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Pilots and Controller Blamed for Pakistani A320 Crash
AAIB has released the preliminary report on the PIA A320 accident a month after the crash. According to the report, the flight crew failed to extend landing gear, leading to a gear-up landing and initiated a go-around with damaged engines. Investigators also accused the crew of being overconfident. (airlinegeeks.com) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
In Canada, in the days I was a Twr and thereafter a TCU controller, the only involvement of ATC related to landing gears was to issue a "check gear down " with the landing clearance. Observing a/c on final approach was not part of the job since it would be a function impossible to perform anyway. Wx, day/night, distance of the final approach area from the twr, a/c landing attitude, name it. Furthermore, and I believe it was the case in this accident, the approach controller often obtains the landing cx from the tower to keep the a/c on his frequency. Especially here, the a/c was kept with TCU since it is obvious the controller was worried about that flight and expected that the pilots (if we can use that term here!) would abandon that approach. A landing cx is not an instruction or an obligation to land, it is only a declaration saying that if you put down on a runway, you won't find any other known traffic or obstacle on it. When someone is so determined to jump of the cliff, don't blame the whole world when he finally succeeds...
I take my hat off to whoever designed the innate strength of those Airbus engine nacelles!
Land, scrape, take off again - not bad, just a shame that the damage to the engines had occurred during the bump. Rest in peace. Mike
Land, scrape, take off again - not bad, just a shame that the damage to the engines had occurred during the bump. Rest in peace. Mike
Hopefully PIA is no longer allowed to fly into any major airports. Imagine these goons over London, or Manhattan....
Many years ago an 'air force somewhere' considered the 'wheels up' problem. At the time the SOP was a/c call 'callsign finals 3 greens'. It was felt by some the call had become automatic without checking, eg from fixed u/c a/c and the occasional landing with no greens following a 'finals 3 greens' call. One suggestion came from a PhD student who knew nothing about flying. He suggested the gear down lights be replaced with random digits. He assumed that no-one actually wanted to land wheels up; his paper was about showing that on asking someone to say a 3 digit number, it was easier to read them off than make them up
Many years ago, my younger brother was flying in one of the University Air Squadrons in the UK. St Athan was closed for Runway resurfacing, so they were flying across to Brawdy, over in Pembrokeshire.
RAF Brawdy was mainly accustomed to fast-jet trainers (Hawk), so little brother was amused when Brawdy called up with "confirm undercarriage down and locked".
The response: "Bulldog 45, confirming undercarriage down and welded" merely evoked the laconic response:
"Sorry four-five; continue approach".
RAF ATC - ya gotta luv 'em!
RAF Brawdy was mainly accustomed to fast-jet trainers (Hawk), so little brother was amused when Brawdy called up with "confirm undercarriage down and locked".
The response: "Bulldog 45, confirming undercarriage down and welded" merely evoked the laconic response:
"Sorry four-five; continue approach".
RAF ATC - ya gotta luv 'em!
And I seem to remember that Canadian ATC wanted the change to relieve them from perceived liability in a gear up accident. We always used a gear down verbal call by the PF followed by gear down selection by the PNF and a verbal “confirm” from the PF.......absence of this confirmation call from the PF and the PNF would not continue the checklist until one was received and acknowledged.
Can't believe they settled on the runway, SELECTED REVERSE THRUST, and then performed a go around!