Update on Thai Airways Flt 261 A310 Crash Surat Thani

[Lu Zuckerman]

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To: nilnotedtks

ALBMFBW

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I'll give it a shot. Air Launched Ballistic Missile Fly By Wire

[Al Zimer]

From an Aussie in Thailand.

For background your best bet would be the archives at the Bangkok Post.

In the weeks following the accident there were generally two theories -

1 - that there was a problem with the aircraft. If, subsequently, there was found to be a problem, this would have been trumpeted loud and clear. But as this has not happened, it gives more credence to the second theory.

2 - one of the passengers who died in the crash was the sister of a cabinet minister. The theory was that, after the second aborted approach, the captain announced they were going to the alternate. On hearing this, the lady passenger phoned her brother, who then spoke to the captain and layed down the law. At one stage, about 2 weeks after the crash, the govt announced that they would investigate phone company records and announce any findings. Nothing was announced!

And the investigation drifts in to the memory hole (which is the way it happens in Thailand if there may be something embarrasing if the truth is disclosed)

[UNCTUOUS]

Thanks for getting it back on thread Al Zimer

This is more or less where I thought the matter stood - and I do recall hearing about the politician's intervention (but thought that he'd been on board and actually enetered the cockpit).

I'm not 100% sure about the Thai track record for sweeping unsavouries under the carpet. If they do have such a record then I guess the producers of the Mayday Program will be interested in that aspect also.

Keep the inputs coming. Those who've seen the "Mayday" series will possibly agree that is up to a National Geographic Channel/Discovery Channel standard of unsensationalist (but graphic) reportage. It increases public awareness and can help to apply pressure where it's needed.

[Dagger Dirk]

seat tracks and track records

Talking about track records, I'm familiar with the Nagoya development but thought that there'd been an Airbus fix after that (CWS, autopilot, auto-trim or something of the sort). Short of someone sliding the pilot's seat back unexpectedly (or the seat sliding back of its own accord) - or pilot incapacitation, I cannot think of any physiological phenomenon from my avmed training that would cause a go-round to end up at that sort of pitch-up angle. Runaway trim/stab?

This would seem to be one of the few nasty major accidents of the last ten years with no really adequate explanation (and seemingly none forthcoming). i.e. unless Airbus know, but are treating it as proprietary.....

[greybeard]

Having had the dubious pleasure of performing the VOR at Suratani in poor WX, the one in force at the time put you through the C/L to have to perform quite a sharpish right/left to get on the runway axis at <500'.

Not much fun in a L-31, even less on the A-300/310.

In the simulator on a hand flown approach IF yes IF at the <200' AGL point you trigger the TOGA and do little or nothing to the trim of about 6 units nose up, you will in about 8 seconds be at 500', 50/60 deg nose up and something of the order of <100 kts IAS.

Now these poor sods were on the third approach, possibly under external pressure of a political kind, doing a MA in a waterfall, got a possible glitch in the system from multiple phone activations, if they had a partial EFIS glitch in attitude,which I have had from Phones of the earlier type or were just tired and confused in an unusual situation , there goes the ball game real easy.

How many of us actually do an ALL engine manual MA in the renewal or reval process, we practise the hell out of the slower engine out one but not the all engine one.

Blue side up, brown side down

[Frangible]

There must be some kind of official report about. After five years???

[angels]

I'm not 100% sure about the Thai track record for sweeping unsavouries under the carpet.

I'm afraid the following sad tale from Reuters which ran this morning should answer that one....


Thais, Indonesia rattled by bird flu cover-up row

By Darren Schuettler
BANGKOK, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Charges of a cover-up have rattled governments in Thailand and Indonesia where people say they were kept in the dark over Asia's deadly bird flu, drawing comparisons to China's slow response to SARS a year ago.
"Why did the government cover this up?," asked a distraught Chamnan Bounmanut, whose six-year-old son Captan died on Monday, Thailand's first victim of the disease which killed another boy on Tuesday.
"If the government was open to the public, we would have been able to protect ourselves. Nobody wants to die," a grieving Chamnan said after a Buddhist prayer ceremony for his son.
A year after Beijing tried to cover up SARS -- another disease that crossed from animals to humans, killed 800 people and frightened the world -- Bangkok and Jakarta are under fire from farmers, media and trading partners for their handling of the bird flu crisis.
The European Union said on Monday it did not trust the Thai government after EU Health Commissioner David Byrne was told during a visit to Bangkok last week there was no bird flu just days before the first human cases were announced on Friday.
"Reliance on Thai assurances is not the best way forward," EU spokeswoman Beate Gminder told reporters in Brussels. The 15-member bloc would demand independent verification of Thai measures to wipe out the disease before it considered lifting its ban on imports of Thai chicken, she said.
Australia also urged Asian countries to join forces and be honest about outbreaks of bird flu to ensure the virus does not spread as SARS did.
China tried to cover up SARS after it surfaced in late 2002, but months later Communist party chief and State President Hu Jintao ordered health authorities to come clean.
The health minister and Beijing's mayor were sacked, but the tardy response tarnished China's image abroad.
"I think on this broader question of avian flu, countries in the region must learn from the SARS experience, and that is 'fess up as soon as you find a case, as quickly as possible'," Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told Australian radio, using slang for confess.
WARNING LETTER
Bangkok's Nation newspaper published a copy of what it said was a Health Ministry letter sent to doctors in the northeast province of Khon Kaen on December 26 asking them to look out for the disease.
"This disease can spread from poultry to humans who have direct contact with sick chickens. This disease has a very high death rate and can cause severe economic impact," it said.
The ministry's Dr Krengsak Wethiwuttajarn confirmed he had written the letter, but declined to comment further.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, facing his biggest crisis since sweeping to power in 2001, insists his government did not try to hide the outbreak and it was working hard to stamp out the virus.
But some U.N. officials say they are still not getting enough details on the crisis from the government.
"Most of the information we get is from the press and this is also not sufficient hard information," said Hans Wagner of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
"We have offered to the government our technical assistance and we have not received any request from the government".
SARS LESSONS
Indonesian farmers, facing the loss of billions of rupiah, slammed their government for saying previously Indonesia was free of the flu.
The government had blamed the deaths of thousands of chickens in East Java and on the tourist island of Bali on Newcastle disease, a virus harmless to humans that does not affect the safety of poultry meat.