Orient Thai, an accident in the making
- I worked at Orient Thai for one year on the B747.
- I can not speak too much about the B757 or the MD operation. I believe the B757 section operated well because of western crews and the tight control of Xan. I left just after they got a couple of MDs. The MD operation started out to be good because most all of the MD crews were western.
- But in some respects, Orient Thai was like the French Foreign Legion; most everybody had a story or had a skeleton in the closet.
- On the B747 there were three camps, Indonesians, Filipinos and Westerners.
- I have worked for several non-scheduled airlines. Orient Thai is the only company that when we had a beer in a bar at night we would ponder when they were going to crash the first one.
- There was a Thai ‘Dragon Lady’ that ran Flight Operations as I left. I am not sure where the ‘Dragon Lady’ came from. I think maybe she started out as a secretary or something. She was at the airline from the beginning. All I knew was that she worked for Udom for a long time and Udom trusted her. She had the aspiration of operating the airline. She got her wish by finding a retired Thai DCA Inspector that she could manipulate to replace Graham Smith as the DO. Things went to **** when Graham was pushed out. While Graham was there there was progress being made to make Orient Thai into a respectable airline. One time, after Graham was gone, I overheard the ‘Dragon Lady’ tell a B757 crew member, “I am in charge now and you will do what I tell you to do”, when she wanted him to exceed a duty time limitation.
- I understand that the new Thai DO wanted to get rid of the western crews and replace them with Thais. I believe this was because the Asian crews said yes more easily when the company wanted them to break the rules.
- Envelopes of money waiting for guys at check in if their flight was scheduled to exceed duty times.
- Orient Thai had just gotten three Thai First Officers while I was there. They didn’t know the first thing about operating a large aircraft. They had come from the Thai Air Force where they flew fighters. I believe one of them had a claim-to-fame of crashing a Harrier and living through it.
- The new Thai DO’s idea of operating an airline was allowing the ‘new hire’ Thai First Officers to suck up to him on the golf course or over tea in his office.
- Many times I would catch a glimpse of the Thai DO in his office staring at the wall or sleeping-no papers or documents on his desk. If he wasn’t at the golf course in the afternoon he would go home at 5 or before. By contrast, sometimes I would arrive very early in the morning for a flight to see Graham busy at his desk. Other times I would see Graham there at 11pm.
- There was absolutely zero training; no initial or recurrent training.
- No CRM or CRM training.
- No Standards
- There were some Indonesian and Filipino captains thinking they were gods. It is the culture.
- While I was there it was western management on the B747. They were fought by the Filipinos and Indonesians when they tried to increase the standards on the B747 and to change it from a ‘good-ole-boy-flying-club’ to an airline. The Indonesians and Filipinos manipulated the Scheduler so that they could get all one nationality on a crew so they could operate the aircraft as if they were back at Philippine Air or at Garuda. They would even use manuals and checklist from their previous airline.
- The Captains who were responsible to verify the accuracy of Performance Data and Weight and Balance computations did not know what they were checking. This came to light during a training course instigated by Graham when he was DO.
- Maintenance was a horror story! They ‘pencil whipped’ maintenance and checks. Frequently, I would arrive at the aircraft for a morning departure and I could tell by the fuel remaining at block in from the log book the night before and comparing it to what was currently onboard the aircraft that the APU was operated all night instead of a ground power unit. I suspected it was so that the mechanics had the comfort of air conditioning from the APU to allow them to sleep all night instead of doing the required maintenance inspections.
- On one of my first flights while at Orient Thai on a dark early morning departure I just by chance from the reflection of my flashlight found the pitot static ports taped over with CLEAR tape with no log book entry. Apparently, there was a belly wash the night before. When I brought it to the attention of a Thai Mechanic his response was, “want me to remove?” No, just leave it there and maybe it will blow off before we crash!
- Another time after spending a night in Hong Kong in the morning during the preflight I asked the mechanic if he did a daily inspection on the aircraft? His response was, “yes”. I asked if the tires were checked as part of the daily and he said no. Which they should have been because it is part of a daily inspection. I told him he better get a gauge and check the tires because some of them looked low. He told me he couldn’t because he had no gauge and he would have to pay a Cathay mechanic to do it and he had no money to pay him.
- The mechanics had no company tools. One time, I asked to borrow a tool from a Flight Mechanic during a long trip. I opened his tool box only to find it full of junk.
- Many times I would force mechanics to get a tire gauge to check the tires. On preflights I found many tires low. I found one tire at just 50 psi (who knows how many flights it had operated at that pressure) when it should have been at 200 psi. “Can’t we just air it up” was the response of a Thai mechanic when I told him to replace the tire. What if I had not been watching when he checked the tire pressure? Anyone that has worked with airplanes for a short period time knows that this is an automatic tire change with the tire coming off being condemned. Blown tires have been known to have caused aircraft accidents. Low tires are something that you can sometimes see. Who knows what is being neglected that is not obvious.
- There is also an instance that I know of where the Chief Pilot (a westerner) grounded an aircraft and offloaded passengers for a maintenance problem. Later finding out instead of fixing the problem with the aircraft the company called out a Filipino crew that was willing to fly the broken aircraft.
- If an intelligent DCA Inspector spent a few hours going through the aircraft log books it would paint an interesting story. He could see where maintenance would sign off deferred maintenance items just as they timed out only to be written up again by a new crew. This would happen several times in a row. There were totally bogus ways they would sign things off. If the Thai DCA was doing their job correctly every Mechanic at Orient Thai would lose their license. Either the DCA is incompetent, corrupt or both. I believe Udom was paying off the DCA.
- I believe that not only should Indonesian airlines be black listed but the EU should take a very serious look at the Thai airlines. Especially the low budget ones (Orient Thai/Thai Sky etc.).
- I am sure some people will view this information as prejudiced, biased or even racist. This is the way it was as I saw it while I was there.
- I believe every western crew member that has left Orient Thai knew that this accident was going to happen; it was just a matter of when.