA test other remains in a bid to positively identify them, the airline said.

The crash was the worst aviation tragedy on Pakistani soil.

DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Crashed Air Blue flight's black box found: report

[Lady Macbeth]

Although it's difficult today to see beyond the sorrow,
May looking back in memory help comfort you tomorrow..........

YouTube

YouTube

!

[sonicboom]

Pakistan Air Crash Blamed on Poor Visibilty, Pilot Error


By ANDY PASZTOR
An international team of safety experts believes poor visibility and pilot navigation slipups likely caused last month's crash of a Pakistani airliner that killed 152 people on approach to Islamabad, aviation-industry officials said.

The Airbus A321 operated by Airblue Ltd. was en route from Karachi when it flew into heavily forested hills as it was circling to land at the Islamabad airport in fog and rain. Preliminary information retrieved from the plane's flight-data recorder, according to officials familiar with the details, indicates that its engines, flight-control systems and other onboard equipment operated normally before impact.

Readouts of the recovered "black box," these officials said, also indicate that the cockpit crew at the last moment may have realized the jetliner was on a collision course with the slope and apparently tried to climb out of danger. The plane impacted near a ridge of the Margalla Hills. Early reports indicated that many flights into Islamabad had been cancelled or diverted that morning due to poor visibility, but some eyewitnesses said the weather improved somewhat before the Airblue plane's approach.

It was the second crash of a Pakistani airliner in four years, prompting renewed concerns about the country's aviation safety amid rapid airline industry expansion. Started in 2004 by Pakistani businessman and politician Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Airblue has quickly grown into the nation's No. 2 carrier behind state-owned Pakistani International Airlines Corp.

While the Islamabad probe is far from finished and no determination s have been made, Airbus last week gave the strongest signal yet that it essentially has ruled out aircraft malfunction as a probable cause of the crash

In a message to all A321 operators around the world, said a person familiar with the details, Airbus said information uncovered so far about the Islamabad accident provides "no basis for any recommendations" related to airplane systems or performance. Among aviation-safety experts, such a message is tantamount to saying investigators strongly believe mistakes by the cockpit crew, rather than any airplane malfunctions, most likely were responsible for the crash.

The message was cleared by Pakistani investigators, further indicating that the team of international experts agrees that the accident didn't stem from any airplane problems.

A spokesman for Airbus, a unit of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co., said the company is working with Airblue and the investigating authorities, but gave no further details. A spokesman for Airblue said the investigation "is still not completed, so we cannot say anything at the moment about the causes."

In another sign that investigators are focusing on navigational errors, one safety expert said the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board opted against sending a team to Pakistan once engine issues effectively were ruled out as possible primary or contributing causes. Nevertheless, the board is participating in the investigation from its offices in Washington.

A Pakistani International Airlines jet crashed in June 2006 after taking off from the city of Multan, killing all 45 people on board. Following the crash, the European Union partially banned Pakistani International Airlines from EU airspace, but the ban was lifted in 2007 after the carrier made safety improvements.

—Zahid Hussain contributed to this article.

Pakistan Air Crash Blamed on Visibility, Errors - WSJ.com

[imi101]

yeah it has to be that way

[Condor]

Which way?

[Condor]

The Dim wit of a Pilot - what does he need visibility for when he can land the aircraft without casting a glance outside the cockpit.

[sonicboom]

Ground controller caused AirBlue disaster’

Thursday, September 02, 2010
By Mehtab Haider

ISLAMABAD: The findings of the ongoing investigation into the AirBlue crash are not yet known but some former pilots say that criminal negligence of the ground controllers might have led to the disaster.

According to background interviews of over one dozen pilots having experience of flying of many years raised several questions and said that proper replies to them would help the investigation into this tragedy.
The Airbus came above the Runway 30 at about 800 feet and kept on going straight where it entered into the clouds while approaching the Islamabad Airport. According to the pilots, if you have to land through the Runway 12 instead of 30, then you adjust yourself to the right side of the Islamabad Highway and this is done 3-4 kilometres before the start of the runway, what to talk of coming over the runway.

This aircraft, they said, came over the runway because of some erroneous readings from the flight instruments or because of the pilot’s misjudgment, which is unlikely. In either case, was the aircraft given any call from the ground controller to speak out its intentions, as it came over the runway without any prior clearance and was undergoing a serious violation to the existing Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)?

They said that from here, the plane might have entered into the clouds and in a struggle to pick visual with the ground, quickly took some turns to avoid the clouds. In this endeavour, the plane might have ended up somewhere at the beginning of the 7th Avenue, which pilots take as the Islamabad Highway and in bad visibility and rain take another road on its left (maybe Rehman Baba or any other road in G-7) as the runway and continue to approach for landing on the runway.

Again was this plane given any clear warning by that time that it had already penetrated into the red zone without any such prior flight plan? The whole R/T (radio transmission) should have been crying hoarse at this stage, especially when in the post 9/11 world. This was the moment when the R/T should have held all other activities by giving them a standby call and focused exclusively at handling the ED-202.

At this point of time, the pilots because of some possible erroneous readings from the instruments, bad/sluggish R/T handling from ground controllers and the bad weather had placed themselves over the 7th Avenue heading towards Margalla and actually planning to land somewhere in G-7 Sector, which they were taking for the runway. Obviously, they had no ambiguity in their minds that they were rightly placed.

At this juncture, did the Islamabad radar call the ATC on telephone to check what this aircraft was doing? The question arises why the radar controller did not give a serious caution call on guard frequency (reserved frequency for this sort of emergencies, so that everyone can hear you). The ATC, after handling other traffic, gave a call to AirBlue. Imagine this aircraft is seconds away and heading towards the death valley and ground controllers are aware of it but even then gave a sluggish response.

The ATC gave a call to aircraft after a while telling him he was away from the runway, whereas the pilots were certain that they were in sight of the runway. Even if you are at a height of 8,000 feet instead of 800 feet that too in absolute good visibility, you cannot see the runway, keeping in view the direction of the aircraft.

The ground controller should have had clearly ordered at that point that they were grossly mistaken and disorientated, to disregard the landing approach and climb up. Our “efficient” ATC just said, “Be watchful, Margalla ahead”. The aircraft took it as a general advice and said they could see. After that when probably flight instruments gave a warning to the aircraft about some obstruction ahead, the ATC gave the call to turn left immediately and the 1st pilot Muntajib screamed to pull up but it was too late by then.

In this chain of events, one thing is quite clear that the ground controller (both ATC and Radar control) took it very casually and failed to develop any level of urgency among the pilots that they happened to be following a course which was totally in violation with the existing SOPs, they added.
They kept on giving routine daily casual calls without realizing that lives of hundreds of innocent persons were at stake. A clear order, a little initiative or a small presence of mind from any of the ground controllers could have averted this aviation disaster.

The persons involved in this criminal negligence must be brought to the book and given an exemplary punishment to avoid such fatal slackness in future. At the same time, training and selection criteria for the ground controllers must be reviewed at this stage. Only suitable and motivated persons should be selected for this vital job instead of making it a parking place for people who are dropped from other professions. During the training, extreme sense of responsibility is to be developed among these gentlemen. They should be given training on modern pattern, including simulations of different scenarios, just like in other advanced countries, the pilots added.

www.thenews.com.pk - Security Verification

[peace13]

Main reason of all mentioned is fatigue which was later on coupled with all other in my point of view. As we are a group of people who just want to get the job done out of our employees. If somebody is doing a job of pilot then he should be restricted to aircraft duties only but here it is not the case. As in Pakistan jobs are already very less even for pilots so their bosses blackmail them by getting 9 AM to 5 PM administration duties and then either a night flight or day.