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Old 29th May 2020, 13:45   #106
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Re: Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320 crashes near Karachi; 97 dead

Investigators find ₹30 million in wreckage of crashed Pakistan aircraft

Investigators and rescue officials have found around ₹30 million in cash in the wreckage of the Pakistan International Airlines’ aircraft that crashed with 99 people on board, killing 97 people, including nine children.
Flight PK-8303 from Lahore to Karachi crashed in a residential area near Karachi International Airport on Friday, with only two passengers miraculously surviving the crash.
...

https://www.thehindu.com/news/intern...le31700369.ece
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Old 29th May 2020, 14:16   #107
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Re: Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320 crashes near Karachi; 97 dead

I have no direct hands-on aviation expertise, my exposure is limited to reading and watching stuff, but humor me for a second because this applies to any sort of analysis, and I do have some background in analytics (a small part of it in flight ops).

Every bit of analysis can start at two points: 'what went wrong?', or 'who did wrong?'. Very important to choose wisely, because outcomes can vary widely based on which direction one goes.

Most impartial analyses start with 'what went wrong?', and take a 'let evidence lead us where it may' approach.

Starting with 'what' and following the evidence often leads to one or more 'what' and 'who', because every incident can ultimately be traced back to a decision made at some point in the chain, whether by a human or a machine programmed by a human: end user operation, process flow, manufacturing/maintenance practices (including materials used), design decisions etc. Each decision, small or big, can lead to different outcomes.

In contrast, if analysis starts with 'who', there's a very real possibility that the incident gets chalked up to human error, and underlying product/process issues don't get scrutinized to the extent they should, and issues left untraced. End result? Potential repeat instances, with a different 'who'.

Incidents are outcomes, based on a chain of events/decisions, and they never happen in isolation. That's probably the most cliched thing that's said in every episode of 'Air Crash Investigation' and similar shows, but that's because it's 100% true.

It's always in the analyst/investigator's best interest to cast the investigative net as widely as possible to begin with, with zero unsubstantiated assumptions, and then let actual evidence narrow it down to root cause.

'Don't expect a faulty premise to deliver a consistent conclusion', as a beloved mentor said often.

Last edited by Chetan_Rao : 29th May 2020 at 17:29. Reason: typo
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Old 29th May 2020, 14:48   #108
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Re: Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320 crashes near Karachi; 97 dead

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Originally Posted by girishv View Post
Investigators find ₹30 million in wreckage of crashed Pakistan aircraft
That's interesting. Doesn't that sound like something straight out of a Tom Clancy novel?. If it is indeed true then you can expect an early closure of the investigation. It would also explain to some extent the pilot behavior. Who knows under what stress he was in.
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Old 29th May 2020, 15:01   #109
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Re: Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320 crashes near Karachi; 97 dead

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Originally Posted by srini1785 View Post
That's interesting. Doesn't that sound like something straight out of a Tom Clancy novel?. If it is indeed true then you can expect an early closure of the investigation. It would also explain to some extent the pilot behavior. Who knows under what stress he was in.
Did i miss something? How does any large sum of money found in the wreckage affect the crew performance?
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Old 29th May 2020, 15:20   #110
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Re: Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320 crashes near Karachi; 97 dead

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Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao View Post
In contrast, if analysis starts with 'who', there's a very real possibility that the incident gets chalked up to human error, and underlying product/process issues don't get scrutinized to the extent they should, and issues left untraced. End result? Potential repeat instances, with a different 'who'.
Thanks for your post. Very true. Getting to the real root cause can be difficult, complex and lengthy. I have seen cases in my own industry as well.

Whenever we have major network outages, there is an investigations of course, in depth and the teams will try to establish the root cause.

I have seen cases where the rootcause was described as: “The technician whilst executing the software update gave a wrong command”. That is not a root cause.

Why was a wrong command given? Was it a genuine mistake, carelessness, wrong procedure, wrong instruction, insufficient training.

In my experience, it is rare to have a root cause stop at a single individual. Unless that particular individual was sloppy or deliberately was trying to sabotage. You need to bring it down to the level of understanding why that individual did what he or she did? What caused the behaviour. Because only at the level can you fix the problem and prevent it from happening again.

Pilot error, as a concept, often seems to disregard the above. Once we have established it was a case of pilot error, blame can be apportioned, maybe the odd amendment on a procedure or so.

I believe in many cases human behaviour and what causes humans to behave in certain (illogical?) ways is not understood, or certain “expectation” are already a given, without any evidence.

We have seen some interesting examples on this very thread. Any time you assume something, expect something you are closing your mind as to what really might have happened.

Jeroen
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Old 29th May 2020, 15:32   #111
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Re: Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320 crashes near Karachi; 97 dead

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Originally Posted by V.Narayan View Post
Air Blue incident of 2010
.....The co-pilot of this Air Blue flight was an ex- Air Force fighter pilot.
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Originally Posted by Jeroen View Post
i seem to recall there was a time where for instance KLM would not recruit ex air force pilots. (70-80s?) Whereas they tend to have superior stick and rudder skills, they tended to have to much of a cavalier attitude. Certainly in those days!
I did not mean to imply that the co-Pilot's military background was to blame in the Air Blue crash. I did not write that para too well. In fact, in that particular case, it was the poor CRM behaviour of the Capt that did the flight in. I had limited experience in my (ex-) business of fighter pilots but I did have many ex-transport , LRMP and helicopter pilots from 9 countries to be precise. They did quite fine as far as flying skills are concerned. Almost all took time adjusting to the less structured, less hierarchical and {I dare say} less straight civilian world. But yes the instinctive muscle memory has to be re-learnt completely, like completely. Within this I found, consistently, that chopper pilots adjusted to civilian flying the quickest. On the other side the maintenance engineers who came out of the Indian military were almost always very good. As I mentioned once before on T-BHP my experience with women pilots was always very good. Here I am referring to attitude and approach in addition to flying skills. I also observed that today's younger generation of pilots (below 40) are more grounded and professionally humble than their peers 25 years ago. I think that is the case in the Indian military too.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeroen View Post

In my experience, it is rare to have a root cause stop at a single individual. Unless that particular individual was sloppy or deliberately was trying to sabotage. You need to bring it down to the level of understanding why that individual did what he or she did? What caused the behaviour. Because only at the level can you fix the problem and prevent it from happening again.

Pilot error, as a concept, often seems to disregard the above. Once we have established it was a case of pilot error, blame can be apportioned, maybe the odd amendment on a procedure or so.

I believe in many cases human behaviour and what causes humans to behave in certain (illogical?) ways is not understood, or certain “expectation” are already a given, without any evidence.
+1 to that. Under stress, in an emergency humans behave the way that they were trained, sometimes the way they are expected to and the way their culture allows them to. As they say in the Royal Navy, 'when under fire you will default to your training & drill'. Sadly in air crash investigations, especially those outside USA, Western Europe & Australia once we establish it as pilot error some airlines/ civil aviation bodies do not go deeper as to what caused that pilot to behave the way he/she did. What factors in the environment contributed. I know for sure in Indian civil aviation we do not go to the right depth. Sad but true.

Last edited by V.Narayan : 29th May 2020 at 15:52.
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Old 29th May 2020, 15:43   #112
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Re: Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320 crashes near Karachi; 97 dead

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeroen View Post
...
Why was a wrong command given? Was it a genuine mistake, carelessness, wrong procedure, wrong instruction, insufficient training.

...You need to bring it down to the level of understanding why that individual did what he or she did? What caused the behaviour. Because only at the level can you fix the problem and prevent it from happening again...

Very true, and you demonstrated it better with your example.

Actions that trigger incidents are often not the cause themselves, but the outcome of several decisions made along the way of arriving at that action.

Essentially, a thorough investigation needs you to keep asking 'why?' until you arrive at a point where you don't need to ask anymore.

Last edited by Chetan_Rao : 29th May 2020 at 15:44.
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Old 29th May 2020, 16:11   #113
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Re: Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320 crashes near Karachi; 97 dead

Quote:
Originally Posted by V.Narayan View Post
. On the other side the maintenance engineers who came out of the Indian military were almost always very good. As I mentioned once before on T-BHP my experience with women pilots was always very good. Here I am referring to attitude and approach in addition to flying skills. I also observed that today's younger generation of pilots (below 40) are more grounded and professionally humble than their peers 25 years ago. I think that is the case in the Indian military too.
.
Interesting observations! I was reading up on some research comparing male to female pilots some time ago. In general the females came out better. That is not to say in general female pilots are better than male pilots. It is probably of reflection of a handful of very determined ladies making their way into the pilot word. The average in this small female group is likely to be higher for obvious reason than the average in a very large male group.

As usual I will add here that I am a very strong believer in the strength of diversity. So a cockpit with a male and female pilot is likely to combine the best of both.

In the Telecom Industry we have quite a few people who have a military background. Both technical as well as managerial. Always very knowleable and very professional.

Whilst in India I several of my LT members had military background too. And we also started recruiting females from the army in particular for our Field Support teams. I have always been a huge fan of the Indian army. Very professional people.

I do echo your sentiments with respect to the young generation of pilots and aviators. On the aviation/pilot forums there is much talk about the children of the Magneta line, the lack of manual flying skills etc. There is likely to be some truth in that. But lets not forget there are a whole bunch of oldtimers out there that still struggle in a glass cockpit environment when the going gets tough.

What I have yet to see, is any real evidence, research into “lack of manual flying skills”. Plenty of anecdotal evidence, but does not prove anything perse.

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Old 29th May 2020, 17:57   #114
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Re: Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320 crashes near Karachi; 97 dead

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Originally Posted by Jeroen View Post
What I have yet to see, is any real evidence, research into “lack of manual flying skills”. Plenty of anecdotal evidence, but does not prove anything perse.

Jeroen
One of the anecdotal evidences may be in regards to the Air France A330 accident back in 2009, where the senior relief captain rushed into the cockpit at the last moment while the plane was into stall and figured out that they needed to actually push the nose down to get airspeed going , whereas both the pilots flying the plane were doing more or less the opposite.

But also referring to your inputs on the Sterile cockpit, what struck me with the PK 8303 incident was the sorta casual tone of the query. Ordinarily, one would quickly ask "Sir, what's with the bright runway lights today? " . But he seemed to be wanting a conversation- " if you dont mind" " Is it by mistake or whatever". All this while the plane is barely off the ground sounded a bit odd.
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Old 29th May 2020, 19:13   #115
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Re: Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320 crashes near Karachi; 97 dead

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Originally Posted by fhdowntheline View Post
But also referring to your inputs on the Sterile cockpit, what struck me with the PK 8303 incident was the sorta casual tone of the query. Ordinarily, one would quickly ask "Sir, what's with the bright runway lights today? " . But he seemed to be wanting a conversation- " if you dont mind" " Is it by mistake or whatever". All this while the plane is barely off the ground sounded a bit odd.
It is obviously personal what you hear in this.

Really, I had not given it any thought, really, when I heard it first time. I only went back to it, when I saw some questions/comments.

I haven’t seen anybody commenting on their tone of conversation, or this particular piece of text, on for instance PPRuNe. We have a few current commercial pilots on the forum, perhaps one of them might comment.

Even during sterile cockpit operation, if you listen to ATC recordings, you are likely to pick up the odd piece of conversation here and there. All pilots know the relevance of not just sterile cockpit, but also brisk and to the point conversation only on the radio. VHF channels are narrow, easily clutter up, so no idle talk is the rule. But once in a while it happens. With a question like this, or a remark or even a little joke

A few years ago I was second in line for take off in our Cirrus SR22, with a few more 737s behind us. We were still rolling along the runway on the parallel taxiway, we were about half way. A 777 was already in take off position and had been given his take off clearance. So we were expecting him to start rolling. But he called out on the radio, stating they had to run a few additional check and needed a minute or so, before rolling.

The controller immediately asked us if we could take the next entry to the runway and expedite our departure, which would put us in front of the 777. I confirmed and turned onto the runway.

At that point the 777 calls out on the radio: “The little plane in front of us better hurry up, because we are coming after you”.

I replied “triple-7 please observe adequate wake turbulence spacing”. (For context the wake turbulence created by a Cirrus in relation to a 777, we might as well have been a mosquito).

Nothing else was set, but there were probably smiles on everybody faces that was tuned into that frequency.

But technically, against protocol.


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Old 29th May 2020, 19:45   #116
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Re: Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320 crashes near Karachi; 97 dead

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Originally Posted by Jeroen View Post
I replied “triple-7 please observe adequate wake turbulence spacing”. (For context the wake turbulence created by a Cirrus in relation to a 777, we might as well have been a mosquito) Jeroen
Literally cracked up on this..

I have been on a few United Airlines flights and listened to Channel-9 (Pilot ATC talk). I was once on a Chicago-Boston flight on a B757 and our (female) Captain was incessantly arguing with the enroute ATCs for better altitude because of weather issues, we wanted FL390, they gave us FL350 or something like that. One of the ATCs in the Albany area (if I recall correctly) said, " UAxx you have been quite the firecracker tonight"

Get your point on informality of conversations. My only thing was the phase of the flight. Of course, this is now noticeable because of the unfortunate turn of events.

Last edited by fhdowntheline : 29th May 2020 at 19:46.
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Old 29th May 2020, 23:36   #117
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Re: Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320 crashes near Karachi; 97 dead

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Originally Posted by V.Narayan View Post
I did not mean to imply that the co-Pilot's military background was to blame in the Air Blue crash.
Maybe in a convoluted way.

Reports say that co-pilot was a former F16 pilot. The jocks of Pakistan's airspace. So the captain thinks the co-pilot needs to be put in his place, and constantly berates him right through the flight. Mentioned as possibly one of the reasons for the co-pilot not correcting the pilots actions.

If the co-pilot had not been a former F16 pilot, who knows.

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Old 29th May 2020, 23:41   #118
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Re: Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320 crashes near Karachi; 97 dead

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Originally Posted by fhdowntheline View Post
Literally cracked up on this..
.
here is some more:

https://aviationhumor.net/atc-quotes/

Search for ATC joke on youtube and you find dozens of actual ATC pilot conversations too. Some very funny!

And of course, everybody that is interest in ATC must listen to Kennedy Steve and Boston John

https://thepointsguy.com/guide/air-t...d-boston-john/

Absolute legendary controllers. have a listen to the few videos in the above link. Some of it is just hilarious. And for the ATC conspiracy theorist: to my earlier points; All ATC pilot conversation is on unencrypted simple VHF. Tune in and be amazed, it is all the real McCoy!! Thousands of aviation enthusiast tuned daily, into the shifts of Kennedy Steve and Boston John. A lot of it has been recorded and is out there on YouTube and other social media to enjoy and learn from. These guys might be hilarious now and then, might not always contain their chatter to the absolute necessary, nor stick to proper ATC vocabulary, they were also considered to be the top role models on what a controller should be.

Enjoy, it’s really worth running through all those little short video’s. If you have never or rarely listened to ATC Pilot communication a whole new world will open to you!

Jeroen

Last edited by Jeroen : 29th May 2020 at 23:50.
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Old 30th May 2020, 00:44   #119
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sutripta View Post
.... So the captain thinks the co-pilot needs to be put in his place, and constantly berates him right through the flight. Mentioned as possibly one of the reasons for the co-pilot not correcting the pilots actions. ...

Sutripta
What? Any sources behind this theory?
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Old 30th May 2020, 07:30   #120
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Re: Pakistan International Airlines Airbus A320 crashes near Karachi; 97 dead

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What? Any sources behind this theory?
May be the Asiana 214 case where the flying pilot hesitated to question the training captain's actions which was one of the reasons leading to the crash. A term "lose of face" was used in relation to this where in junior officers don't question senior officers for the fear of getting reprimanded, mostly in Asian countries.

P.S. I am neither a pilot not a Flight Sim enthusiast, just a normal chap interested in watching air crash investigation videos.

Last edited by rajivr1612 : 30th May 2020 at 07:43.
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