Here is my revised new theory:
1. Plane comes in for 1st landing attempt
2. There are no mechanical problems of any kind, no landing gear issue, no engine issue, no hydraulics issue, no mechanical issue of any kind before 1st landing attempt.
3. Pilots are coming in too fast and too high resulting in an unstable approach that will later require a go around. Basically the approach is rushed.
4. Pilots put gear down during landing approach. Gear comes down as normal, no problems with landing gear.
5. Unstable approach causes plane to make a hard bounce on runway. One of the survivors said the plane bounced into the air on landing followed by hard friction with sparks and smoke.
6. When the plane bounced into the air, the pilots set TOGA thrust and accidentally selected gear up first instead of flaps up. Normally you are supposed to select flaps up first and then gear up so you have time to clear the runway before retracting gear.
7. Pilots mistakenly selected gear up too early during bounce, plane momentarily sinks and engines make contact with the runway with gear retracted before TOGA thrust kicks in. Pilots should have retracted the gear a few seconds later after plane had safely aborted and cleared the runway. Basically they retracted gear too early when aborting a bounced landing causing engine to scrape the runway with gear retracted.
8. Engines scrape ground causing black skid marks
9. Pilot immediately goes around
10. Plane goes around for 2nd landing attempt
11. Plane circles in air for 7 minutes between landings
12. During these 7 minutes, hydraulic fluid and oil is rapidly leaking out from pipes that were scraped on bottom of engine. Fuel is NOT leaking out.
13. Total loss of hydraulic failure after all hydraulic fluid leaks out from ruptured hydraulic pipes on bottom of both scraped engines, flaps stop working and landing gear issues get worse. White smoke in PSPK picture is hydraulic fluid leaking out of bottom of the scraped engine.
14. Ram Air Turbine or manual gear drop deployed to solve landing gear issue.
15. All oil rapidly leaks out from oil sumps on bottom of both scraped engines, without oil both engines overheat and shut down, plane now becomes glider with no thrust. Fan blades in engine are intact which means engines were not running when plane crashed.
16. Since both engines stop working, plane rapidly loses altitude during approach and crashes.
17. Plane was only leaking hydraulic fluid and oil, not fuel so there is plenty of fuel left when plane crashes causing massive fireball.
Some observations:
1. This incident is identical to Smartlynx A320 incident in Estonia, that plane almost crashed too. Pilot saved it because he knew he had very little time to make it back to runway. Once engine scrapes runway, oil and hydraulic fluid immediately start leaking out of the bottom of the engine. Basically when engine scrapes, leakage of critical fluid starts as hydraulic fluid and oil run out in around 5 minutes. So basically you have countdown timer of 5 minutes after the engines scrape and pilot aborts to save the airplane and make it back to the runway. PIA took long route to circle back to 25L and did not make it back to runway before 5 minutes, hence hydraulic fluid and oil ran out and caused dual engine shutdown near where CCTV video was recorded just as he was on short final at last minute and he crashed before runway. I read the safety report of the Smartlynx accident. Smartlynx problem had almost identical situation to PIA after scraping engines and aborting, but pilot of Smartlynx plane knew they had only 5 minutes to make it back to runway before hydraulic fluid and oil runs out, so instead of making a long full 360 circle back to runway like PIA, they made 180 turn to do an emergency opposite direction approach and safely landed with plane intact. At Karachi, if PIA had made 180 turn to approach Runway 7R from opposite direction, it would probably have landed safely.
2. An early gear retraction during abort when plane briefly sank and engines scraped runway before TOGA thrust kicked in and plane starting climbing again explains how the plane could have contacted the runway with gear up. It simply is not possible to approach the runway and forget to extend landing gear. There are too many alarms reminding them, pilots would never have made this mistake. However, if they aborted after a hard bounce and retracted gear too early before TOGA thrust kicked in, there would not have been any alarm for this. When plane sank to contact runway after bounce before TOGA thrust spooled up, engines scraped the runway while gear was prematurely retracted.
I was reading accident report of Smartlynx incident in Estonia which is very similar to PIA. There are some differences in steps 1-10, Smartlynx is doing touch and go practice and has a software issue, PIA is different because it was completely normal with no issues before 1st landing. But from step 11 to the end, it is exact same situation for both PIA and Smartlynx when both pilots select TOGA, retract gear, plane sinks, engine scrapes, and the rest all the way to the end.
PIA flight could have been saved if they followed what pilots did in Smartlynx incident:
In Smartlynx accident:
- Smartlynx is doing touch and go practice training flights
- During training flight, Smartlynx has normal landing
- Smartlynx plane has incorrect software setting
- Pilot cannot get plane to increase thrust at all after touchdown, plane does not respond to pilot’s command inputs to raise nose to takeoff again because of incorrect software setting
- Captain takes full control from other pilot
- TOGA thrust does not work at all, no response from plane
- Captain quickly decides to use trim to chance pitch to get airborne as he is running out of runway and TOGA is not working because of software glitch.
- Plane briefly lifts off ground and gear retraction is selected too early
- Plane briefly sinks back to ground, landing gear is in process of being retracted, doors have not yet closed.
- When plane briefly sinks back to ground, landing gear doors which have not fully closed are ripped off and engines scrape the ground.
- ********PIA SHOULD HAVE FOLLOWED THE STEPS THAT SMARTLYNX DID BELOW********
- Smartlynx gets airborne and realizes that they must return to airport IMMEDIATELY because their hydraulic fluid and oil is rapidly leaking after engine scraped ground and they must make it back to airport before all hydraulic fluid and oil runs out, otherwise their engines will both shut down. Smartlynx tries to make it back to airport as quickly as possible as they only have 5 minutes before leaking hydraulic fluid and oil runs out which will trigger engine overheat and shutdown.
- Smartlynx immediately starts making a rapid 180 emergency turn to land on same runway from opposite direction (PIA’s mistake was fatal error that they took long route and did a 360 back to 25L, PIA did not have enough time for this, they only had 5 minutes because of leaking fluid)
- After Smartlynx makes 180 turn back to land on runway from opposite direction, both engines shutdown midair as all oil runs out, hydraulic fluid also runs out and disables flaps.
- Smartlynx glides to runway and barely lands at the airport hitting the runway lights, but plane is intact and everyone survives.
PIA and Smartlynx flight both only had 5 minutes to make it back to runway since both scraped engine on ground and started rapidly leaking hydraulic fluid and oil from bottom of the engine. Both engines shut down while flying in PIA and Smartlynx when oil ran out. The big difference why Smartlynx safely glided to runway in emergency landing while PIA crashed is that in both PIA and Smartlynx, the hydraulic fluid and oil takes the same amount of time to leak, the plane only has 5 minutes to make it back to runway before fluids run out from leakage. Smartlynx decided to do very fast and quick emergency 180 turn back to runway from opposite direction which took less than 5 minutes. PIA decided to do 360 circle back to 25L which took more than 5 minutes. Both engines shutdown in PIA and Smartlynx, but since Smartlynx 180 turn took less time, it was much closer to the runway when its engines shutdown than PIA which farther away from runway when its engines shutdown because PIA was doing a longer 360 circle. In the 5 minutes, before hydraulic fluids and oil ran out, both PIA and Smartlynx had the same amount of time, 5 minutes. Smartlynx 180 turn back took less time than PIA’s 360 turn so Smartlynx got closer to the runway before dual engine failure and was able to glide almost all the way to the airport where they hit the runway lights. Everyone on Smartlynx survived and Smartlynx plane was intact. PIA 360 circle to 25L took too long and they ran out of 5 minute window, when their oil ran out and both engines shut down, they were not close enough to the runway to do a glide all the way like Smartlynx and crashed during the glide at Model Colony.
Smartlynx accident report below:
https://www.aviation-accidents.net/report-download.php?id=683
https://www.flightglobal.com/safety...ursed-home-after-runway-strike/135161.article
https://www.aviation-accidents.net/smartlynx-airlines-airbus-a320-214-es-san/