Thread: Phuket Air Crash Cover up

^^


meanwhile Mr Sun adds to the confusion ...................

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

I thought that 3 of the 6 six wind detectors on the ground weren't working?

That is correct.
They are solar powered and had no power

Additionally the ones fitted to the plane didn't work

The Malay Sun article was as clear as mud though.

here's the current , state of play ...........................


Final moments of Thai crash examined
September 19 2007 at 04:31PM



snip

"The process of investigation has progressed substantially," said Chaisak Angkasuwan, head of the Department of Civil Aviation.

"The testing of all the systems at the airport is finished. We are just waiting for the information from the black box (flight data) recorders to decide what the true cause of the accident was."

Vutichai Singhamany, a safety director at the Department of Civil Aviation, told AFP the pilot had put the landing gear down on approach to the airport on the resort island, but later retracted it and tried to pull up.

"The wheels did not touch the runway," Vutichai told AFP. "Then the plane tried to pull up and the accident happened."

Vutichai confirmed that three of six systems designed to detect a dangerous weather phenomenon known as wind shear were not working when the passenger jet crashed, but said that may not have caused the tragedy.

"Aircraft are equipped with their own warning systems, which do not depend on the ground ones," he told AFP.

The McDonnell Douglas MD-82 plane, operated by budget carrier One-Two-Go, slammed onto the runway in heavy rain before ploughing into an embankment and breaking up in flames, killing 89 of the 130 people on board.

snip


iol.co.za

Pilot was 'not ordered to land'

The Aeronautical Radio of Thailand (Aerothai) yesterday dismissed reports that a son of the Indonesian pilot of the fatal One-Two-Go flight said his father was ordered to land at Phuket Airport before the plane crashed.

Published on September 20, 2007

Aerothai executive vice president Kumtorn Sirikorn said landing was always the pilot's decision and it was impossible that air traffic controllers anywhere in the world could order a pilot to land against his will.

Smith Thammasaroj, chairman of the National Disaster Warning Centre, also rejected the claim reportedly made by a son of late pilot Arief Mulyadi, saying that the decision absolutely lay with the pilots.

"Air traffic controllers merely provide information and pilots make their own decisions," he said.

Smith told reporters he thought the blame would eventually fall on the pilot, rather than technical faults at the airport or on the plane.

"The landing gear was kept up. That reflects he realised the weather was not suitable for landing. He was a bit slow with his second thoughts," he said.

The reported strong wind shear that could have affected the landing of flight OG269 was not detected by local instruments at Phuket Airport, Kumtorn said, adding that it was up to the Transport Ministry to investigate why the systems did not work.

The debate on what caused the crash continued into the fourth day after the accident. Information from the black boxes will not be available until next week.

Vutichai Singhamany, a safety director at the Department of Civil Aviation, had earlier told Agence France-Presse that the pilot had put the landing gear down on his approach to Phuket in a heavy storm, but retracted it and then tried in vain to pull up.

"The wheels did not touch the runway," Vutichai told AFP. "Then the plane tried to pull up and the accident happened."

Vutichai confirmed that three of the six systems designed to detect a dangerous weather phenomenon known as wind shear were not working when the passenger jet crashed, but said that may not have caused the tragedy.

The Nation, Agence France-Presse

nationmultimedia.com

Phuket air crash pilot 'would fall asleep at the controls'

'None of this should have happened' says former pilot

By RICHARD SHEARS
19th September 2007

A damning report alleging a serious disregard of safety standards in the company operating the doomed Phuket jet has been made public by a former pilot.

Listing a catalogue of incidents that suggested many pilots were little more than cowboys in the sky, the whistleblower said passengers and crew on board flight OG 269 should never have died.
The captain at the controls, he claimed, was an Indonesian who had failed his medical earlier this year and had been grounded for two months because he would fall asleep at the controls.


Arief Mulyadi, the Indonesian pilot on the plane that crashed in Phuket


The anonymous pilot, unleashing his anger at the alleged neglect through an internet chat line for professional pilots, said: "Of course, a company culture combined with crew members willing to disregard safety standards made this crash predictable."

He claimed One Two Go airline disregards all duty and flight time limitations, required maintenance inspections and weather conditions.
"Again, none of this can happen unless pilots are culpable and the controlling authority looks the other way."

Nine Britons, including a newly-wed couple and their two friends who were witnesses at their Bangkok wedding, died when the jet slammed into the runway at Phuket airport in heavy rain and strong winds on Sunday.
One Briton is still critically ill.
The former pilot, an American who was with One Two Go for two years, revealed his frustration as he wrote of his efforts to instill in novice pilots some of his expertise. He conceded he had failed and he was not sure that he will now ever forgive himself


A former pilot has claimed Mulyadi would fall asleep while flying


The former airline employee told pilots around the world in his letter in a pilots' internet chatroom that the Chief Pilot on the One Two Go jet had not only failed his medical but if he fell asleep while at the controls it would usually be in the afternoon. The crash occurred around 3.40pm.
Describing an earlier incident in Afghanistan, the US pilot said it had been documented that the Indonesian captain had become "spatially disorientated" with the Afghan Prime Minister on board while on an approach to Kabul.

Admitting that his next claim was heresay, the pilot said that First Officers had shared stories that they had to take control of the aircraft when the Indonesian was on the flight deck.

There was a certainty, said the former pilot, that fatigue was "clearly a factor in this crash. Both Captain and First Officer exceeded flight time limitations the previous two days of the crash. They had flown 19+ hours in a 48-hour period."

Repeating his feelings of helplessness on learning of the crash – "I am both angry and sad" – the former pilot asked: "Windshear, compressor stall…or just plain fatigue and lack of experience with an inept Captain: who knows?"

But in a grim forecast he added: "Compounding this tragedy is the underlying feeling that this will not be their last… I can say that this was predicted by most of us who worked there and were eventually looking for safer pastures."

He feared the authorities will not take the hard decisions to force the airline to follow safety practices used throughout the industry.
An official at the Bangkok offices of One Two Go said there was no-one in authority available to comment on the claims.
"This is something we would have to study before anything could be said about it." said the official.
dailymail.co.uk

That same American pilot said that the Americans were always trouble makers for the airline, because they insisted on safety measures and refused to fly in many cases. Eventually they were driven out, and replaced by compliant Thais and Indos, etc., who would do illegal things to keep their jobs.

[/quote]

Pilot was 'not ordered to land'

"The landing gear was kept up. That reflects he realised the weather was not suitable for landing. He was a bit slow with his second thoughts," he said.

http://www.thaisnews.com/news_detail.php?newsid=214770

^Yes, that photo is damning of the assertion that his landing gear was retracted. This gets a better mystery every day, and I take no glee in that.

Flight data analysis done this month
BREAKING NEWS

Analysis of the flight data recorders will be finished at the end of this month and the cause of the air crash at Phuket International Airport will be concluded.

After a meeting of the committee investigating air accidents in the kingdom on Thursday, Flight Safety Standards Bureau director Wutthichai Singmanee said that the investigators collected all information about the weather, and the aircraft as well as data from the control tower.

Aviation specialists from the US are also helping analyse the data.

However, Mr. Wuttichai said that the cause of the accident will be concluded with the flight data recorders assessment at the end of the month.

Of 53 bodies of foreigners, nine bodies of Israeli and Indonesian nationals were claimed and have been returned to their families, and the remains of three dead Americans will be retrieved by their relatives Thursday evening, he said.

The remaining 31 bodies are as yet unidentified, but while forensic staff have already collected much information for identity verification, the remaining bodies of foreigners will be returned to their families more quickly if the forensic technicians receive added evidence from relatives.

After a meeting of agencies concerned, Udom Tantiprasongchai, chairman of One-Two-Go's parent company, Orient Thai Airlines,said it will pay Bt100,000 to the family of each victim killed in the plane crash.

Most of the families of Thai victims -- about 27 families out of all 32 families -- have already received the initial compensation. No family of other nationalities has as yet received compensation directly from the airline, but One-Two-Go is cooperating with the embassies.

Speaking about the insurance company, he said the insurer will be able to pay about Bt5.2 million to the family of each of the deceased victims.

The injured will receive an initial sum of Bt50,000 and they will receive added compensation later.

Mr. Udom also apologised to the families of the dead for whatever errors or circumstances on the day when accident happened.

He added that the airlines has reduced domestic flights from 40 trips a day to 10 trips to allow its crews and workers to have additional holidays.

The morale of all One-Two-Go employees is high. (TNA)

bangkokpost.com

One-Two-Go black box flies to US tonight
Fri, September 21, 2007 :


Civil Aviation Department Director General Chaisak Angsuwan said on Friday that the black box from the crashed One-Two-Go aircraft would be shipped to the US tonight, expecting to get the retrieved data within a week.

He said that once the data is available, it would be forwarded to an investigative committee chaired by Transport Permanent Secretary Chaisawat Kittipornpaiboon. Then, the committee would give a summary of the accident without revealing the details of the conversation between the pilot and the air controller.

"Whatever, the result has no influence on the compensations hat insurers need to pay to the passengers who got killed or injured in the accident," Chaisak said.

On the suggestion by Saprang Kalayanamitr, chairman of Airports of Thailand, that closed-circuit TV should be installed at airports, Chaisak said personally he believed that the installation was unnecessary.

"This is the first accident in 40 years at Phuket International Airport. But if (the installation) can offer some comfort, it can be done," he said.

- The Nation
nationmultimedia.com

Pilot sent "mayday" before Phuket crash

The pilot of the One-Two-Go budget airline that crashed in Phuket a week ago, killing 89 people, issued a distress signal to the airport tower before skidding off the runway, news reports said Sunday.

"The chief pilot shouted 'mayday' repeatedly to ask for help until he lost contact with the control tower," Pornchai Ua-aree, director of Phuket International Airport, told the Bangkok Post.

Controllers also received information from the pilot that although the aircraft's wheels were out they had not touched the ground, Porchai said.

On September 16, One-Two-Go flight OG269 landed at Phuket International Airport, 640 kilometres south of Bangkok, during a tropical rain storm and skidded off the runway into an embankment where it broke in two and burst into flames.

digitaljournal.com


landing................??

Pilot sent 'mayday' to tower
Second One-Two-Go plane has crash landing
By Achadtaya Chuenniran and Thai News Agency
Sunday September 23, 2007

The chief pilot of the ill-fated One-Two-Go airliner sent a distress signal to the control tower just before it crash-landed last Sunday, said Pornchai Ua-aree, director of Phuket international airport.

The pilot used a ''mayday'' signal to ask for help just before the plane veered off the runway and crashed into an earth embankment.

Meanwhile, another One-Two-Go flight from Bangkok to Hat Yai yesterday had a minor crash landing, but the pilot managed to control the aircraft.

One of the plane's lights and air-conditioning control panels fell on top of a passenger and oxygen masks also dropped down, airport officials said.

One passenger suffered bruising.

The incident took place less than a week after 89 passengers were killed and 41 injured when One-Two-Go flight OG269 from Bangkok veered off the runway and crashed at Phuket airport.

Sqn-Ldr Pornchai, who briefed a delegation from the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) transport committee about last week's crash, said airport controllers had warned the pilot about gusting winds and rain.

He said the controllers received information [from the pilot] that as the aircraft was about to touch down, its wheels were out, but they did not touch the ground.

He cited the taped conversation between the air traffic controllers and the pilot.

''The chief pilot shouted 'mayday' repeatedly to ask for help until he lost contact with the control tower,'' Sqn-Ldr Pornchai said.

The NLA committee, led by Bannawit Kengrien, yesterday travelled to Phuket to compile information about the crash and visit the injured at Bangkok Phuket hospital.

On long-term measures to cope with emergencies at the airport, he said the airport needed better quality foam to extinguish fires. The foam used to douse the fire last week was not good enough to put the fire out completely, Sqn-Ldr Pornchai said.

He also suggested large, better-equipped hospitals be built near Phuket airport.

Currently, the closest hospital is Thalang hospital, a small hospital that cannot serve many emergency patients, he said, adding the large hospitals are situated far away from the airport.

He said another 50 CCTV cameras would be installed in and around the airport, in addition to the 50 cameras already in place.

The NLA panel also called on the airport to make sure its equipment is well maintained and staff properly trained, he said.

Adm Bannawit said improvements must be made to the airport's rescue capability.

He said the airport still lacked an efficient rescue team and there were no rescue helicopters available.

He said he would pass on complaints about shortcomings in airport rescue work to various agencies.

Adm Bannawit expected all airports under the supervision of the Airports of Thailand to finish installing security cameras by the end of the month.

As for the data recorders which were sent to the United States, he said, the information on the cause of the crash should be made available in a month.

Udom Tantiprasongchai, president of Orient Thai Airlines, operator of the One-Two-Go budget airline, said he had received a report on yesterday's incident which said the pilot had to make a crash landing on the runway to ensure the wheels firmly touched down.

He said it was ''a normal situation'' which happened occasionally and did not suggest the plane was of sub-standard quality.

He said officials of the Civil Aviation Department investigated the cause of the accident and had found nothing wrong with the plane.

He said the department had allowed the plane to get back into service.
bangkokpost.com

^
I am sure that I read a report on here that said the recordings of the conversation between pilot and control tower were normal and revealed nothing.

^ I'm pretty sure that "mayday" in Bahasa Indonesia language means "everything a-ok, see you in the bar after we land."

That's the problem with those damn foreign pilots. Some of their words sound similar to English.