What Went Wrong with the Airblue Flight
By Air Marshal (Retd. ) Ayaz Ahmed Khan
Islamabad , Pakistan
On Wednesday, July 28, 2010, Airblue flight 202 ED took off from the Quaid-i-Azam International Airport at 0750 AM. It was a normal air journey for the 146 passengers, who were expecting to land at Benazir Bhutto International Airport after two hours. But instead of landing the plane crashed into the Marghalla Hills, in a ball of fire, killing 152 people, including the crew of six.
It was a disastrous air tragedy, which has caused deep grief across Pakistan. The entire nation grieves and commisserates with the next of kin of those who died so unexpectedly. What went wrong with the Airblue Flight ED 2002 will become clear after the data in the flight recorder - the Black Box - is studied and analyzed by experts. This is likely to take time.
The weather at Islamabad’s Benazir Bhutto International Airport was overcast, with low clouds and rain. The clouds appeared to be at ground level, though the Air Traffic Control said that the cloud base was at 1000 feet above the ground. Inside the cloud the visibility would be zero, which may have disoriented the pilot, and in the worst case scenario, may have caused sudden vertigo. The 62-year Captain Pervez Iqbal Chaudhry was an experienced Airbus 321 pilot who had logged thousands of flight hours. His flight safety record was impeccable. But when did he qualify the instrument rating examination and tests, which are mandatory for airline pilots? Airblue and Civil Aviation officials must tell the media and the people the truth. First Officer Muntajib Chughati, a former F-16 PAF fighter pilot, had one year’s experience on Air Bus 321. If the captain suffered some mental lapse, the first officer should have immediately turned the aircraft around towards safety, from its wrong path .
The Airbus 321 was a comparatively new aircraft, and had suffered no maintenance problems in the past. Its flight safety record was excellent. The media analysis that flight ED 202 strayed from the normal landing approach and continued flying towards Marghalla Hills leading to the crash is correct. The pilot of ED202 was on the approach to runway 300, when he was advised to divert and land on runway 120, owing to change in wind direction. This required a bad weather circuit, which entailed a right turn, and then immediately a left turn, so as to fly parallel to the runway at a distance of not more than three miles, keeping the runway in sight all the time.
After turn onto the base leg and then onto the final approach, to land on runway 120. Bad weather circuit is a visual maneuver and the pilot has to be in contact with the ground at all times. This is an illegal maneuver if the pilot cannot see the ground and the runway. It was the pilot’s responsibility not to enter the cloud. But with the low clouds and rain, the radar controllers and the air traffic controllers should have warned and advised the pilot to abort the bad weather circuit for runway 120. There was no emergency, and the Ed 202 should have been diverted to Lahore, Faisalabad or Peshawar.
Entry into the clouds during the bad weather circuit was a fatal mistake. Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Chairman of Airblue, has rightly blamed the captain for this fatal lapse. The captain should have diverted and discontinued the circuit and the approach. Some reports suggest that Captain Pervez Iqbal Chaudhry was a deeply religious person and it being Shab-e-barat was fasting. Fasting is illegal while flying because it lowers the sugar level in the blood, and adversly affects quick reactions and good judgment.
It is worth mentioning that the aircraft in the proximity and over Benazir Bhutto International Airport are under radar surveillance at all times. And it is the duty of the radar and air traffic controllers to monitor closely aircraft movements, especially in bad weather. Flying in the cloud or in and out of the cloud at circuit height at BB International Airport is dangerous. The ED2002 captain presumably being inside the cloud had lost touch with the ground. Ignoring the dangerous high terrain, he did not turn left immediately, went far to the right, and rammed into the Marghalla Hills. Few years back Air chief Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir, Chief of the Air Staff Pakistan Air Force and several senior PAF officers, died in similar circumstances. The VIP Fokker captain, a Squadron Leader, started descent into the clouds to land at the Kohat airstrip.
He rammed the Fokker into the cloud-covered high hills, killing everyone on board. But Kohat did not have any radar. The Benazir Bhutto Airport has a modern radar and ILS landing system for runway 300, which ensures a safe environment for aircraft operations. But in radar-controlled airspace, such as the one that exists over Islamabad, to ensure high standards of air safety, the human factor is of vital importance. The pilot should have asked for radar assistance, which means radar assisted approach for runway 120, which does not have ILS – the Instrument Landing System. Radar controllers should have directed the pilot to take immediate left turn, when on the radar scope he was seen heading towards the hills. The radar operator on duty should have been very vigilant! If the eyes of the radar operator are not glued onto the radar scope, or he is busy in some other activity, he is not likely to accomplish his primary duty efficiently, i.e. to ensure safety of the aircraft in the air.
The July 29, 2010 report that “preliminary investigation by Aviation Authorities that the pilot’s navigation error could be the most likely cause of the crash” is far fetched. Such a finding is pre-mature and incorrect. The Airbus 321 has a sophisticated and state-of-the-art error-free navigation systems.
It was a human error and not a navigation error. Maintenance or technical problems contributing to the accident were unlikely as the Airbus 321 has back up systems, which take over in case of the failure of the main system. The findings of the flight recorder are vital to clear the speculations and rumors. The Flight recomrder data must not be tampered with.
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