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Doc, your take makes sense and leads to the error of the pilot, ATC, or failure of a navigation or any other critical instrument which should have prevented the pilot from landing at a place which is not a runway.

What I have read and understood that the aircraft was on an ILS approach to runway 30 from the southeast and then broke off due to adverse winds and started to do a circling visual approach for runway 12 from the northwest side. Okay the weather made it impossible to do a visual circle but there was control tower, onboard navigation systems and particularly the ground proximity warning system to prevent him to even making a landing approach on the 7th avenue. The pilot was suppose to connect back to the ILS on runway 12 for landing which he didn't and might have thought to land manually but that would require serious trust on onboard instruments, ATC, help of the co-pilot and his visual ability and experience. Everything failed at the same time?

The thing is Salam that from all the air crash investigation videos I have seen so far that when ever disaster strikes on a modern airliner there are multiple things that can go wrong and the phenomenon is like of that the butterfly effect.

First of all the ILS (instrument Landing System is supported for the other side of the runway that is the approach from Bahria Town. The approach from the Hills does not support ILS (Freakishly true). Before discussing why the crash took place there are two things that are quite alarming:

a) Why the pilot was so off course that he flew right into the no fly zone? Where was the ATC when all this was going on?

b) The A321 has one of the most automated flight systems of the civil aviation world. Its takes away control from the pilot when it senses that the flight limit of the aircraft has been exceeded or a primary threat such as low altitude has been detected. Why did all these safety precautions fail?

Now as for why the crash took place. I thinks Doc's scenario is quite viable but it only makes sense if and only if the ATC did not correct the pilot's error. Flying without ILS and visibility means 100 % reliance on two things the flight instruments and the ATC. The pilots instruments rely on radio markers which act as a reference for guiding the pilot to the airport. The question is how come these markers did not provide adequate reference and yet again what was the ATC doing at that time???

When the plane was at full landing procedure (gears down, full flaps) then I think the ground proximity warning system and the automated flight systems to take control in a low altitude should have been disabled since the landing conditions have met. But yes, the other factors didn't kick in to play their role at such a critical moment.

Runway 12 doesn't have ILS? That is the runway mostly used when the weather is not normal.

Yes Salam you are right about that when landing parameters are met the some of the autopilots safety features are deactivated. But still it is a long way from the orginal flight plan.


Does any one know that are there radio beacons installed for reference near Islamabad or is all in control of the ATC?

A bigwig of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) on condition of anonymity gave the following statement:

The Airblue plane crashed on Wednesday because of ‘pressure’ fault in the plane. The pressure disc or plate of plane was not working perfectly.

The CAA often warns technical staff of airlines to change pressure discs to boom pressure but technical staff takes this matter non-seriously, he said. He said that weather was not the reason of plane crash because other flights were taking off and landing perfectly. Concerned pilot could not handle the plane with dead pressure and it fell down, he said.

The second reason is that pilot was not used to the route from Karachi to Islamabad. He went from Karachi to Turkey and was handling this route from Karachi to Islamabad perhaps for the first time.

Yes perhaps it is true. I guess the black box is the last resort for uncovering the truth.

NSK wrote:
there radio beacons installed for reference near Islamabad or is all in control of the ATC?

ever noticed a beacon pylon on top of margella hills, visible from our field. Its in line with 30.

doc

salam wrote:
........ with dead pressure and it fell down, he said.

....... that pilot was not used to the route from Karachi to Islamabad. ......


The story about pressure disk is Absolute rubbish.

There are lots of airports in the world, the thing is that their GPS location, altitude, and orientation is all stored on the flight maps. The pilot may be flying to certain location for the first time based on this info. The 63 year old Pakistani pilot have never been to Islamabad.....nonsense .

doc

like all previous air crashes, i think this one will also be shrouded in a mystery ...with or without the black box.

doc