Nok Air in the grass after aborted t/o Trang

[Ye Olde Pilot]

Nok Air's Boeing 737-800 flight DD7411 skids off the runway as rains hit Trang airport on Tuesday. All passengers and crew were unharmed.
(Unlike bus, truck and car crashes in Thailand the driver did not run away:ok:)


The accident on flight DD7411 took place while pilots were readying the Boeing 737-800 plane for takeoff at 5.45pm amid heavy rains, Thaworn Saengampai, director of the airport said.

All 142 passengers and crew on board are safe.

The passengers, many of who were foreign tourists, were moved out of the aircraft to the terminal, and transferred by bus to Hat Yai international airport for a new flight to Bangkok, but a number decided to cancel their trips.

Pol Gen Chatchawal Suksomjit, a deputy national police chief, was among the passengers who decided to continue his trip from Hat Yai.

All flights to and from Trang were meanwhile cancelled. The airport was expected to reopen on Wednesday, the official said.

The airport was hit by poor visibility on Tuesday due to torrential rain, which forced Nok Air's flight DD7410 from Don Mueang airport to circle above the airport for some time before making a safe landing at 4.55pm with 120 passengers on board, Mr Thaworn said.

Unfortunately, the return flight of the same aircraft was unable to take off, he added.

[Airbubba]

Is this three Asian B-737 runway excursions within 24 hours? :eek: Nok, Lion and Korean...

[SRS]

And Orient Thai B737-400

Oh that was a few days ago!

[Ye Olde Pilot]

Orient Thai is owned by the same company as One Two Go who
lost flight 269 in a similar situation on landing at Phuket.
One-Two-GO Airlines Flight 269 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-Two-GO_Airlines_Flight_269)

Nok is the budget wing of Thai Airways. (if you pardon the pun).

I suspect a bit of pressure to go on this one as on board was a high ranking police chief who would have not wanted delays.
Pol Gen Chatchawal Suksomjit, a deputy national police chief, was among the passengers who decided to continue his trip from Hat Yai.

[RAT 5]

Are they saying the a/c simply went X-country on takeoff? No reject, just didn't keep it on the black stuff for a normal takeoff. Can we please have more info.

[Ye Olde Pilot]

Well he certainly didn't keep it on the centreline.

The airport was hit by poor visibility on Tuesday due to torrential rain, which forced Nok Air's flight DD7410 from Don Mueang airport to circle above the airport for some time before making a safe landing at 4.55pm with 120 passengers on board, Mr Thaworn said.

Which of course was exactly the same conditions which wrecked the One Two Go flight at Phuket some years ago.

Thai mentality is as long as you wear your Buddha amulet pendant your safe.
This is a country where rules and regulations are broken every day and a nation with one of the highest road fatalities on the planet.

[amos2]

So what happened? Did they go AWOL during taxi out? :confused:

[Ye Olde Pilot]

No news on how it happened but it's still stuck.

Thailand tends to downplay the true story on transport incidents to protect its tourist industry.

Trang airport is to remain closed until Thursday while technicians attempt to shift a Nok Air plane that skidded off the runway and became lodged in the ground in an accident on Tuesday.

Woradej Harnprasert, director-general of the Civil Aviation Department, declared on Wednesday that the airport would remain closed until at least 6am on Thursday, because the Boeing 737-800 could not be moved from the site of the accident.

Thai Airways International has sent special equipment to Trang to help move the aircraft and the operation could complete by midnight Wednesday, he said.

Authorities initially tried to use a crane from Hat Yai international airport to lift the plane from where it slid off the runway. But Trang airport director Thaworn Saengamphai said on Wednesday that the crane could not move the Boeing, because its three tyres had sunk into the ground.


Passengers on Nok Air flight DD7411, which failed to takeoff on Tuesday, were brought back to the terminal after the accident, before being transferred onto alternative flights from different airports. (Photo by Methee Muangkaew)

Patee Sarasin, chief executive of Nok Air, said heavy rains also delayed the operation to rescue the plane.

The closure affected four Nok Air flights on Wednesday - two inbound from Don Mueang and two outbound. It also affected four Thai AirAsia flights - two from Bangkok and two from Trang.

Nok Air passengers have been diverted onto alternative flights through Nakhon Si Thammarat airport, Mr Patee said. Thai AirAsia has moved customers onto flights to and from Krabi airport, chief executive Tassapon Bijleveld said.

The accident on flight DD7411 took place while pilots were readying the Boeing 737-800 plane for takeoff at 5.45pm amid heavy rains on Tuesday.

All 142 passengers and crew on board are safe.

The passengers, many of who were foreign tourists, were moved out of the aircraft to the terminal, and transferred by bus to Hat Yai international airport for an alternative flight to Bangkok, but a number decided to cancel their trips.

Trang airport was hit by poor visibility on Tuesday due to torrential rain, which forced Nok Air's flight DD7410 from Don Mueang airport to circle above the airport for some time before making a safe landing at 4.55pm with 120 passengers on board, Mr Thaworn said.

Unfortunately, the return flight of the same aircraft was unable to take off, he added.

The accident is the second in three years at Trang airport for Nok Air. One of its aircrafts developed a problem with one of its brakes on landing on Sept 24, 2011, forcing the pilot to bring the plane to a dead stop in the middle of the runway.

[Bangkokian]

I'm a long-time lurker, but don't post because I am not in aviation, just interested in the topic of commercial aviation casually.

I live in Thailand and fly regularly here and happened to be on this flight two weeks before the incident. To pass along relevant news, according to new relatives in Trang, the plane was cleared on the third day. Trang is a pretty small and rural city (about 60K, but in the middle of nowhere), so they're not equipped for this kind of incident. Somchai's local Trang bondo-and-bailing-wire rig got stuck trying to move it I heard and the crane from Hat Yai wasn't big enough, so they had to bring in something from Bangkok reportedly. Still, the method of removal is rumor and rumor is always unreliable - particularly here. It has been cleared, though.

At the time of our flight two weeks prior, I said to my significant other who had booked the tickets, "Please don't book us on an afternoon flight on Nok during rainy season again." She basically said it's nothing to worry about and so on. I later won the debate thanks to DD7411.

Not that I'm generally a flying worry wart, but TG has only cleaned up its safety record in the last decade and change and DD is just too new to tell about, though hasn't had any major incidents thus far. Still, they've had a few maintenance-related incidents like tires falling off on landing and engines malfunctioning and it's not the first time they've ended up in the grass. One-Two-Go is, thankfully, gone, with only those Orient-Thai charter flights left as a reminder, but no one takes those except Chinese tour groups.

I've lived here for most of a decade, love the place, am settled down and own a business here, so I'm not bashing Thailand when I say that I'm generally apprehensive about upstart Southeast Asian carriers. It's just pragmatic for me.