Pakistan

It is always the pilot's decision to land: Airblue Chairman

Chairman of Airblue, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi revealed that the Airblue flight was flying at 1,000 feet at impact.

Express July 30, 2010

ISLAMABAD: Chairman of Airblue, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi revealed that the ill-fated Airblue flight which crashed into the Margalla hills was only 1,000 feet high when it hit a 90 degree ridge.

"The plan was 1,000 feet above the ground... the pilot was approaching the runway visually, and it is always the pilot's decision to land" he clarified.

Addressing the media in Islamabad on Friday, Abbasi said that the factors which led to the crash would only be clear once a complete record had been received. He said that the government wished to make the inquiry public and the investigations will be completed as soon as possible.

Abbasi said that the first priority of ongoing efforts was to hand over dead bodies to the relatives. He said the plane had only completed 34,000 flying hours and that it is normal for such an aircraft.

"We have no reports of terrorism in this crash. Our civil aviation authorities are following international rules. There has never been any incident of violation of these rules" he added.

He said that Captain Pervaiz had more than 25,000 flying hours of experience, and the co-pilot had experience of over 17,000 flying hours.

Abbasi said that the Airbus team had not arrived for investigation as yet, but several aeronautical engineers were present at the site of accident to investigate the matter.

He added that efforts were underway to recover the black box and that it would be decoded in the US as there are only four laboratories in the world that can decode black boxes.

COMMENTS (21)

Mahmood Bin Masood | 14 years ago | Reply The Crash seems to be a hit by some missile from the ground most probably from some foreign mission (like black water etc) ,the area of jamming device is secretly known as RED Zone,some pilots have previously reported that their communication device does not work over this zone ,unfortunately that zone is some 2 minutes flying time away from the air port ,this need to addressed and rectified.THIS IS serious issue no matter what level it takes to resolve.

Ali Zeeshan | 14 years ago | Reply May the departed souls rest in peace. Frankly speaking, some of you guys disgust me !! Just read an article in Jang, questioning the pilot's motives !!...The stellar point being made by Mr. Ahsan "Newton" Zafeer above, about our corrupt country and the fact that the black box can be tempered, about the fact that the plane was off course leads to a mysterious attempt to do something!!! Mr. Ahsan, do you even know about the circling radius in case of a landing abort, its not a cycle we r talking about, just in case ? Do you even know that Airbus 321 family has pivot tube issue, already reported in the case of recent Air France crash, that misreports the external pressure & speed of the plane sometimes. Oh, and like u said, No one has mentioned the Co-Pilot, well he was a F-16 pilot & what my sources tell me, they are the best trained. Now that I have mentioned the Co-Pilot, so what ? As for tampering the black box thing is concerned, these black boxes are de-crypted by Airbus, they have to be, dont you think they would know better, if the blackbox is tampered!! To all the speculators out there, It was a tragic accident, until the VR excerpts come out, please dont stress the limited brain resources bestowed upon you. For the sake of gaining some eye balls, please dont mutilate the respect of the Passengers in general and Pilots in particular. Think about the families, families of the pilots reading all this gibberish. Frankly speaking no one cares if your "doubts" are put to rest or not !! Peace.

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Haseeb | 14 years ago | Reply Pilot decides to land after getting clearance or after knowing, 'what is going on down there'. But this is totally pilot's by-himself decision. In my openion, this is not the only matter that Mr. Abbasi has to save his airline's respect in the eyes of nation, we have his past and present is in front of us, he is not a traditional politician. I think he is a prospering, progressive and 'thinking ahead' kind guy. Though he was little late to come in front of our nation in this regard, but his position does not allow him to speak up contradictory words (like other present officials). He is only saying upon the findings what are come up. But on other side, we have to remember that since the mysterious death of Respectable Liaquat Ali to Benazir Sahiba, we did not get true findings yet. Now see what happen with all these deceased..AND, if I am not wrong; to divert thoughts of nation from a specific burning topic, some hidden powers always bring up A hot 'stunt kind' topic.

Tayyab Yazdani Malik | 14 years ago | Reply Who will watch the watchdogs? Airbus will never admit technical problems. CAA will never indict itself. A high-powered parliamentary committee should immediately set up.

Aiman awaiz | 14 years ago | Reply @ saad munir... Nicely put! Why exactly is everyone blaming it on the pilot without any factual grounds whatsoever..

Ann | 14 years ago | Reply even if they got the black box, do we really thing that they will tell the public the real story ? i doubt !!! every thing here is under doubts and suspense this happen in very case ... only thing remains is that our public ( like us) are going depressed day by day.

Ahsan Zafeer | 14 years ago | Reply May Allah give patience and strength to the relatives of the departed and May Allah give the deceased place in heaven. After these past two days, I just simply cannot believe that the black box is not found. I had a gut wrenching feeling that this might not be an accident. Looking at the map of Islamabad, the trajectory of the impact as observed by the pieces of fuselage and the state of the unidentified or missing bodies, i think this could be a terrorist attack and there was a target. The missing black box adds to my speculation. The location of the disaster 1 nm away from RWY 24L cannot be explained as an aircraft executing an abort cannot go that far, second 3000 ft is the standard recovery of altitude for an abort. In adverse weather conditions like these why was the aircraft not assigned to ILS enabled runway? ILS guides the plane if visibility is poor but landing conditions are normal. Why was the aircraft in the no fly zone? There are two pilots and both have the capability to fly the plane. No one has mentioned the co-pilot. Airbus A320 is built with detection systems to avoid disaster and this can only be known if it was active when the black box is found which i think in a corrupt country like Pakistan, has seldom chances. I hope someone finds the original untampered black box and the truth is disclosed. That can only put my doubt to rest.

Shahzad | 14 years ago | Reply Mr Shahid Khaqan Abbasi should have come on media much earlier. He set up Air Blue and is responsible for its failure or success. It is his moral obligation to provide assistance and help to the bereaved families whose loved ones died in this crash. Does he not feel ashamed with the manner the families have been treated. I think Air Blue should have provided the families with return tickets and accomodation. After all Air Blue will get compensated by insurance. If the Captain had a known medical history,why was he employed by him on contract after he had retired from PIA. There are 146 innocent passengers who died for no fault of theirs. These passengers paid to travel safely. CAA, PIA and Air Blue owe it to the travelling public to ensure that safety is not compromised, which was in this case. The fault seems to be of both the pilot and ATC.

edison muzoora | 14 years ago | Reply mr. Abbasi is not serious

Jeeya~ | 14 years ago | Reply There is something fishy going on ......it's easy to blame dead ones...who will never comeback to justify themselves and reveal the truth....does any body know who started this whole DNA test DRAMA? why Govt is interested in DNA testing....which is both time taking and expensive procedure for them rather than buried the dead ones on same site ...

Syed A. Mateen | 14 years ago | Reply It was pilot's decision but on whose instructions?

Haseeb | 14 years ago | Reply Black box tells you actual height, heading and other readings eg.. Engine performance etc etc... There is another thing called cockpit voice recorded. As its name says,you can hear conversation in cockpit. Pilots can delete voice recorder but systems of black box are not 'touchable'.

Saad Munir | 14 years ago | Reply Save your self and put on the dead ones nice going

Sultan Ahmed. | 14 years ago | Reply i am very afraid they are depending everything on Black Box in case, they find it what they will do, taken to manufacturing company and the manufacturing unit concerned will check and report. The process as being narrated,will take time,how much time mot clarify and in the meanwhile nation forgot and responsible escaped narrowly escaped

Meekal Ahmed | 14 years ago | Reply The co-pilot was only 35 years old and could not possibly have 17,000 hours. I think that is a mis-print. It must be 7,000 hours which is still quite a bit considering he is ex-Air Force where he flew F-16 and Mirage jets and you don't get many hours built-up flying fighter jets where each sortie may only last 45 minutes. The real question which was not addressed is how much flight-time did the pilots have in the specific aircraft type they were operating. I suspect neither of them were high-time on type.

mehdi shahi | 14 years ago | Reply media and leaders too, declared that the black box found.what happened to that black box. was it a beauty box or a tool box that was taken for black box ???

arshad zubairi | 14 years ago | Reply Mr. Abbasi is a politician,, and his statement proves it...

Sarah Shah | 14 years ago | Reply @ Ali Haider, First of all we do not have the technology to read the coded recordings. The other thing is that we do not have any experience either, while the European investigators have already opened hundreds of black boxes some of them very much damaged and have investigated them. They have taken courses and been trained for this special purpose. They have every technologist from audiologist to speech psychologists to aeronautical engineers specializing in accidents. One more thing, according to ICAO rules the black boxes have to be sent to manufacturer of the aircraft to be opened and decoded and investigated. That is the international rule.

SadafFayyaz | 14 years ago | Reply Only the manufacturing company expert can read it and decode it....we dont have enough tech....

Ali Haider | 14 years ago | Reply What is such a big deal science in black box that it can not be read here in Pakistan?

SadafFayyaz | 14 years ago | Reply Nice to see somthing from Mr khaqan....after 2 days.....putting it on pilot now.....

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