Airline official says wind shear may have caused crash
An AP report in Bangkok says that an airline official said wind shear may have doomed the budget One-Two-Go Airlines flight carrying 123 passengers and seven crew from Bangkok to Phuket on Sunday when it skidded off the runway while landing in driving wind and rain, catching fire and engulfing some passengers in flames.
According to a transcript of the conversation between the control tower and the plane, ground officials informed the Indonesian pilot, Arief Mulyadi, about wind shear at the airport but he decided to land anyway, the Air Transport Department’s director-general, Chaisak Ungsuwan, said on The Nation TV channel. “The last word the pilot said was ‘landing'”, he said.
Wind shear refers to sudden changes in the wind along a plane’s flight path which can result in a disastrous loss of lift on the wings.
“We are still unable to say the cause of the accident”, Transport Minister Theera Haocharoen.
Kajit Habnanonda, president of Orient-Thai Airlines, which owns One-Two-Go, said wind shear could have been a factor, saying, “It is possible that the plane crash was caused by wind shear, adding that heavy rains could have contributed to the plane skidding off the runway.
Maj. Gen. Santhan Chayanon, deputy police commander of the region including Phuket, said that bodies of the foreign victims will be kept in refrigerated containers at the airport until their families claim them.
Authorities are also collecting DNA samples of unidentified victims, he said.
The Indonesian pilot and Thai co-pilot were both killed in the crash.
Israel, which had 10 citizens on the flight has sent medics and rescue personnel to help locate and identify any fatalities, according the Israeli rescue service, Magen David Adom.
Finance Minister Chalongphob Sussangkarn said the crash probably wouldn’t affect tourism, a key money maker for Thailand, but said officials would “have to take a look at the procedures and the security standards and investigate what happened.”
It was Thailand’s deadliest aviation accident since Dec. 11, 1998, when 101 people were killed when a Thai Airways plane crashed while trying to land in heavy rain at Surat Thani, 530 kilometers (330 miles) south of Bangkok. Forty-five people survived.
The McDonnell Douglas MD-82 plane which crashed in Phuket was 24 years old and began flying in Thailand in March this year with One-Two-Go Airlines beginning operations in December 2003.
Report by The Mole and AP
John Alwyn-Jones
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