This appears to be a fairly accurate appraisal of the accident.
Pakse’s landing systems below par
October 21, 2013 by Don Ross
Filed under Aviation, Laos PDR, News
BANGKOK, 21 October 2013: Difficult landing conditions made worse by tropical storm Nari are the most probable causes for a fatal crash of a Lao Airlines plane that plunged into the Mekong River on its approach to Pakse last Wednesday.
One of the worst of 16 tropical storms to sweep across the mainland Southeast Asia, during this year’s monsoon season, Nari hit central Vietnam and southern Laos with gales and torrential rain reducing visibility considerably around Pakse.
In an email response to questions from TTR Weekly a private aircraft captain who has flown to Pakse and has extensive knowledge of Mekong Region flying conditions said investigations would probably blame the accident ultimately on pilot error.
However, he noted there were other contributing factors one being the innate difficulty of landing at Pakse under normal flying conditions.
“Even in the best of conditions a pilot approaching Pakse has to fly in low to locate the runway visually,” he explained. “I have flown to the airport and it took about three minutes at low level to locate the runway in relatively good weather conditions.”
He noted that Pakse Airport has only “non-precision approach charts, there is no ILS” (Instrument landing system) at the airport.
“Since the runway runs parallel to the Mekong River, it would be easily possible in hazy and stormy weather to mistake the Mekong River for the runway,” he said.
“The urgent solution to make Pakse safer under all flying conditions would be for the Laotian Airport Authority to invest in new satellite based precision approach systems called LPV.”
Meanwhile in a separate report, AFP said that search teams have pulled six more bodies of air crash victims from the Mekong River in Laos, the national carrier said Sunday, taking the number of corpses recovered to 38.
In the nation’s worst known air disaster, all passengers and crew on the Lao Airlines turboprop ATR-72 died after the plane plunged into the river in bad weather on Wednesday near Pakse airport in Champasak province.
More than half of the 49 passengers and crew were foreigners from some 10 countries.
Search teams from neighbouring Thailand have been scouring the river for bodies along with experts from the airline and the French-Italian aircraft maker.
But they have been hampered by strong currents which have swept some bodies several kilometres away from the crash site.
“Now the total found bodies are 38,” Sengpraseuth Mathouchan, the airline’s vice-president, said in a statement Sunday, after six more bodies were found overnight.
“Lao forensic teams and experts from Thailand are continuing to identify the bodies,” he said, adding “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families affected by this terrible tragedy.”
On Saturday the airline said it had identified 14 of the 32 bodies hauled from the river by that point.
Two Australian passengers, the Cambodian captain and several members of the crew were among those named so far.
The airline has revised the passenger list to show that a Canadian citizen was also on board when the plane went down.
According to an updated passenger list released late Saturday by the airline, there were 16 Laotians, seven French travellers, six Australians, five Thais, three South Koreans, two Vietnamese, and one national each from the United States, Canada, Malaysia, China and Taiwan.
There were also five crew, including the Cambodian captain.
Volunteers have fought strong currents in the painstaking search for bodies from the plane, most of which has sunk and is believed to have broken up.
In some cases, rescue teams have plucked the dead from turbulent waters many miles from the crash site.
Founded in 1976, Lao Airlines serves domestic airports and destinations in China, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.
Previously the country’s worst air disaster was in 1954 when 47 people died in an Air Vietnam crash near Pakse, the organisation said.
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