jul-aug2012

60
FEATURE
Air Blue Flight 202
runway centreline, and abeam the threshold of runway 12
on a heading of 352 degrees, the crew turned the aircraft left
onto 300 degrees through the autopilot, and the autopilot was
reselected to navigation mode.
A minute later, when the aircraft was one nm to the south of a
prohibited area, the tower controller instructed the crew to turn
left in order to avoid entering the no-fly zone. Shortly afterwards,
with the aircraft now five nm to the north of the airport, the
aircraft’s ground proximity warning system enunciated:
‘TERRAIN AHEAD’! The first officer urged: ‘Sir! Higher ground
has been reached! Sir, there is terrain ahead! Sir, turn left’!
By this time the captain was displaying frustration, confusion
and some anxiety, his speech indicating that he was
becoming rattled.
At 9.40am, the tower controller asked the crew if they were
visual with the airfield. The crew did not respond to the
transmission, the first officer asking the captain: ‘What should
I tell him, sir?’
At the insistence of the radar controller, the tower controller
then asked the crew again if they were visual with the ground.
Both the captain and the first officer said they were. Then
again the first officer exclaimed: ‘Sir! Terrain ahead is coming!’
The captain replied: ‘Yes, we are turning left.’
But the aircraft was not turning. At the same time, two more
‘TERRAIN AHEAD’ enunciations sounded. In his increasingly
flustered state, and trying to turn the aircraft to the left on the
autopilot, the captain was moving the heading bug onto reduced
headings, but failing to pull out the heading knob to activate
change, as required with the autopilot in navigation mode.
Forty seconds before impact, the autopilot mode was changed
from ‘navigation’ to ‘heading’. At this stage, the aircraft’s
heading was 307 degrees, but the captain had reduced the
selected heading to 086 degrees. As a result, the aircraft
immediately started to turn the shortest way towards this
heading, in this case to the right, towards the Margalla Hills.
From that time on, more ground proximity warning system callouts,
‘TERRAIN AHEAD, ‘TERRAIN AHEAD, PULL UP!’ began
sounding, continuing until impact.
Meanwhile, the first officer called out twice in an alarmed voice,
‘Sir turn left! Pull up! Sir, sir, pull up!’ In response, the thrust
levers were advanced, the autothrust disengaged, the selected
altitude was changed to 3700ft and the aircraft began climbing,
still turning right. Seconds later the thrust levers were retarded
to the climb detent, the autothrust re-engaged in the climb
mode, and the selected altitude reduced to 3100ft.
The first officer called out yet again, ‘Sir—pull up, sir!’ and the
no. 1 autopilot was disconnected, with the aircraft still rolling 25
degrees to the right. The captain then applied full left stick with
some left rudder. The aircraft began turning left at an altitude of
2770ft and increasing.
In the last few seconds of the flight, the captain applied more
than 50 degrees of bank to increase the turn, also making
some nose-down inputs. The aircraft pitched down nearly five
degrees. As its speed increased, the auto thrust spooled down
the engines, and the aircraft began descending at a high rate.
Although the first officer again shouted, ‘Terrain sir’ and the
captain started to make pitch-up inputs, the high rate of descent
could not be arrested in time. For the last time, the first officer
called out: ‘Sir we are going down ... Sir we are going d...’
Seconds after 9.41am, in a slightly nose-down attitude and
a steep left bank, the aircraft flew into the Margalla Hills at an
elevation of 2858ft. Its rate of descent was more than 3000ft
per minute. The aircraft was completely destroyed and all 152
people on board were killed instantly.
The weather at Islamabad Airport at the time of the crash
was three octas of cumulus cloud at 1000ft, four octas
of stratocumulus at 3000ft and seven octas of altostratus
at 10,000ft, with a visibility of 3.5km. The wind from 050
degrees was 16kt. The temperature was 24 degrees C and rain
was likely.
There was also a weather warning, valid to 12 noon, for
thunderstorms and rain for 50 miles around, and for south-east
to north-east winds at 20 to 40kt, gusting up to 65kt or more.
Visibility could reduce to one kilometre or less in precipitation.
Moderate to severe turbulence could occur in 1-2 octas of
cumulonimbus at 3000ft.
Findings
The captain’s behaviour towards the first officer was harsh,
snobbish and contrary to established norms. This curbed
the first officer’s initiative, created a tense environment, and
a conspicuous communication barrier.
The captain seemed determined to make a right-hand
downwind approach to runway 12, despite his knowledge
that Islamabad procedures did not permit this, and there
was low cloud in the area.
Contrary to established procedures for circling to land
on runway 12, the captain elected to fly the approach in
the navigation mode and asked the first officer to feed
unauthorised waypoints into the flight management system.
The first officer did not challenge his instructions.