Pakistan International Airlines Flight 268

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pakistan International Airlines Flight 268
Pakistan Airbus A300 Bidini.jpg

An identical Airbus A300 from Pakistan International Airlines
Accident summary
Accident type Controlled flight into terrain on approach
place Bhattedanda , NepalNepalNepal 
date September 28, 1992
Fatalities 167
Survivors 0
Aircraft
Aircraft type EuropeEurope Airbus A300B4-203
operator PakistanPakistan Pakistan International Airlines
Mark PakistanPakistan AP-BCP
Departure airport Karachi Airport , PakistanPakistanPakistan 
Destination airport Kathmandu Airport , NepalNepalNepal 
Passengers 148
crew 19th
Lists of aviation accidents

Pakistan International Airlines Flight 268 (flight number IATA : PK268 , ICAO : PIA268 , radio call sign PAKISTAN 268 ) was an international non-stop scheduled flight operated by Pakistan International Airlines from Karachi to Kathmandu , on which an Airbus A300B4-203 on September 28, 1992 had an accident shortly before landing at Kathmandu airport . All 167 people on board were killed in the controlled flight into the terrain . It is the worst incident in Nepal and the worst of Pakistan International Airlines.

plane

The aircraft in question during its service life at Condor

In the affected aircraft, it was a A300B4-203 that the Airbus -Werk Clément Adler in Toulouse was finally assembled as a 25 machine of the type A300. The aircraft completed its maiden flight on March 23, 1976, but was not delivered to its first operator Bavaria Germanair until May 2, 1977 , where it was put into operation with the aircraft registration D-AMAZ . In the same month, the owner leased the Airbus with the same registration number to Egyptair . On January 19, the leasing continued under the Egyptian license plate SU-AZY . In January 1979, Bavaria Germanair was taken over by Hapag-Lloyd Flug and integrated into it. The leasing relationship with Egyptair was continued by Hapag-Lloyd Flug until the aircraft with the aircraft registration D-AHLZ was returned to the lessor on November 1, 1982 . This initially continued to operate the machine itself and leased it to Kuwait Airways on July 1, 1983 . After the leasing contract, which extended over the 1983 summer season, expired, the aircraft returned to the Hapag-Lloyd Flug fleet. From June 16, 1984, the plane was leased again for the summer season, this time to Capitol Air . Hapag-Lloyd Flug was reloaded in October of the same year. From February 1985 to April 15, 1985, the Airbus was leased to Air Jamaica , after a short-term reinflation, Hapag-Lloyd Flug leased the aircraft to Condor for the summer season from May 1 to November 1985 . The Airbus then went back into operation at Hapag-Lloyd Flug before they sold the aircraft on April 21, 1986 to Pakistan International Airlines , which put the aircraft with the aircraft registration number AP-BCP into operation. The twin-engine medium-range - wide-bodied aircraft was equipped with two Turbojettriebwerken type General Electric CF6-50C2 equipped. By the time of the accident, the Airbus had completed a total of 39,045 operating hours, which accounted for 19,172 take-offs and landings.

crew

There was a 12-person crew on board. The cockpit crew consisted of four people and consisted of a flight captain, a first officer and two flight engineers:

  • The captain was 49-year-old Iftikhar Janjua, who had 13,192 hours of flight experience, 6,260 hours of which he had spent in the cockpit of the Airbus A300.
  • The 38-year-old Hassan Akhtar was used as the first officer. Akhtar's flight experience amounted to a total of 5849 flight hours, 1469 of which he had completed in the cockpit of the Airbus A300.
  • The scheduled flight engineer was a 40-year-old man who had 5289 hours of flight experience, 2516 of which he had completed in the Airbus A300.
  • The 42-year-old Muhammad Ashraf was in the cockpit as an unscheduled, observing flight engineer. Ashraf had completed 4503 of its 8220 flight hours with the Airbus A300.

In addition, there was a 15-person cabin crew consisting of purers and flight attendants on board. All crew members were Pakistani citizens.

Passengers

155 passengers had started the flight from Karachi to Kathmandu. Most of the passengers came from Europe and were on their way to hiking in the Himalayas . Eleven passengers came from Pakistan, 36 were British, 14 were from the Netherlands , 30 from Spain , 30 from Nepal, four from Bangladesh , three from the USA , two from Canada , one from Japan, one from New Zealand and 14 from various European countries.

Flight history

The tail of the crashed machine

The international scheduled flight PK268 should run from the Pakistani port metropolis of Karachi to the Nepalese capital Kathmandu . The machine started at 11:13 a.m. local time. The take-off and the flight at cruising altitude went smoothly until the start of the approach to Kathmandu. After contacting the Nepalese air traffic control, they gave the pilots clearance to land on runway 02 of Kathmandu airport and instructed them to make the approach from the south.

The approach to Kathmandu is fundamentally challenging, as the airport is located in an oval-shaped valley surrounded by mountains up to 2946 m high. The runway is 4,313 ft (1,314.6 m ) above sea level. The DME is 0.6 NM (1.11 km ) from the runway. During the so-called Sierra approach (after the letter "S" in the ICAO alphabet ), which the pilots carried out, the aircraft should first pass the 41 NM (75.9 km ) south of the radio beacon of Kathmandu and at an altitude of 15,000 ft ( 4572 m ) overfly Romeo point (after the letter "R" ). A seven-phase descent to 5800 ft should then be carried out. At a distance of 10 NM (18.5 km ) from the DME, the point Sierra at an altitude of 9500 ft (approx. 2896 m ) should be overflown.

After the pilots had flown over the Romeo point , the air traffic control of Kathmandu gave them the instruction to maintain an altitude of 11,500 ft (approx. 3505 m ) and to report again 16 NM (29.6 km ) away to the DME. The following navigation points were 13 NM (24 km ) from the DME at an altitude of 10500 ft (3200 m ), at 10 NM (18.5 km ) at 9500 ft (approx. 2896 m ) and at 8 NM (14, 8 km ) distance at 8200 ft (approx. 2499 m ).

the accident

A few seconds after the pilots reported at 14:39 at a distance of 10 NM from the DME, they lowered the aircraft below 8,200 feet, which was the planned altitude for a distance of 8 NM from the DME. Shortly thereafter, the machine crashed on a flank of the 8,250 ft (2,524 m ) mountain Bhattedanda. The impact occurred at an altitude of 7,300 ft (2,225 m ). The distance to the DME of Kathmandu Airport was 9.16 NM (approx. 17 km ). The machine flew into the mountain flank at more than 250 mph (over 400 km / h ) and exploded. All passengers were killed on impact. The tail fin tore off on impact and was thrown into a forest at the foot of the mountain.

The accident occurred just 59 days after the hitherto most serious aircraft accident in Nepal on Thai Airways flight 311 , when an Airbus A310-300 also crashed on a mountain while approaching Kathmandu, killing 113 people.

Salvage

Although it was drizzling at the scene of the accident in the meantime, the machine was still smoking two days after the accident. During the rescue, plastic bags were hung on bamboo plants, in each of which the remains of aircraft passengers were collected. The bags were then carried down a muddy path by police officers. The officers held towels over their faces to protect them from the smell. The rescue teams were concerned about the psychological consequences that the sight of charred body parts could have on relatives of the dead. A British ambassador was quoted as saying that he hoped the victims' relatives did not wish to be shown the bodies of the dead.

A helicopter pilot involved in the rescue stated that the machine would have flown safely over the valley if it had flown only 100 ft (approx. 30 m ) higher.

Accident investigation

The Nepalese accident investigators were supported by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada during the aircraft accident investigation . The evaluation of the cockpit voice recorder did not support any relevant conversations from the cockpit that could explain how the accident could have happened. The evaluation of the flight data recorder finally showed that the pilots had always initiated the respective approach phases one navigation point too early. At a distance of 16 NM, the machine was 1000 ft (approx. 305 m ) below the planned altitude, at the Sierra point it flew 1300 ft (approx. 396 m ) lower than required. Eventually the machine flew too low to fly over the Mahabharat Mountains on the way to Kathmandu, and hit its southern flank. Since the descent phases otherwise corresponded to the approach procedure, a descent curve resulted which was almost parallel to the glide path.

The accident investigators saw the main cause of the accident in a pilot's error, but responsibility was also assigned to air traffic control: Although the pilots had to inform the air traffic controller in Kathmandu about their current altitude and he could see the deviation, he did not inform the crew about the incorrect execution Approach procedure.

The difficulty of the approach and the poor legibility of the approach charts were cited as contributing factors.

consequences

As a result of the incident, Pakistan International Airlines suspended scheduled flights to Kathmandu.

Commemoration

In honor of the crash victims, Pakistan Airlines had a memorial built in Lele, which lies at the foot of the mountain where the plane crashed. PIA Memorial Park was inaugurated on May 25, 1994. The PIA Managing Director Farooq Umar was present at the inauguration. The memorial is located in a wooded valley and can be visited daily, all year round, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Media reception

The accident was filmed under the title Kathmandu Descent in episode 3 of season 20 of Mayday - Alarm im Cockpit . The first broadcast is announced for January 2020.

Sources and Links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Accident report Airbus A300B4-203, AP-BCP in the Aviation Safety Network
  2. ↑ Operating history of the machine on planespotters.net
  3. ↑ a b Tim McGirk: Airbus crash blamed on pilot error , The Independent of September 30, 1992.
  4. ↑ a b Tim McGirk, Christian Wolmar: Hunt goes on for black box wreckage in Airbus , The Independent from 1 October 1,992th
  5. ↑ a b Fazal Khaliq: PIA memorial park in Nepal honors 1992 air crash victims , dawn.com, October 17, 2015

Coordinates: 27 ° 31 ′ 58 ″  N , 85 ° 17 ′ 5 ″  E