Airbus A320 crash in Pakistan

"pip bip - choose Corrour" (hhgttg69)
05/22/2020 at 09:37 • Filed to: airbus, A320, bbc, Pakistan, ttyymmnn

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DISCUSSION (34)

Just Jeepin' > pip bip - choose Corrour
05/22/2020 at 09:41

Ouch. 2020, man.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > pip bip - choose Corrour
05/22/2020 at 09:43

Lost BOTH engines? Whoa. Raises interesting questions on fuel supply and quality...

ItalianJobR53 - now with added 'MERICA and unreliability > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
05/22/2020 at 09:53

Quantity mostly since it crashed while on approach

ttyymmnn > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
05/22/2020 at 09:54

I have read different reports on the cockpit recording, one says it lost one engine, another said it lost both engines. If you listen to the actual recording , it’s hard to tell exactly what the pilot said, but it sounds to me like, “We’ve lost an engine...” I’m fairly certain he didn’t say “both.”

Future next gen S2000 owner > ItalianJobR53 - now with added 'MERICA and unreliability
05/22/2020 at 09:58

I’ll be a good internet commenter and wildly speculate. An incorrect fuel calc?

Future next gen S2000 owner > ttyymmnn
05/22/2020 at 09:58

Shouldn’t most modern jets be able to fly on one, at least limp back to an airport.

Svend > pip bip - choose Corrour
05/22/2020 at 10:02

Bloody hell, I hope they find more survivors.

I’m guessing the aircraft wasn’t properly stored and brought back into service post lost down.

pip bip - choose Corrour > Svend
05/22/2020 at 10:03

good point there

ttyymmnn > Future next gen S2000 owner
05/22/2020 at 10:04

“How far can we fly on one engine?”

“All the way to the scene of the crash.”

—Ron White

Actually, a modern airliner should be able to take off, fly, and land, on a single engine. There’s clearly more going on here, and it’s still very early in the investigation.

Roadkilled > pip bip - choose Corrour
05/22/2020 at 10:10

Juan Browne will likely have an update on his blancolirio YouTube channel within the next day or two. He is usually very good at sorting out the facts for aviation incidents.

DipodomysDeserti > Future next gen S2000 owner
05/22/2020 at 10:10

I think we’ve learned over the last few years that modern planes can’t even function with all their engines operating fine.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn
05/22/2020 at 10:11

Yeah, the initial reports are always all over the map, too. FDRs should tell the story.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > Future next gen S2000 owner
05/22/2020 at 10:12

PPRUNE is where they go wild... mostly because they are mostly commercial pilots and they can indulge their wildest fantasies in complete speculation.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn
05/22/2020 at 10:16

BTW, PPRUNE is also showing pics and videos of what appear to be a large jet fuel fed fire, which raged for quite awhile. I don’t believe they ran out of fuel. The ADS data log is also out...

Kinja'd!!!

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > Roadkilled
05/22/2020 at 10:17

Juan lost me with his bad info on the Kobe crash... I stopped watching based on bad reporting there.

ItalianJobR53 - now with added 'MERICA and unreliability > Future next gen S2000 owner
05/22/2020 at 10:18

I’ll join you and speculate that they used diesel instead of gas

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > pip bip - choose Corrour
05/22/2020 at 10:23

PPRUNE once again does not disappoint in the “wild speculation” department— even the first page manages to mention “Ramadan”, “fasting”, “low blood sugar” and “pilot dehydration” as possible causes.

The Flight Tracker confirms they’d shot one missed approach, with a lot of conjecture on whether the gear was down on the first and second attempts.

ttyymmnn > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
05/22/2020 at 10:37

Kinja'd!!!

This purports to be a photo of the plane prior to crash. Underside of engines charred, smoke from at least left engine. Have you heard anything about whether or not their problems began at altitude? That descent seems a bit precipitous. Hard to imagine a double birds trick at 34k feet.

ttyymmnn > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
05/22/2020 at 10:41

Yeah, I was a bit confused by that whole Ramadan thing.

Roadkilled > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
05/22/2020 at 10:50

I would consider myself an aviation enthusiast, not a professional. It’s likely that I missed the issues with the Kobe reporting. I’m curious about what Juan Browne got wrong. I don’t want to follow somebody who makes mistakes. Do you have other sources I should look at?

Cé hé sin > ttyymmnn
05/22/2020 at 10:53

There’s a suggestion that they might have landed wheels up (hence damage to lower side of each engine), taken off again, damaged engine(s) failed and then came down.

Cé hé sin > Svend
05/22/2020 at 10:54

Wasn’t its first flight after storage though.

ttyymmnn > Cé hé sin
05/22/2020 at 10:57

If that’s the case, I think they would have done a heck of a lot more damage to those engines.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn
05/22/2020 at 11:00

After both Lion Air and ET crashes those howlers were NON-STOP with the “oh, it’s clearly pilot training, their standards are so low”... until somebody pointed out that ET had among the best safety records in the world. And, actually were the first to commit to dedicated MAX simulators for their pilots.

Of course, they said the same about Asiana— not without some justification I suppose.

Usually, the first 36 hours after an incident it’s hard to sort through the wheat-and-chaff over there. There are a few very, very knowledgeable old-timers, so it’s worth monitoring to eventually figure out the story.

I’m skeptical that “Ramadan” has much to do with this one.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn
05/22/2020 at 11:04

Yeah, I’m a little skeptical of the timing for that photo... Given no obvious tail damage? I’m guessing an enthusiast had an old pic of the airframe, which clearly shows oil leak and smoke accumulation on both engines. But I’d be very surprised if that’s a photo from today

Svend > Cé hé sin
05/22/2020 at 11:24

It doesn’t have to be.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > Roadkilled
05/22/2020 at 12:44

I actually like the Mentour Pilot guy a lot— he’s the first one to publish (and took some heat from Boeing over it...) about the insanely high “manual trim” forces anybody in a MAX would have faced in the Death Scenario. He’s smart, well-informed and does his research.

I also like the Live ATC guy who annotates wonderfully the ADS-B tracks with ATC audio to piece together aviation incidents. All great stuff.

Relative to Juan? I’ll start with positives— his love for his Luscombe is admirable and his pieces about back country flying and various fly-ins are superb.

Regarding Juan’s views on aviation breaking news? two main bitches:
1) He skips basic fact-checking... which is a troubling trait in a commercial pilot. Some of his “facts” are just wrong
2) He’s got US-Pilot-Boeing-Worship Syndrome, which is very perplexing in the Time Of MAX. Early, wow, he’d just quote what was obviously BS from Boeing like it was fact.

EXAMPLES: In the case of Kobe’s crash, I live nearby, know a lot of pilots who fly out of both SNA and Camarillo, the origin and destination points for Kobe. And, I happened to drive through there 40 minutes before the crash that day, so I think I have a better handle on weather conditions than Juan broadcasting from the high Sierra.

Kobe’s deal.
1) Juan kept talking about Kobe flying to Thousand Oaks, where the Sports Academy was. WRONG on several levels. a) No helipad b) They never attempted on any previous flight to land up there and had no intention. c) Destination was Camarillo Airport, as per previous trips, with limo waiting to run them up to T.O. d) Flight Plan filed to CAMARILLO.

2) Numerous mis-statements about the Special VFR clearance and rules for civilian aircraft transiting BUR and Van Nuys airspace

3) To top it all off, then Juan quotes the weather report from BUR, 15 miles away as reflecting what was happening in Conejo Pass (wrong) and wrongly asserting that “all they had to do” was execute a 500 feet vertical climb to be out in clear air. Wrong-Wrong-Wrong. Besides violating the SVFR clearance, the Pass and Malibu canyon both had the triefecta of coastal marine layer, ground fog up in the passes and an adjoining very low overcast. It was pure soup in there when I drove through. Worst I’d seen in a long time.

The sad reality is that a simple check of weather at Camarillo that morning and confirmation from ground stations would have convinced them to leave it on the ground that morning in SNA. They actually, being a quiet Sunday morning with no traffic, would have gotten to Thousand Oaks much faster had they just taken a limo. Really. That would have been faster. I assume Kobe was just showing off for the parents, but a limo was the right call. Or, a Pilatus PC-12 with IFR equipment and ATC help. SNA-Camarillo. I have no idea why this happened, but I’d expect changes in helicopter limo rules.

MAX
Juan also, candidly, pissed me off early in MAX with subtle “blame the pilots”, which is the usual US-based Boeing driver conceit. Coupled with his nonsense statements about MAX dynamic aero stability and soft-peddling MCAS as a “adjusting subtle handling traits” and he came across as a Boeing sock puppet. Harsh, but that’s my view. He’s entertaining, but he’s not a safety engineer and he’s definitely not an aerospace engineer, so he should stay in his swim lane.

YMMV

Roadkilled > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
05/22/2020 at 13:14

Thanks for the information. This helps. Captain Joe way my entry into YouTube aviation. I think I ran into Mentour next. 74Gear seems good for entertainment and occasional information on 747s. My personal experience is limited. I had 30 minutes at the controls of a Cessna 152 in 1983 and I’ve only been a passenger since then.

ttyymmnn > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
05/22/2020 at 13:28

I was reading comments over on Aviation Herald and somebody pointed out that the RAT is deployed, which lends some credence to this photo in an engines-out scenario . However, there is another security video that shows the a/c going in nose high, which is a different attitude than this photo. Of course, the photo could have been altered. I know there are a lot of plane spotters out there, but a photo this good appearing so soon after the crash still seems a little bit sketchy.

Early conjecture seems to be centered around fuel starvation during a go-around due to increased drag. Also lots of conjecture about the mechanical state of the airplane having spent two months in storage. This was its second flight, apparently.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > Roadkilled
05/22/2020 at 13:32

I’m just a light-sport wannabe, but did the full undergraduate aeronautical engineering sequence and worked for years on control systems (including safety systems in some DoD programs).

The MAX thing should force Boeing to be broken up to get some adults back into leadership. MAX is a complete abomination.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn
05/22/2020 at 13:35

I’m completely in the dark, so it’s the same speculation I’m critical of I suppose. The actual videos show what looked (and it could be the smoke I suppose) like a grey, overcast day, so I was confused by the airframe shown against a perfect blue sky. not impossible, but I can’t fully explain the disconnect. Just looked like a file photo but I could easily be off base.

ttyymmnn > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
05/22/2020 at 13:39

Other videos show blue sky in the area. The part I’m having trouble with is the theory of an attempted gear-up landing that damaged the engines. Unless they got really lucky, I think there would be far more damage to the a/c than is shown in that photo. Of course, time will tell.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn
05/22/2020 at 13:56

Yeah, definitely harsh shadows on the ground, so it was sunny.

It’s frustrating to see the wildly conflicting reports— because if the gear wasn’t down, and with one missed approach, the tower and somebody at ATC should know exactly what’s happened. The Airbus drivers claim it’s virtually impossible to land an Airbus gear up, so they think it implausible that they could have tried to land once (gear up), TOGA’d with damaged engines, then crashed. BUTTTTTT those same pundits claim the redundant gear systems make it pretty impossible to NOT get the gear down in an emergency.

In the “oops” scenario I suppose it’s possible they lost all primary electrical, but with the RAT down why did you lose control? Unless they had enough thrust to TOGA, blew both engines up, then lost control ?

My head hurts. This one should have the fog dissipate quickly I’d think.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn
05/22/2020 at 14:03

I’ll retract my earlier doubts on the photo— the detail over on PPRUNE does show extensive damage to both nacelles, which would be consistent with runway incursion. Apparently they declared a TOGA due to “nose wheel not down”, but the question would be whether any gear was down at all? Or, not locked?

It’s a mystery.