Insurance and leasing?
 

This from the Bangkok Post

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_....php?id=121741

Life and Limb are cheap in Asia, same as pilots. The Department of Insurance, by making this obvious statement are either in collusion with Udom, or there really is problem from hospital about who will pay medical bills.

You forgot the crosswind case! Like any aircraft with tail mounted engines, you have a big tendency of yaw forces with reversers on in crosswind. It's obvious that they had very strong crosswind (well, not as strong as in the northern hemisphere, but here with most likely a contaminanted runway). As soon as you revers full, you can get a huge turn movement on the vertical axis. The only solution is to reduce the reversers. So they did several attemps to land, then finally saw the runway, wanted to stop, stop quickly because of the runway condition (after the end there is only sea until India), pulled full reverse and where surprised they got off the runway, blaming the crosswind.

When you continue the ILS track (which is offset by 1°) straight after the minimum, you stop exactly where they stopped, right of the runway, on the hillside around in the middle of the runway length.

It's also most likely that pilots in the tropics very rarily experience crosswind landings, since there is no wind at all, and thus lack training. Add to this all the other factors mentioned before, this could very likely happen.

Dani

Lost or suspended? I very much doubt that any pilot, regardles of ethnicity, would operate an aircraft without a valid Class 1 medical certificate. You can have your medical certificate suspended for many reasons and varying periods. Changing your blood pressure medication for instance, comes with a month of suspension and is re-issued after a satisfactory medical clearance.

:ugh:

What a load of shyte! There are some places in 'the tropics' where the wind never basically stops blowing - any oceanic island with a runway running with the lay of the land can give you 20 kts crosswind on a good day!

30 seconds to roll, another 60 to reach the a/c IF it had crashed at the point furthest away from the fire station. Total 90 to water on fire.
That's the ICAO standard I believe, at least the norm in most of Europe.

The question is how long it took for ATC to realize they had crashed, and hit the alarm. (Was the visibility good enough to see the crash site)

I guess most in this forum has seen the time / temperature graphs for aircraft fire. At more than 90 secs you are rapidly getting cooked no matter what.

I watched them remove the wreckage on CNN last night. Hope they don't need it for post crash analysis, they where a tad rough with the heavy equipment. :suspect:

This conclusion follows on from your previous certitude that the airplane landed on RWY 09.

From your profile, I'd guess you were driving for Silkair. Say it ain't so!

I need to maintain my delusion that MI is in a different league from all the other operators into my home port of HKT!

Thai TV indicated last night that the aircraft used runway 27. I apologise for any earlier misinformation.

As a yardstick, Silkair settled for USD 200,000 per passenger after their crash (governed by the Warsaw convention), but before the civil lawsuit against them was dismissed (in Singapore).

Parent company Singapore Airlines settled for up to USD 10,000,000 per pax following their Taipei crash.

Orient Thai have offered initial compensation of approx. USD 3,000 and it may not get much better than that. Even if there is valid insurance, the insurers may well prefer to take their chances in the Thai legal system.

Medical Expired???
 

Ok...now I know that many of you would not do this but in Bangkok you can have anything in the world forged including airmen medicals and the Thai DCA does not confirm the validity of any pilot documentation from Foriegn Pilots, including Indonesions, with the issuing authority, FAA, CAA or JAA.

There were rumors of an Orient Thai charter flight into Cambodia back in 2005 that landed and was "ramp checked" by the Cambodian Aviation Authority. There were 4 pilots on board and only one was legal to fly with current documentation. The Chief Pilot of the 757 fleet at that time was on board and guess what? He was one of those who did not have current documents.

So please do not say it was not possible for someone to fly with a medical pulled.

"I watched them remove the wreckage on CNN last night. Hope they don't need it for post crash analysis, they where a tad rough with the heavy equipment. "

Yes, in this country (TH), there doesn't seem to be much care taken in regard to the preservation of, or prevention of contamination to, evidence. Open any newspaper on most days with a photo of a crime scene in it and you'll see uncontrolled access to the area with people picking stuff up with their bare hands, wandering around randomly in their uniform or civvies. In much the same way, the media are allowed (and take up the opportunity), to get full views of suspects after arrest and prior to trial (they tend to be paraded by the police), murder victims at scenes of crime, and seriously injured people as they are taken to hospital, with little care for the consequences. It is very much a place which is in many ways - although not exclusively -driven by emotion rather than rational thought. In this regard it will be interesting to hear what the accident investigators have to say about the whole affair. I will also watch with interest what you experienced pilots on pprune will have to say.

By the way - before I get flamed - I'm not having a go at Thailand, I absolutely love living here!

They are now saying he landed into known windshear conditions. May explain why the cabin crew may have been briefed for emergency escape. Articel here: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/200709...ca02f96_2.html

Who never did?

Having just been to HKT, I can say that our crew executed a missed approach "due to storm over end of airport" ( his words not mine ), we were approaching 09. 10 mins later after a scenic view of Phuket island, we made an approach to 27, with the prevailing wind. Slightly faster, a little more pitch and roll than I would have expected, and a lot more hard braking than any of us expected, we turned off at the threshold of 09....
Winds were +40knts down and slightly across 09 after we disembarked, rain and heavy gusts...
Observations of the Finn video:
Wind is prevalent for RW27 / runway distance marker is 04, anyone see 05 or 03, not likely as you can see down 09 towards the threshold of 27, a large wall of precipitation reducing RVR. Wind is not strong in the video, but as these local CBs move fairly fast, the wind could have been much higher a few minutes earlier, with downdraughts and microbursts.
One thing I have not seen on any pictures ( ready to be corrected ) or even this video, is the lack of ground skid marks from the runway to impact site. Is a thought about a potential ground loop from the touch down point to the point of impact so far fetched.
God rest all.

BoughtmyPoints (what a accurate name, how much?), you know as much about Singapore's aviation industry as you claim I know about aviation in general ;)

You want to deny the fact that MD-80 are somewhat tricky in crosswind situation?

Of course the actual stan dpoint is rather runway 27, but the first reports where about runway 09. Only fools insist on their mistakes to be true. Which runway it was it basically irrelevant, unless they where landing with tailwind. Obviously, as it's been brought up, it was more like crosswind.

Buy more points! :E

Dani

A very telling letter.........
 

Ko Samui 1990 Bangkok Airways
Surat Thani 1998 Thai Airways
Phuket 2007 One-Two-GO
All landing during heavy rain and wind

Tricky in crosswinds?

I don't think reverse thrust came into play at all in this crash. I think DANI is sort of wrong...

while reducing reverse thrust in certain control loss situations on rollout is routine in any plane, this plane didn't land, it crashed, the reversers are not part of this equation.

I also agree with the other poster, it appears the flaps are at 15 (go around) and no spoilers or thrust reversers deployed.

it would appear the plane started to go around, configured for go around and then lost the ability to climb...perhaps due to windshear...

PS

gear probabaly wasn't retracted as positive rate of climb had not been achieved.

Spoilers Re-armed?
 

As the AA accident at Little Rock proved, a surefire way of having "on the runway" controllability problems in an MD80 is to not get the spoilers (and then not notice that - due to all the attendant distractions stemming from very wet rubberized runways, light on the wheels, gusty crosswinds, low visibility in rain-squalls and poor directional control with tail-mounted reversers).
.
How likely is it that re-arming the spoilers would be overlooked on a subsequent approach (after an initial go-round)?
.
I'm reading that SHIFTPATTERN is claiming that spoilers were seen to be deployed after the 2nd touchdown (but perhaps I'm reading that wrong).

On several occasions in PEN, HKG, TPE etc I have held or even diverted because I was not happy to ATTEMP a landing in the wx. On one occasion in PEN another A/c ( SQ ) knew I was holding but chose to fly through the red returns on the radar and land!! amazing skill level that.
Now if your saying Thai ATC should improve their wx reporting skills or their ability to tell the Pilot's clearly ( in English ) what the wx is doing, then yes I agree it would help.

Also GROOVING of the Phuket runway must be done.
At the end of the day the Captain makes a decision. ( or not )

Shiftpattern,

Very moving and no doubt very true and accurate. However, even if you have the b*lls to say NO it's fairly obvious that many do not and therein lies the root of the problem in most of Asia.

Therefore why does it take such an accident before this kind of information comes out in public? Will you give evidence to the enquiry? Even if that means your job as it undoubtedly would, in the kind of environment you describe.

I can see your zeal in trying to improve standards but IMHO it is misplaced. The only thing that gets results when things are that bad is adverse publicity - loads of it. Unfortunately they now have plenty of it but watch the snakes run for cover!

Compressor stalls go hand in hand with wing stall on the DC-9/MD80, I'm sure the DFDR will sort out the timing

Stupidity level was more amazing I think! :eek:

Limited Numbder of Survivors
 

Having looked at the video shot by the Swedish tourist it is not clear as to why such a high number of the passengers did not survive this accident. The aircraft itself does not appear as badly damaged as some where more have got out...If sadly only two of the FAs survived maybe this is why, they may have course have perished trying to assist the passengers on this plane. I wonder if those who survived were just plain luck, or did they pay more attention to the safety demo. I gather the Swedish guys were sat by the exits....luckily for them.

about a week ago during approach into TPE twr gave us a MICROBURST ALERT at about 900ft, without hesitation I went around,to my surprise the guys behind decided to continue,go figure

I will have to correct my previous information about the Phuket captain's medical. It had been revoked earlier this year, but he was said to be medically 'legal' again by the time of last Sunday's accident. My apologies.

View from the ground,

My educated guess from looking at the Swedish video, is that the survivors were mainly in the part of the aircraft, the back, that didn't have to absorb the energy of the crash at whatever speed they were doing. Similar to the SQ crash in taipei, where the lower deck of the 747 acted as a crumple zone in such a way that the cockpit and the upper deck, as well as the rear lower deck produced most of the survivors.

The news reports that many of the dead will need to be identified by DNA, presumably the fire just starting on the front end of the aircraft in the video would go on to consume part of it.

One wonders how many of the dead were trapped or unconscious in the wreckage before the fire started, and what effect a more efficient fire service response would have had on the number of survivors.

I'd love an email for the a Journo @ the Bangkok post. (having worked @ 1-2-G0 some years back), Udom really needs to have his doors closed.

Numerous comments reflected about the "belated" response of the fire/crash rescue trucks.

From the mobile phone video footage taken by a survivor it was apparent that visibility was poor in moderate rain and ground fog. So, if you were the driver of a rescue vehicle, would YOU instantly know where to go if you couldn't see the smoke from the wreckage, if you couldn't see any wreckage on the runway? :confused:

My initial post has gone walkabout also

I have gotten the impression that most of the survivors were from the mid section of the plane, from the footage the fire seemed to take hold first at the rear.

Glueball,

One runway, direction of use known, big bang, drive down runway in direction of use as a first response perhaps (how long would that take, 30secs? 1 minute?) no longer than it would take to open the overwing emergency exits and leg it to the runway I think, so one would expect them to be there at least at about the time the Swedes filming had started.

By crossreferencing the manifest and a MD80 seat plan, all the survivors were sitting in rows 18-29, with the exception of a passenger who was in 6A.

No Surprise At All
 

For the many of us who have worked at OX in the past this accident is no surprise at all, but still saddens us to the core.Compounding this tragedy is the underlying feeling that this will not be their last, and that the authorities will not take the hard decisions to force OX to follow the required safety practices followed in most of aviation.Those of us in the know were shocked to learn that Capt xxxxx was the CP.Rest his poor soul.I pray that some sort of good comes out of this horrible event Reverend.

So, what caused this prang?...

let's see now...

third world country, third world standards...

chief pilot had 14 years airline experience only!!...

let me say that again...14 years airline experience only!!

Says it all really, doesn't it?

There is experience and getting older as the world passes you by! I'll leave the individual alone as I have no firsthand knowledge of him. I do know that '14 Years experience' can be as much use as a chocolate fire guard. Example: The average Scandanavian Pilot sees more weather in a week than a domestic Aussie Pilot sees in his career. So if there can be such a disparity in 'real' experience how do airlines get around it? They train and examine to a standard.

Performance = Ability + Training + Exposure.

The performance is affected by external pressures, national and coorporate cultures etc etc. Sadly a great number of cultures do not train to a standard that allows the crews to deal with anything out of the ordinary. Some guys, from all over the world, will not stand up and be counted when things go awry. Most of the time they get away with it but sometimes...

Amos, would you prefer to be driven to work in fog by a below average taxi driver that had never seen fog before but had been driving for 14 years or by the world's safest 1 year experience driving champion after he had just completed a 6 week 'fog driving' course. One has experience, the other has skill and exposure. Go and look up 'experience' in the dictionary, you won't find capability anywhere in the description.

Oh and to answer your question as to what caused the accident. I'd bet my mortgage on a commander that took an unsafe decision to try and land in awful weather and then didn't have the skill to get away with it. Seems like your 'experienced' guy was briefly the 'old and bold' pilot' of legend!

Just as long as you didn't say he was a figjam!

We all know Thai ATC had nothing to do with it. Out of interest, anyone know when say, Frankfurt, would close for crap weather and make the decision for you? I know movements get suspended for lightning risk but what about max windspeed. When do even the ground pounders shut up shop?

AFAIK airfield only close if they can't provide the service. Snow on runways - or snowploughs clearing runways would be an example. Manchester closed early this year in very high winds - not directly because of the winds (that's the pilot's call), but because of debris bown onto the runways by the winds, and vehicles trying to clear it off.

Short and to the point?
 

First time I've seen this comment from the Phuket Gazette:

"At a press conference at the Airports Of Thailand office about 9 pm, Phuket Airport Director Sq Ldr Pornchai Eua-aree said the crash was the result of a “mis-approach” landing, after which the pilot tried to regain enough speed to take off again – but failed."

They later said all ATC's had been assigned desk duty as they all saw the crash and were very distressed.

Which just goes to prove what I've been saying!...

third world countries have third world standards!!...

which are rather poor!!!