Karachi havariet - Oppdatering - Curt Lewis

PIA A320 landed gear-up and performed go-around before fatal accident at Karachi, Pakistan

Status:	Preliminary
Date:	Friday 22 May 2020
Time:	14:40
Type:	Airbus A320-214
Operator:	Pakistan International Airlines - PIA
Registration:	AP-BLD
C/n / msn:	2274
First flight:	2004-08-17 (15 years 9 months)
Total airframe hrs:	47124
Engines:	2 CFMI CFM56-5B4/P
Crew:	Fatalities: 8 / Occupants: 8
Passengers:	Fatalities: 89 / Occupants: 91
Total:	Fatalities: 97 / Occupants: 99
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Aircraft fate:	Written off (damaged beyond repair)
Location:	1,4 km (0.9 mls) E of Karachi-Jinnah International Airport (KHI) (   Pakistan)
Phase:	Approach (APR)
Nature:	Domestic Scheduled Passenger
Departure airport:	Lahore-Allama Iqbal International Airport (LHE/OPLA), Pakistan
Destination airport:	Karachi-Jinnah International Airport (KHI/OPKC), Pakistan
Flightnumber:	PK8303

Narrative:
Pakistan International Airlines flight 8303, an Airbus A320, crashed on approach to Karachi-Jinnah International Airport (KHI), Pakistan. The airline stated there were 91 passengers on board and 8 crew members. Officials involved in the rescue operation reported that 97 bodies have been recovered and that two passengers have survived the accident.
The flight departed Lahore at 13:05 hours local time (08:05 UTC) and was expected to arrive at Karachi about 14:45 (09:45 UTC). About 14:32 the flight reported to the air traffic controller of Karachi Tower that they were descending from 3500 to 3000 feet and established on the ILS for runway 25L. The controller replied: "copy that, turn left heading 180". Because that would take them away from the ILS approach the flight replied, "Sir, we are established on ILS 25L". The Tower controller then stated they were 5 miles from touch down and subsequently cleared the flight to land.
According to the ILS approach chart for Karachi Airport, an aircraft a distance of 5 DME should be at an altitude of about 1680 ft. Transponder altitude data captured by Flightradar24 suggests that the aircraft was descending between 4050 and 3725 feet at the time the controller reported that the flight was 5 miles out.
The aircraft continued the approach. What exactly transpired is unclear at this time, but ARY News quoted from a CAA Pakistan report that stated scrape marks from the no.1 engine started on the runway at 4500 feet (1370 m) from the threshold followed by no.2 engine scrape marks at 5500 feet (1675 m).
At 14:35 the flight crew radioed that they were going around and requested another ILS approach to runway 25L. The controller instructed the flight to turn left heading 110 and climb to 3000 feet. Four minutes later the flight reported they had "lost engines" and subsequently declared a Mayday. The controller cleared the flight to land with both runways (25L and 25R) available.
The aircraft crashed in a residential area named Model Colony, about 1360 m short of the threshold of runway 25L. The aircraft broke up and a large post-impact fire erupted.

Data recorder found in Pakistan jet crash


Pakistani officials said Saturday that they retrieved the flight-data recorder of the Airbus SE A320 jet that crashed into a residential neighborhood of Karachi, killing all but two people on board.

The search is still on for the voice recorder, said Abdul Sattar Khokhar, spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority. The two recorders make up the so-called black box and store details of a plane's path as well as its mechanical systems and computers.

Analysis of the devices may give investigators clues why Flight PK 8303 decided to go around for a second approach. The pilot also reported losing power from both engines before the crash, which killed 97 travelers on board the state-run Pakistan International Airlines Corp. aircraft en route from the northern city of Lahore.

"There was fire everywhere, and everyone was screaming after the crash. I opened my seat belt and headed toward the light," Muhammad Zubair, a survivor who was sitting in the eighth row, said on a local television broadcast.

Pakistan has set up a four-member panel, which will report on the disaster in three months, Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said in a televised briefing Saturday.

The crash happened as the nation went into holidays to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the annual Muslim festival. It also resulted in people getting injured on the ground as the plane plunged into a residential neighborhood, affecting 25 houses.

These houses have been cleared and their residents have been sheltered at various places, the Pakistan army's media wing, the Inter Services Public Relations, said in a Twitter update on rescue work.

Television footage showed cars and homes on fire in the neighborhood near the airport in the nation's commercial hub. The narrow-body jet entered service in 2004 and was operated by Pakistan International since 2014, Airbus said.

The pilots in Friday's crash reported losing power from both engines, according to a recording from LiveATC.net, which collects audio feeds from air-traffic controllers.

Airbus said it was providing technical assistance to France's Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses and to Pakistani authorities in charge of the investigation. The company is working on getting a team to the crash site, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Engine manufacturer CFM International and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board are monitoring the situation, representatives for both said. CFM is a joint venture of General Electric Co. and Safran SA.

A probe into the accident will be conducted soon, Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Twitter.

Crashed PIA aircraft's pilot ignored warnings from air traffic controllers thrice

The national flag carrier's PK-8303 tragedy on Friday, in which 97 people were killed and two miraculously survived, is one of the most catastrophic aviation disasters in the country's history.


The pilot of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA)'s crashed plane ignored three warnings from the air traffic controllers about the aircraft's altitude and speed before the landing, saying he was satisfied and would handle the situation, according to a report on Monday.

The national flag carrier's PK-8303 tragedy on Friday, in which 97 people were killed and two miraculously survived, is one of the most catastrophic aviation disasters in the country's history.

The Airbus A-320 from Lahore to Karachi was 15 nautical miles from the Jinnah International Airport, flying at an altitude of 10,000 feet above the ground instead of 7,000 when the Air Traffic Control (ATC) issued its first warning to lower the plane"s altitude, Geo News quoted an ATC report as saying.

Instead of lowering the altitude, the pilot responded by saying that he was satisfied. When only 10 nautical miles were left till the airport, the plane was at an altitude of 7,000 feet instead of 3,000 feet, it said.

The ATC issued a second warning to the pilot to lower the plane's altitude. However, the pilot responded again by stating that he was satisfied and would handle the situation, saying he was ready for landing, the report said.

The report said that the plane had enough fuel to fly for two hours and 34 minutes, while its total flying time was recorded at one hour and 33 minutes.

Pakistani investigators are trying to find out if the crash is attributable to a pilot error or a technical glitch.

According to a report prepared by the country's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the plane"s engines had scraped the runway thrice on the pilot's first attempt to land, causing friction and sparks recorded by the experts.

When the aircraft scraped the ground on the first failed attempt at landing, the engine's oil tank and fuel pump may have been damaged and started to leak, preventing the pilot from achieving the required thrust and speed to raise the aircraft to safety, the report said.

The pilot made a decision "on his own" to undertake a "go-around" after he failed to land the first time. It was only during the go-around that the ATC was informed that landing gear was not deploying, it said.

"The pilot was directed by the air traffic controller to take the aircraft to 3,000 feet, but he managed only 1,800. When the cockpit was reminded to go for the 3,000 feet level, the first officer said "we are trying"," the report said.

Experts said that the failure to achieve the directed height indicates that the engines were not responding. The aircraft, thereafter, tilted and crashed suddenly.

The flight crashed at the Jinnah Garden area near Model Colony in Malir on Friday afternoon, minutes before its landing in Karachi's Jinnah International Airport. Eleven people on the ground were injured.

The probe team, headed by Air Commodore Muhammad Usman Ghani, President of the Aircraft Accident and Investigation Board, is expected to submit a full report in about three months.

According to the PIA's engineering and maintenance department, the last check of the plane was done on March 21 this year and it had flown from Muscat to Lahore a day before the crash.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pakistan government had allowed the limited domestic flight operations from five major airports - Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta - from May 16. After the plane tragedy, the PIA has called off its domestic operation.