/ 17 September 2007

Thai crash investigators find flight recorders

Investigators on Monday recovered the two flight recorders, or ”black boxes”, from Thailand’s worst plane crash in a decade, which killed at least 90 people, mostly foreign tourists.

The budget One-Two-Go Airlines flight was carrying 123 passengers and seven crew members from Bangkok to the island resort of Phuket on Sunday when it skidded off a runway while landing in driving wind and rain. The plane caught fire, engulfing some passengers in flames as others kicked out windows to escape.

”We are still unable to say the cause of accident,” the Transport Minister, Theera Haocharoen, said. ”The officials have found the black boxes and will send them for analysis to the United States. Hopefully, we will learn in a few weeks the cause of accident.”

Kajit Habnanonda, the president of Orient-Thai Airlines, which owns One-Two-Go, said wind shear — the rapid change in wind speed which can affect takeoffs and landings — was a possible cause of the accident.

He added that heavy rain could have contributed to the plane skidding off the runway.

Phuket’s deputy governor, Worapot Ratthaseema, said British passengers were among the dead, along with Irish, French, German, Israeli and Australian travellers.

Reports have put the British death toll at around 10, with eight survivors, but the Foreign Office was unable to give exact figures of the Britons involved.

The British ambassador to Thailand, Quinton Quayle, who arrived in Phuket with a 10-strong embassy team, said he now believed ”several” British nationals had died in the crash.

”I can confirm that, sadly, we believe that several British citizens have died on the flight,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

”Identifying victims positively is a very difficult process after an accident in which the plane caught fire and unfortunately many of the people on board were disfigured.

”We want to get it right and that requires some painstaking work by my staff. As soon as we have got definitive information we will, of course, release it.”

He said he had spoken to the two confirmed British survivors, who were in ”good shape and pretty good heart”.

”We helped them to communicate with their families and friends in the UK,” he said. It was not clear exactly how many foreigners were killed but the Thai ministry of public health later issued a partial list of 31 foreign survivors.

There were a total of 78 foreign passengers on board, according to Monrudee Gettuphan, the vice-president of corporate communications for the air transport authority of Thailand.

Survivors said the plane was preparing to land in heavy rain when it suddenly lifted off again, then crashed down on the runway. It rammed through a low retaining wall and split in two.

Survivors described their escape amid chaos, smoke and fire.

”I think he realised the runway was too close or he was too fast or the wind had hit him,” Borland, a survivor who now lives in Australia, told the Associated Press. ”He accelerated and tried to pull out. I thought, he is going around again, and the next thought was everything went black and there was a big mess and we hit the ground.”

Borland (48) said his trousers caught fire. He managed to drag himself to an exit from where he was pulled to safety by another survivor.

”People were screaming. There was a fire in the cabin and my clothes caught fire,” he said.

Many of the passengers had been planning to holiday at Phuket, a popular beach resort that was among the areas hit hardest by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed more than 8 000 people on the island.

The crash was the country’s deadliest aviation accident since December 11 1998, when 101 people were killed after a Thai Airways plane crashed while trying to land in heavy rain at Surat Thani, 528km south of Bangkok. Forty-five people survived.

The accident raised new questions about the safety of budget airlines in South-East Asia, which have grown rapidly in number in recent years and often struggle to find qualified pilots, although airline officials said the pilot of the crashed plane was experienced.

None of Thailand’s budget airlines has previously suffered a major accident, but there have been several deadly crashes in Indonesia. Many budget airlines use older planes that have been leased or bought after years of use by other airlines.

According to Thai and US aviation registration data, the plane that crashed in Phuket was manufactured and put into use in 1983. It began flying in Thailand in March this year.

One-Two-Go Airlines, which began operating in December 2003, is the domestic subsidiary of Orient-Thai Airlines, a regional charter carrier based in Thailand. – Guardian Unlimited Â