Phuket weather is always unstable.
Having said that the UK is a lot worse.
Thailand is an easy country to fly across with very predictable weather.
We do not yet know the full details on this accident but as a private pilot I would have sat on the ground elsewhere or at the worst turned back.
I rarely post on these speculative threads but the above comment cannot pass without comment.
Such a sweeping generalisation about respective weather conditions is inaccurate. Rarely do we get the sort of storms in the UK which are commonplace in the Far East at certain times of the year. To then go on and declare what you would have done as a private pilot is as impossible to predict as it is irrelevant.
Was the MD aircraft in question not equipped for a fully blind landing in zero visibility or does Phuket airport not have the necessary equipment installed?
Surely in a similar situation at say Gatwick Airport there would be no problem with landing in near non existent visibility.
A common misunderstanding about low visibility landings is that it is not as simple as plugging the autopilot in and sitting back. Apart from relevant visibility minima, (it is never 'zero', the lowest my company can operate to is 75 metres), the aeroplane autoflight systems have to be certificated to autoland to a specified minima, the airfield equipment has to be of sufficiently high standard (calibrated, maintained and certificated to the appropriate level and there are numerous levels) and there are tailwind, crosswind and aircraft defect limitations, etc.
Few airports in the world have ground equipment to the required standard, usually only the major ones in developed and wealthy countries.
These threads bring out the very worst in people with so many posts made by people who want to take part in a willy waving contest when all they do is prove there ignorance, illogical thinking, immaturity or all three.
If somebody has something worthwhile to say it becomes lost in the reams of garbage and false sincerity (RIP, condolences, etc. referring to unknown people never met and probably scarcely thought about therafter) expressed by people who could do PPRuNe and its readers a favour by reading instead of posting and waiting until the true causes of this accident become known.