Sad this has to happen....
I worked for OX on the B752 during furlough from my current job. It's with great sadness and anger that I read about this accident for it did hit close to home...
I have been telling friends intending to travel to the Far East not to fly on the low-cost carriers (except those affliated with the national carriers such as Tiger and Nok-Air), especially on OX 747s and MD-80s. For those of us who have worked at OX, this accident seemed inevitable with their "management" culture. Their attitude was to save money at all cost and ask the crew to do something illegal - if the crew do it and get caught, that's their own problem. Fortunately for me all the B752 pilots were western trained (Americans, Canucks, Aussies, Kiwis, and Brit) so we did follow FOMs and SOPs. I personally overheard a conversation in which the "management" person told another pilot that all the TROUBLEMAKERS in the company were the American pilots on the B752. I assume he meant that we were troublemakers because we followed rules as well as refused aircraft for maintenance issues.
With my experience at OX, I could confirm most of what was in shiftpattern's post #123. I do not know the pilots involved (may they RIP) for the MD-80s arrived just when I quit OX and I am sure those initial MD-80 pilots no longer worked there. IMHO, Udom and his "management" is at fault and DCA is also to blame for looking the other way. Unfortunately I don't think much of the story about exceeding duty limitations and maintence issues would ever come out (so on one could loose face).
As the scheduler, I had a disagreement later with that same "management" person mentioned above regarding duty limitations. OX added seasonal service from HKT to HKG on the B752 in Aug '05. I had wanted the pilots to layover in HKG (BKK-HKT-HKG, layover and do the reverse next day) but he wanted the layover be in HKT. Quoting him, "it's easier to get hotels in HKT and his boys on the B747 really like the HKT layover." I gave in to that so we flew BKK-HKT-HKG-HKT, but realized within the first week that it was not legal (out of the first 4 flights, the fastest was 8.1 hrs flight time and the average was 8.3 hrs). When I complained that this was illegal for it exceed the domestic limit of 8 hrs, the answer was that it followed international limit of 10 hrs. Since there was an obvious disagreement over our interpretations of the FOM, I asked him to go to the DCA to clarify whether BKK-HKT-HKG-HKT should be considered domestic or international. The initial answer was that he was too busy and had no time to do that. When I persisted, his answer was that he did ask and DCA's answer was that it was up to OX to decide so it is international. I then ask him to put that in writing in the FOM or a memo but that request was just ignored. These flights concluded just about then and the isssue never came up again during my remaining 3 months at OX. Of course now I deeply regret not forcing the issure more. With Thai pilots, I could easily see they simply do whatever they are asked to do even if it was illegal according to the FOM.
With the exception of the stress from dealing with "management", I enjoyed my experience at OX - worked with good people, formed great friendships, and learned much from flying to locations I would never see at the major airline I work for. RIP to those who perished and my prayers to the recovery of those injured.
Let's just hope this doesn't happen again...