PIA 8303 was a 50% confusion, mainly over the question of go-around or not go-around. The pilot in command intended to land; his first officer disagreed.
I note that both 737 MAX crashes and the PIA 8303 crash were precipitated by the crew "cleaning up" the aircraft as part of their response to an unwanted flight condition for which not being "clean" was not involved in the problem in any way. I do not understand the desire to make changes to an already unstable situation.
The cockpit voice recorder from South Korea is/has been copied out and is being examined to produce a transcript and that should resolve the intention vs. confusion issue.
The flight data recorder was damaged in a way they could not attach a read-out device, so it is being sent to the US for a more advanced effort. There's no indication yet that the modules inside are damaged; the report is the external connector was separated in the crash.
I hope this can be resolved by the review of the CVR and FDR and isn't another case leaving ambiguity that could have been eliminated with a video recording of the flight deck.
It appears the South Koreans are doing a top-to-bottom analysis of every aspect of aviation, including police raids on the airport management offices.
The raid came as pressure built on authorities to establish the cause of the crash, which occurred after the Boeing 737-800’s landing gear apparently failed to deploy as it came in to land at Muan, in the country’s south-west, on Sunday morning.
The raid came as pressure built on authorities to establish the cause of the Jeju Air crash, which left 179 people dead
www.theguardian.com
I think they will find that the landing gear did not fail to deploy, but that the pilots simply didn't call for the deployment or act on it for the same reason they did not deploy the flaps or the speed brakes/spoilers. Any reasoning about why is just a matter of waiting for the CVR to be reviewed.
