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Bangkok Airways Plane Crashes in Thailand; Pilot Dies (Update4)

by lisha | August 4, 2009 at 03:58 pm

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Aug. 4 (Bloomberg) -- A Bangkok Airways Co. plane carrying international tourists to the Thai island of Samui skidded off a runway while landing, hitting a disused control tower and killing a pilot, officials said.

The ATR-72 turboprop aircraft with 68 passengers, all of them foreign, and four crew members crashed today in heavy rain. A second pilot and all passengers were evacuated, airline President Puttipong Prasarttong-Osoth told reporters in Bangkok. The passengers’ nationalities include British, Swiss, French, German, Swedish, Italian and Israeli, he said.

Some 42 people were injured, of whom 10 were hospitalized, Health Minister Witthaya Kaewparadai said. Four were in serious condition.

“The cause of the accident isn’t known yet,” Puttipong said. “We are still investigating. We aren’t sure if it was caused by bad weather or if it was human error.”

Tourism has declined in Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy since late 2008 because of the global economic slowdown, the swine flu pandemic and local political unrest. The last air crash in Thailand involved a One Two Go Airline Co. flight in September 2007, when 89 people were killed on Phuket island, another popular resort.

The Bangkok Airways plane flew to Samui from Krabi province. The incident took place about 1 p.m. Bangkok time, Aphinun Vannangkura, executive vice president of operations and planning at the government’s Aeronautical Radio of Thailand said in an interview.

Flights Diverted

The airport was closed and incoming flights were diverted to Surat Thani province, Puttipong said. Thirteen flights were scheduled to land in Samui after the crash, he said. The airline owns the airport in Samui, on the southeastern coast.

Thai Airways International Pcl, the national carrier, said it canceled two evening flights using Samui’s airport. Thai Airways has arranged accommodation for 292 passengers stranded in Bangkok and Samui, it said in a statement today.

To contact the reporters on this story: Anuchit Nguyen in Bangkok at anguyen@bloomberg.net; Suttinee Yuvejwattana in Bangkok at Suttinee1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: August 4, 2009 09:07 EDT

Source: bloomberg.com

{If we could point the things out before they happen is the best and quickest way to demonstrate the validity of a pattern. But thats not possible right. In general, the civil aviation authorities of several key countries, primarily the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, take the lead on making changes in areas such aircraft design, aircraft operation, and pilot training. Other major industrial nations have civil aviation authorities that have regulations and requirements similar to the leading countries. In the rest of the world, the International Civil Aviation Organization plays a similar influential role.
In most cases, formal airline accident investigations are the responsibility of either the nation where the accident occurred or by the nation where the aircraft was registered. Depending on the accident, any number of organizations have a major role in the investigation. In the last fifteen years or so, the fatal accident rate for passenger aircraft has not significantly changed. What has changed is the number of flights performed around the world, more than doubling during that same time. If one measures safety by the accident rate, things have not changed much. If one measures safety by the number of accidents, media coverage, and public concern, then flying may seem either more or less safe depending on how much attention is paid by the world media

If one considers a crash to be any accident that leads to a passenger fatality to be a crash, then these events happen infrequently. Even if one were to include deliberate events such as passenger fatalities by hijacking or sabotage, such events are still rare.}

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Amy Judd

at 16:07 on August 4th, 2009

Thank you for your post - we do ask our members to add some of their own commentary to the story and not to highlight an entire post from another site, but if you have any questions, just ask.