Plane crash report

Almost four years after the crash of PIA flight 8303 in Karachi had killed 99 people, crash investigators have completed their report, confirming preliminary findings that “human error” was the main cause. The third-worst plane crash in Pakistan’s history was caused by pilots who “were not focused” and tried to land the plane from an “extraordinary altitude”, despite multiple warnings from the air traffic control. The pilots were engrossed in conversation about Covid-19. After deploying the plane’s landing gear, the pilots inexplicably raised it moments before touchdown, leading to a belly landing, which caused critical damage to the plane’s engines.

The final report also notes a mistake by the air traffic controller, who failed to inform the pilot of the damage to the plane’s engines. The damaged engines later stalled, causing the plane to lose power supply and also causing the flight recorder to stop recording for the last four minutes. This in itself was shocking for us because most modern flight recorders have backup batteries for such an event, meaning it appears PIA cheaped out on safety by using an outdated or damaged flight recorder. On a related note, the report was critical of PIA management for not doing proper flight data analysis, due to which, attention is not paid to correcting mistakes. This also ties into criticism of PIA’s training and retraining programmes. The report also criticises the CAA to a lesser degree for its failure to issue rules for pilots flying while fasting — the crash occurred in Ramazan.

The crash was the impetus for then-aviation minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan’s claim that about one-third of pilots in Pakistan had fake qualifications — less than 10% actually had any licence issues, and only a handful actually had fake qualifications. But while the licence issue is now over, with several wrongfully-suspended pilots having been reinstated, many training and management problems persist, and the government keeps dragging its feet, even though, if nothing else, updated training and safety protocols might make PIA more sellable.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 27^th, 2024.

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