PAKISTAN International Airlines Crash

June 26, 2020, UPDATE, License, we don't need a stinking license!

Pakistan’s Aviation Minister, Ghulam Sarwar Khan., said more than 30% of civilian commercial pilots in Pakistan have fake licenses and are not fully qualified to fly passenger planes. In terms of numbers, this means that 262 of Pakistan’s 860 currently active pilots have been found to have dubious licenses.

Pakistan’s state-run airline has grounded 150 pilots following allegations that the pilots held fake licenses or cheated on their licensing exams.

The pilots are accused of paying others to sit in the tests on their behalf. PIA has given no additional details about the alleged cheating.

This action was taken following the release of the preliminary findings into last month’s crash that killed 97 people in Karachi.

June 5, 2020, UPDATE

Officials at the air traffic control tower didn’t warn the pilots about the plane’s landing gear not being down.

What we know:

France’s air safety investigator has successfully downloaded the flight data and cockpit voice recordings.
The plane made contact about halfway down the runway at roughly 200 MPH with the gear up. This led to grinding along the runway on its two engines.
Officials at the air traffic control tower didn’t warn the pilots about the plane’s landing gear, even though those in the tower should have seen it wasn’t down. The pilots were not instructed to change over to tower frequency.
The ATC, however, did warn the pilots multiple times about their speed and altitude as the jet was coming in to land but the warnings were ignored.
Prime Minister Imran Khan’s administration expects to make the initial report public by June 22, a month into the crash.
The final report should be ready in 4-5 months, aviation minister Ghulam Murtaza Khan said in a briefing on June 4.

May 25, 2020, UPDATE

No official word from official sources but from photo evidence showing damage to the underside of the A-320 engines, it would appear the pilots landed either gear-up or did a go-around and/or touch and go type maneuver and retracted the gear prematurely or did not have the gear extended at all.

Transmissions with ground control pick up a distinctive warning chime for "gear not down". It is hypothesized that the aircraft touched down without the gear, damaging the engines on the go around. This would cause damage to a critical part of the engine, the accessory gearbox, that among many things, controls the engine fuel pump. It certainly appears pilot error is going to be the outcome of this investigation.

See below video for an explanation of the accessory drive gearbox on the CFM-56-5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFhGnCOtcc8&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0Gy5KVULGjqTJ1yqzNA9zlG7IcEj9bWhlvzaEyxKKIEJBNuT2FYu2gxOA

May 22, 2020

An Airbus A-320 crashed in Karachi while attempting to land.

The pilot radioed on the second attempt that the plane had lost power.

With nearly 100 passengers and crew onboard, it is unclear how many on the ground vs the aircraft were killed but its estimated that 80 have lost their lives.

The big question, Why did the plane lose Power?

The obvious question is in the footage of the crash. There was fuel on the plane.

So that leaves more unanswered questions.

The not so obvious but very likely cause....Bird strike?

Some have stated the gear was not down however in the footage, the main gear is down. Its unclear if the nose gear is down but it appears to be. And it is unclear when the witlessness saw the plane without the gear down.

CBS News