Accident
On 20th April 2012, Bhoja Air Flight BHO-213, a Boeing 737-236A registered as AP-BKC, was operating a domestic scheduled service from Jinnah International Airport, Karachi, to Benazir Bhutto International Airport, Islamabad. The aircraft departed Karachi at 1705 hours Pakistan Standard Time with 127 persons on board, including 6 flight crew members.
Weather at Islamabad was reported as thunderstorm with gusty winds. The flight was cleared by Islamabad Approach Radar for an Instrument Landing System (ILS) approach to Runway 30. While established on the ILS at the prescribed altitude and 6 nautical miles from touchdown, the crew was instructed to contact the Air Traffic Control Tower for final landing clearance. The crew switched to the tower frequency and received landing clearance, but did not acknowledge. The tower repeated the clearance without response.
Shortly thereafter, a local resident reported that an aircraft had crashed near Hussain Abad, approximately 4 nautical miles short of Runway 30. It was confirmed that Flight BHO-213 had crashed, and all 127 occupants sustained fatal injuries. The aircraft was completely destroyed.
Investigation
The official investigation examined factors leading to the accident. The aircraft was a Boeing 737-236A, an advanced version of the 737-200 series with an automated flight deck. The crew's experience was primarily on semi-automated aircraft. The operator, Bhoja Air, had requested and received an extension for the first officer's recurrent simulator training on 7th March 2012; the extension was granted for a Boeing 737-200, not the 737-236A. The operator and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Pakistan were unaware of the automation differences until the crew attended simulator training in South Africa. The operator's operations manual required avoiding active weather cells by 5 to 10 nautical miles, a rule the crew violated by continuing toward the destination despite a squall line with small gaps between cells.
Probable Cause
The investigation identified the primary cause as ineffective management of basic flight parameters—airspeed, altitude, descent rate, attitude, and thrust—by the cockpit crew in extreme adverse weather. Contributing factors included the crew's decision to continue into changing winds associated with the weather, the captain's and first officer's lack of experience with the automated flight deck, and inadequate simulator training and professional competence monitoring by the operator. The crew's failure to follow Boeing-recommended Quick Reference Handbook and Flight Crew Operating Manual procedures, due to non-availability of customized documents for the 737-236A, also contributed. Additionally, the CAA Pakistan's inability to ensure variance type training and monitoring, stemming from incorrect information provided by Bhoja Air Management, was a contributing factor.