where actually lies the vulnerability/Problem ??

Discuss issues and news related to PIA, Pakistani airlines and Pakistan's civil & military aviation.
jawad_cse
Registered Member
Posts: 54
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2015 11:42 am

where actually lies the vulnerability/Problem ??

Post by jawad_cse »

It was shocking to hear and see the pictures on Tv showing Pia Atr going down.

It is now becoming very common in pakistan that we see serious issues existing in pakistani airlines.

this country saw Air blue crash, boja air crash, Pia air carshes and time and again the shaheen air runway landing gear problems.

Air safety record in pakistan is never pleasing.

My question is where actually the problem is?

Over utilisation of aged aircrafts
improper maintenance
Or unprofessionalism on part of crew.
Or weather plays some part.

if we say terrains or weather does contribute to it, then Air india, jet airways, go air ,indigo, vistara All fly to places like Leh, dharmshala, kullu, dehradun and Andaman islands where weather is never favourable for landing and take off. yet these airlines show 100% safety record for such places.
More importantly bigger aircrafts A320 and B 737 fly to high altitude and terrain airports in india.

Its always a blessing to be in a country where air safety standards are upto mark and thankfully India is one among.
yyzflyer
Registered Member
Posts: 76
Joined: Thu Nov 03, 2016 10:08 pm

Re: where actually lies the vulnerability/Problem ??

Post by yyzflyer »

Engine issues due to non-compliant spare parts is the biggest reason. In the recent past there have been 12+ incidents with this ATR aircrafts of PIA.
Today in Khara Such program, Mubashir reiterated all the occurences and incidents with ATRs and engine problems.
Shoddy maintenance practices is the big problem, (not using correct spare parts as per manufacturer).
uzairali
Registered Member
Posts: 650
Joined: Fri Nov 06, 2015 4:43 am

Re: where actually lies the vulnerability/Problem ??

Post by uzairali »

age is ok and aircrafts are rather under utilized.

Let's not jump to conclusion. Even 5 star airlines faces aircraft crashes. Sometime pilot error, engineer, or mix case like air france over atlantic.

But I will say that for mountainous region where weather is unpredictable, it is better PIA uses jet engine instead propeller. Use atr 42 propellers for balochistan since small population and atr 72 for 1 hour flights between punjab sindh and isb.
User avatar
Adnan Anwar
Registered Member
Posts: 967
Joined: Thu Aug 05, 2004 8:52 pm
Location: Toronto, ON

Re: where actually lies the vulnerability/Problem ??

Post by Adnan Anwar »

jawad_cse wrote:It was shocking to hear and see the pictures on Tv showing Pia Atr going down.

It is now becoming very common in pakistan that we see serious issues existing in pakistani airlines.

this country saw Air blue crash, boja air crash, Pia air carshes and time and again the shaheen air runway landing gear problems.

Air safety record in pakistan is never pleasing.

My question is where actually the problem is?

Over utilisation of aged aircrafts
improper maintenance
Or unprofessionalism on part of crew.
Or weather plays some part.


if we say terrains or weather does contribute to it, then Air india, jet airways, go air ,indigo, vistara All fly to places like Leh, dharmshala, kullu, dehradun and Andaman islands where weather is never favourable for landing and take off. yet these airlines show 100% safety record for such places.
More importantly bigger aircrafts A320 and B 737 fly to high altitude and terrain airports in india.

Its always a blessing to be in a country where air safety standards are upto mark and thankfully India is one among.
Jawad_cse, YOu cannot compare conditions in India to Pakistan. The places you mentioned , Andaman islands are tropical area, you are comparing apples and oranges here. Pakistan has tried to construct runways to accomodate the 737 and A320 in Gilgit but the airport location limits the runway expansion and FWO has done geological survey , compacting the soil will cost more than the usable life of the expanded runway.

India has had as many accidents than Pakistan, even Air India has had its Air Safety certification taken away by FAA fear years and India had to beg USA govt for few years to have that certification restored after comprehensive review.

Before Air Blue , PIA was the only international airline from Pakistan and PIA had its air certification downgraded by FAA but NOT taken away however re-attained the lost status after review. All Indian Carriers have had incident and accidents, it is just you don't hear about it.

One more thing, Conditions in our northern areas are a lot different than Andaman islands.
Adnan Anwar
User avatar
uzkt01
Registered Member
Posts: 238
Joined: Fri Jul 01, 2016 2:49 pm

Re: where actually lies the vulnerability/Problem ??

Post by uzkt01 »

Adnan Anwar wrote:
jawad_cse wrote:It was shocking to hear and see the pictures on Tv showing Pia Atr going down.

It is now becoming very common in pakistan that we see serious issues existing in pakistani airlines.

this country saw Air blue crash, boja air crash, Pia air carshes and time and again the shaheen air runway landing gear problems.

Air safety record in pakistan is never pleasing.

My question is where actually the problem is?

Over utilisation of aged aircrafts
improper maintenance
Or unprofessionalism on part of crew.
Or weather plays some part.


if we say terrains or weather does contribute to it, then Air india, jet airways, go air ,indigo, vistara All fly to places like Leh, dharmshala, kullu, dehradun and Andaman islands where weather is never favourable for landing and take off. yet these airlines show 100% safety record for such places.
More importantly bigger aircrafts A320 and B 737 fly to high altitude and terrain airports in india.

Its always a blessing to be in a country where air safety standards are upto mark and thankfully India is one among.
Jawad_cse, YOu cannot compare conditions in India to Pakistan. The places you mentioned , Andaman islands are tropical area, you are comparing apples and oranges here. Pakistan has tried to construct runways to accomodate the 737 and A320 in Gilgit but the airport location limits the runway expansion and FWO has done geological survey , compacting the soil will cost more than the usable life of the expanded runway.

India has had as many accidents than Pakistan, even Air India has had its Air Safety certification taken away by FAA fear years and India had to beg USA govt for few years to have that certification restored after comprehensive review.

Before Air Blue , PIA was the only international airline from Pakistan and PIA had its air certification downgraded by FAA but NOT taken away however re-attained the lost status after review. All Indian Carriers have had incident and accidents, it is just you don't hear about it.

One more thing, Conditions in our northern areas are a lot different than Andaman islands.
Still India has better safety record than Pakistan, despite the fact that they have 10 times more aircraft in air than Pakistan and its not just India, most countries in the region have lower crash rate. Even Iran's vintage aircraft are better serviced than ours.
faisal-777
Registered Member
Posts: 821
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 2:02 pm

Re: where actually lies the vulnerability/Problem ??

Post by faisal-777 »

While unfortunately we have had 3 big fatal crashes in last 1 decade with 2 investigations out already, I'd say there still exists some doubt regarding the real root cause of these. The recent one might actually be an entirely an accident that might not be related to any human factors. Let's wait and see.

PIAs last crash before PK661 was entirely a matter of aging fleet. The Fokkers should have gone a bit earlier.

About the Airblue crash, well call me a conspiracy theorist, i do not believe the popular opinion on what happened. There's something about it we do not know. How often you see some pilot being so stupid as to reach Margalla hills after a go-around? We dont need to know pilot set some way points which landed them in hills and they impacted the terrain. We want to know what made pilot enter those way points. All this report of bullying copilot in my opinion is irrelevant and seems away from reasons behind crash.

The Bhoja crash was a management failure, exposed by weather. That airline and aircraft should not have been allowed to operate. Simple !

Today I'd see aging fleet is not a factor behind safety risks that exist. Pretty much all private airlines and PIA have a fleet that can be considered not so old by aviation standards. No issues with pilots and following standards and procedures too. The only area where i feel disaster probability is high is due to maintenance practices. I haven't worked full time within aviation, i worked as maintenance engineer with machines in production. Machines behavior over long periods are same whether it's a car, aircraft, production machinery or whatever it might be. And from my experience, things fail prematurely:

- If you have no solid inspection plan, competence and tools to detect failures.
- Use of nonstandard parts
- Quick fixes (duct tapes literally)

And all this is driven by budget situation. Maintenance activity is always a cost centre. It eats money rather than bringing it. So there is always pressure to reduce cost of maintenance. Since you cannot play around with salaries, no. of scheduled maintenance cycles, your only area of cost saving is spare parts. Even I used to present savings through use of local parts rather than OEM parts (no lives were at stake in this regard since it was production machinery, at worst, i would have downtime if it backfired). And when you are PIA, who is living on taxpayer's money, you can well imagine what decision a line maintenance manager would take when he is asked to restrict cost.
Once you have tasted flight, you will ever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward - Leonardo Da Vinci