An Airbus A320 passenger plane crashes over a residential area in Karachi, killing 98 people

As they flew over the SABEN navigation point, the altitude of the plane was still twice the prescribed one, even though according to the rules the plane should have been prepared for landing here.

At 14:31 the controller reported.

When the captain instructed the first officer driving the plane, he replied that everything was fine, even though this was the co-pilot, that is, it was the captain’s job right now. Six seconds later, Azam radioed the controller:

Not long after, the controller reappeared and the following conversation took place between him and the captain.

– Pakistan 8303, turn 180 degrees.

– Sir, we can land, we will soon reach 3,000 feet, we will stabilize and fly towards runway 25 left.

– Negative, immediately turn 180 degrees.

The accident investigators were shocked when evaluating the recordings and data, because the pilots did not comply with the instruction, but continued to approach the runway. Also, the plane was still at 3,900 feet, so the captain lied again.

Disaster is approaching

The pilots set a lower speed on the autopilot to deploy the flaps, but the speed was still 242 knots, too high to deploy the flaps. The “overspeed” buzzer sounded and a red sign appeared on the instrument panel, but the pilots did not respond to them.

Almost immediately, the chaos became even greater. According to the factory settings, the autopilot switches off when descending too steeply, because the system assumes that something is wrong. After the plane reached the shockingly steep negative attitude angle of 13.7 degrees, i.e. it was almost hanging down in the air, the autopilot really switched off. However, the loud bugle sound indicating this was not heard among the other sound signals, although a red sign of this appeared on the dashboard. However, the pilots did not react to this either, so no one was driving the Airbus in the following seconds.

The controller then appeared again.

To which the captain gave this answer:

The controller again warned the flight about the altitude, before the crew waved again, but someone retracted the landing gear in the meantime.

According to instructor Petter Hornfeldt, the first officer probably did this.

However, the controller then allowed the landing, and the plane continued to descend.

At 300 meters, the plane should have flown stabilized, at an appropriate speed, slowly descending, with deployed brake flaps and undercarriages, ready for landing, after completing the mandatory checklists. Instead, they raced at a high speed of 220 knots (407 kilometers per hour), again descending steeper than required, towards the runway without letting the wheels out.

Airbus has gone belly up

The aircraft detected that the landing gear had not been released, so it gave another warning signal, with inscriptions, sound, and a red arrow at the landing gear arm showing what to do. However, the pilots had no idea about the condition of their plane, since they did not deal with the previous warning signals.

The Airbus reached the runway 75 knots faster than the landing speed, i.e. nearly 140 kilometers per hour. At a height of 2 meters – still in the air, which is also against the rules – the captain brought the engines to full braking, but the jet brake can only be activated if the shock absorber of the opened landing gear is pushed in with a certain force. However, the wheels were retracted in the belly of the plane, so the engines never started braking.

The plane touched the concrete at 14:34:28 and bounced off the ground and slid on the track for 18 seconds. The passengers were horrified to see the engines throwing sparks, and the shaking of the plane was also frightening. The captain pushed his joystick forward, and the first officer wanted to stall, but he didn’t announce it, so he pulled back his own control stick. The two commands canceled each other out, so nothing happened, the Airbus continued to slide.

Not long after, the starboard engine caught fire, and the generator on the left broke down. The engines were severely damaged in the belly landing. Since the plane did not slow down enough, and the first officer also shouted, the captain decided to go overboard. He applied full throttle and although only the left engine was working normally, he managed to get off the ground. Captain Peter Hornfeldt said it was a mistake.

The last minutes

The damaged plane rose into the air after sliding nearly a thousand meters. The controllers watched in amazement from the tower, but could do nothing. On board it was complete chaos. Although the starboard engine soon revved up, the oil pipes in both engines ruptured and almost all the oil was drained from the machine less than 1 minute after the stall. This meant that they had only minutes left and both engines would shut down.

The Airbus climbed to an altitude of 2,160 feet, 650 meters. The pilots requested a new vector from the tower to repeat the landing. Meanwhile, the controller declared an emergency at the airport, although the pilots did not report that they were in serious trouble.

The left engine then started to shut down due to lack of oil. However, First Officer Azam missed the instrument panel indicator and said to the captain:

This may have been because this engine indicated fire when skidding on the ground, this could not be ascertained. In any case, the crew put the engine that was keeping the badly damaged Airbus in the air on base gas.

At that point, they were halfway around the airport. As the plane lost its engines and one of its generators, the entire electrical system shut down. Although a small emergency turbine opened on the belly of the plane and began to generate electricity, the factory-programmed protection system built into the control was disabled. Thus, the anti-fall protection of the Airbus has also ceased.

The nose of the plane rose higher and higher as the speed decreased. The two pilots moved two joysticks at the same time, which was followed by a loud “dual input” signal. This would have alerted the pilots that one of them would stop steering. The pilots lowered the plane’s nose, but they were still far from the runway. Time is up.

Although the pilots realized that the engine that had been operating had been idled and now revved it up, the oil leak caused that engine to shut down as well. There was no longer anything to give the machine speed. The first officer shouted:

The captain replied desperately:

A security camera captured the moment of the fall, you can view this by clicking here.

The pilots tried to turn to a military airfield, but that too was too far away. The landing gear was let out, which further increased drag and reduced speed.

This was the last radio transmission from Flight 8303. The Airbus crashed into a residential street.

This is another video recording of the moment of the crash:

Its wings first clipped the roofs of the buildings, then the plane hit the road. It was less than 1,400 meters from the military airstrip and less than 100 meters from an open field.

The captain was unfit to fly

During the accident investigation, it was revealed that the captain failed the airline’s original psychological fitness test in 1996 because he had too much of a “bossy tendency”, bragging about a higher position. Gul was characterized by contemptuous and arrogant behavior towards the more inexperienced. They also found that he was reluctant to follow the instructions of others, that his intelligence level and ability to withstand stress were below average, and that he did not know the technical structure and systems of airplanes thoroughly enough.

Our readers are right to ask, why did they sign a contract after all this? Sajjad Gul appealed against the decision and attached five expert opinions that called him fit to be a pilot. When the company rejected the appeal, because they had in the meantime eliminated this option for hiring, Gul turned to the ombudsman, who ruled in her favor. This is how the man became a pilot at PIÁ, and this is how he forgot everything about the first description of his personality.

The investigation also revealed that the captain’s professional material contained a series of serious violations: failure to follow the instructions of the control, landing from too high a height, landing at too high a speed – all errors as serious as the one that proved to be fatal for 98 people .

First Officer Usman Azam did not receive such negative evaluations, but his skills were rated below average in the simulator training and he was only barely able to meet the exam requirements.

Finally, the investigators wrote down the shocking data that, according to the checks carried out following the disaster, 40 percent of Pakistani pilots flew with forged licenses.

Pilots are not allowed to fast

The investigators also wondered whether the fasting had a negative effect on the pilots. Therefore, two groups of pilots were tested, one group flew in the simulator with little fluid in their body, and the other with low blood sugar because they could not eat before. Both groups’ flight performance decreased dramatically. The European Union has banned fasting for pilots for this very reason, but since this year’s Ramadan fasting was not included in the regulations, many Muslim pilots still follow the religious rules even when they are on duty, despite the ban.

In the following video, you can hear the last radio transmission and see harrowing images of the rescue, this one you can watch it by clicking here.