Plane crash - Phuket, Thailand

reply to post by muddyhoop


Your friend and his girlfriend were so lucky to have not taken that flight... I hope their friends weren't on it either.
Best to you--

This is outragious and was bound to happen - as it will again.

I stay in Thailandand, from day one I've been a critical observer.

Saw a note on the local board this morning, but the extent didn't become clear before I opened this thread.

Then I was soon busy checkinhg the local news in English (The Nation).

I provide them here.

Death toll of Phuket plane crash rises to 88

Ill-fated One-Two-Go aircraft not covered by local insurance

Survivor and eyewitnesses tell of the Phuket Airport crash

Full list of passengers and list of passengers injured in Phuket Airport's

plane crash

50 Foreigners among 87 killed in Phuket plane crash

Not sure I got the one mentioning the carrier for costs reasons just changed its Farang and Thai pilots with Phillipinos.

Quite obvoius the carrier is one of the many low budget airlines sprung up since an open sky policy was implemented by Thai government.

Their names are among others Air Asia, Bangkok Airways and One Two Go. This accident involved the latter, a sub-group of Orient Thai Airlines.

Here's a snippet on its background.

Udom may have to rethink One-Two-Go strategies
Soon as he learnt about a crash of his One-Two-Go airline on Sunday, Udom Tantiprasongchai, founder and also chief executive officer of Orient Thai Airlines, came out to express his regret over the tragedy.



If you ever go here DONT use lowbudget airlines. Special offers let you book them for a few dollars, but...

They all eagerly try to get approval to fly on the lucrative European charter market. Bangkok Air had for a short while but was soon banned.

They are among the worst hazards in the sky.

[edit on 16-9-2007 by khunmoon]

I don't recall Bangkok air in Europe, do you mean Phuket air because I remember them getting banned.

I am not sure you can blame it on being low cost carriers either. The last crash in Thailand was Thai Air I think.

However It would be good for someone to look into the statistics of crashes of low cost carriers against them big companies. You would also have to take into consideration the flights ratio. I am not very good at this sort of thing so better if someone else could help out.

It would also be interesting to know the safest seats on a plane and what to do in the same situation ie do you put your head down between your legs type thing?

Apparantly many of the dead in this crash suffered massive head trauma indicating they died quickly rather than in the fire. Or do they say this to just make people feel better about how their loved ones died?

reply to post by muddyhoop


You're right -apology- it was Phuket Air.

No, Thai Air domestic doesn't have any good record either, they have to compete.

Did you know that Visa don't allow you to use their card purchasing tickets from Air Asia? They don't wanna lose any debtor.

-------------

Edited to add

High cost for cheap Asian flights?




[edit on 17-9-2007 by khunmoon]

maybe there was a bomb that caused the plane to break in two? did any witnesses hear explosions?

No reports of anyone hearing an explosion...

Yesterday's crash may have been caused by a ``microburst wind shear,'' said Vutichai, referring to a powerful downdraft that can affect aircraft during takeoff and landing.

The Indonsian pilot and Thai co pilot were both killed. The black boxes have been recovered and will be sent to either the US or Australia for investigations.

The airport is currently closed and is said to be losing 2 mil Dollars a day.

To be continued.....

An Irish survivor, identified as Sean, told of being badly burned on his arms, legs and back as he escaped the flames. Speaking to TITV from a local hospital, he said he knew something was wrong before the flight landed.

``You could tell when it was landing it was in trouble,'' he said. ``It was making a noise, this bang.''

source

So a bang was heard but this could have been many things, hitting the ground hard, mechanical failure of some sort?

Some comments from locals on the Phuket Forum website. This is a good place to visit for up to date info regarding the crash if you are interested.

12Go has a history of trouble and warnings.. Also seems that the rumour mill is stating that the (indo ??) pilot had only just started his career.

Bad weather, pilot with low hours, etc etc
Phuket Forum

Phuket has an ILS on Runway 27 - it is NOT suitable for auto-land.

- Basically to land the pilot must be visual with the runway environment (landing lights/PAPI or runway threshold) by 200 feet above ground level (Decision Height) if not, then the pilot must conduct a missed approach (go around).
Phuket Forum

Plane Crash Landing

this is what happens to an MD80 (same type as the one that crashed in Phuket) when it hits the runway too hard…

Google Video Link

reply to post by muddyhoop


One of the links I've read today do mention an eyewitness saying something like "first there was fire inside the cabin, then a small explosion blew off the roof".

Might have been on this board for expats.
teakdoor.com...

It also says the airport is sceduled to reopen 5pm local time (25 minuttes ago).

Hi

Yes you are correct the airport re opened at 17:00 today.

I too live in Thailand (Bangkok) and have flown with this airline (North to Chiang Mai). When I told my Thai collegue I was flying with them he laughed and told me that the "only thing new about that airline are the pilots". The flight, as you can imagine, went off without a hitch but I will say one thing... they had the worst legroom of any flight I have ever had

I am an engineering consultant and without going to deep into a boring story, I had to do some work to contrast my industry with the aviation industry. We were recommended a free-lance consultant to discuss the issue with and while his involvement didn't do much for our project, it provided me with a load of scary flight stories that I have been dining out on ever since

He maintained that the best seats for surviving accidents are the ones two body lengths from any exit but ideally an exit in rearof your seat. Window seats were considered better since you can climb over the top of the other seats and avoid the literal fight that would be going on in the aisle, he also said that the window seat allows you to keep contact with the plane wall so you can't go past the exit in the smoke / darkness. You can count the windows if you have Jason Bourne type presence to remember stuff like that...

He said the rear as (apparently - don't ask me to prove this) simulation testing, even using trained flight crews as 'passengers' tended to show that in a panic situation people tend to run to the front of the palne as this is where they got on the plane and associate it with 'entry / exit'

All of this is assuming that the plane has made it down to the ground in some way shape or form as in Thailand. He did say that scenarios that involved planes coming out of the sky at 600MPH, even if there is enough legroom to allow you to get your head between your knees, were not really survivable.

Originally posted by EJHoover
All of this is assuming that the plane has made it down to the ground in some way shape or form as in Thailand. He did say that scenarios that involved planes coming out of the sky at 600MPH, even if there is enough legroom to allow you to get your head between your knees, were not really survivable.

Even considering that, if it were going much faster than that one yesterday, how far to the exit might be further than how far till the plane doesn't exist there anymore, making escape a bit easier than finding a door. Airframes aren't really made to stay intact that much in those circumstances, and if they were it wouldn't be too handy since the plane might be more durable like that than the passengers, which isn't too handy.

One-Two-Go Air MD82 OG269 Phuket crash

"a merge of british and german news"

Among the foreigners who perished was 56-year-old pilot Areef Mulyadi, whose nationality was not officially released but is understood to be Indonesian. The co-pilot, a Thai, also died.
Phuket Gazette

Why are they holding back on the nationality of the pilot?

Orient Thai Director K. Udom arrived in Phuket last night. In addition to expressing his regrets and condolences, he said the airline will provide free transport and accommodation to the family members of all survivors as well as an initial compensation payment of 100,000 baht for each victim.

Thats about 1500 GBP! He does go on to say however that
“We can’t say at this point how much we will pay in total compensation, but don’t worry because we will do our best,” he said.

But I can't see it satisfying the westerners however much.

reply to post by muddyhoop

Orient Thai Director K. Udom arrived in Phuket last night. In addition to expressing his regrets and condolences, he said the airline will provide free transport and accommodation to the family members of all survivors as well as an initial compensation payment of 100,000 baht for each victim.

I agree that it is not much compensation for the life of a loved one but do airlines normally make offers of compensation straight out in this manner? What if it is proven that this is a 'act of god' (insurance speak rather than religious speak) and there was nothing that 12GO or the Pilot could have done. Do people still get compensated then and who pays them? If this guy was working for a major international airline, I would imagine that he would be disowned by his legal department for saying anyting that can be construed as an admission of guilt at this stage.

Perhaps we should applaude his offer as an instant, human reaction to a shocking incident despite, what seems to Western eyes, the small sum involved?

40 Alive
88 Dead
Thankfully no New Zealanders and only 1 Australian dead.
Very sorry for who ever lost someone in this tragic event

For anyone else who might find this interesting:

22nd loss of a MD-80
6th worst accident involving a MD-80 (at the time)
6th worst accident involving a MD-80 (currently)
3rd worst accident in Thailand (at the time)
3rd worst accident in Thailand (currently)

aviation-safety.net...

Can anyone make sense of this?

Weather around the time of the accident (ca 09:00 Z) included: VTSP 160900Z 27012KT 1000 RA SCT015 BKN110 BKN300 24/23 Q1006 2973.