Plane crashes @ Phuket Airport

On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 22:56:59 +0800 'Chris Blunt'
posted stuff on rec.travel.air:

If the forecast weather at both the destination itself and any
possible diversion airports (Krabi?) were marginal then they shouldn't
have departed from Bangkok in the first place.

Afaik the weather was very changeable and subject to sudden heavy
storm conditions. Within an hour or so, it had stopped raining.

"Mxsmanic" schrieb
If the forecast weather at both the destination itself and any
possible diversion airports (Krabi?) were marginal then they shouldn't
have departed from Bangkok in the first place.

A lot of things that probably shouldn't be done in aviation nevertheless
seem
to get done in the Third World.

We're talking about Thailand, not the third world, right?

Chris Blunt wrote:
On 17 Sep 2007 11:09:18 GMT, (Guenter Bellach)
wrote:

On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 05:17:59 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote:


I doubt that windshear was a factor here. Chances are the crew made a poor
decision to land in weather that was really too severe for a landing, and bad
things happened in consequence.
You are probably right. To go to Krabi instead would not have made
such a difference. A parallel here to the crash in Suratthani a few
years ago?

If the forecast weather at both the destination itself and any
possible diversion airports (Krabi?) were marginal then they shouldn't
have departed from Bangkok in the first place.

Chris

The news reports say the air tower told the pilot before he attempted to
land that there was wind shear, so yes, it was a factor.

See, for example,
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/...lane-Crash.php

Thai aviation official says pilot was warned of wind shear before crash

The Associated Press
Monday, September 17, 2007
Click here to find out more!

PHUKET, Thailand: The pilot of a passenger plane that crashed while
landing at Thailand's resort island of Phuket, killing 89 people, had
been warned of a treacherous wind shear at the airport, but he decided
to land anyway, a senior aviation official said.

Wind shear — a sudden change in either wind speed or direction in an
aircraft's flight path — can destabilize a plane, as pilots compensate
for the condition, which can then suddenly disappear and put the
aircraft out of control.

There were 123 passengers and seven crew members abroad One-Two-Go
Airlines flight OG268 when it crashed Sunday while apparently trying to
abort a landing at Phuket airport. The pilot and co-pilot were among the
five crew members killed.

According to a transcript of the conversation between the control tower
and the plane, ground officials informed the Indonesian pilot, Arief
Mulyadi, about wind shear at the airport but he decided to land anyway,
the Air Transport Department's director-general, Chaisak Ungsuwan, said
Monday on The Nation TV channel.

"The last word the pilot said was 'landing,'" he said.

"It is possible that the plane crash was caused by wind shear," Kajit
Habnanonda, president of Orient-Thai Airlines, which owns One-Two-Go,
said earlier, adding that heavy rains could have contributed to the
plane skidding off the runway.

Transport Minister Theera Haocharoen cautioned that it was still to
early to know what caused the crash of the McDonnell Douglas MD-82.

"The officials have found the black boxes and will send them for
analysis to the United States," he said. "Hopefully, we will learn in a
few weeks the cause of the accident." Others suggested it could take a
year to determine the cause.

One aviation expert said the pilot had reportedly asked to abandon the
landing and circle around again because he could not see the runway, but
the plane was already too low.

"It was hit by wind shear or strong winds and he didn't have time to
react," said Tom Ballantyne, chief corespondent for Orient Aviation
magazine, adding that the bigger question was whether the airport should
have been allowing planes to land in such weather.

In March this year, an Indonesian jetliner battled sudden wind shear
before crash-landing, damaging an emergency door that may have prevented
some passengers from escaping after it erupted in flames, the pilot and
an investigator said.

Twenty-one people died, but 119 others survived after scrambling through
exits at the back of the Garuda Airlines Boeing 737-400.

On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 21:54:16 +0200, "Thomas Endt"
wrote:

"Mxsmanic" schrieb
If the forecast weather at both the destination itself and any
possible diversion airports (Krabi?) were marginal then they shouldn't
have departed from Bangkok in the first place.

A lot of things that probably shouldn't be done in aviation nevertheless
seem
to get done in the Third World.

We're talking about Thailand, not the third world, right?

Which world would you classify it in?

Cheers, Alan, Australia
--
http://loraltravel.blogspot.com/
latest: Slovenia
http://loraltraveloz.blogspot.com/
latest: Mossman Gorge in the Daintree Rainforest

zonedout writes:

Afaik the weather was very changeable and subject to sudden heavy
storm conditions. Within an hour or so, it had stopped raining.

That doesn't change the fact that you don't try to land in in storm. There
are lots of places in the world with changeable weather. If the weather is
bad when you arrive, you wait or you divert, but you don't land.

On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:03:42 +0200, Martin wrote:

On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 22:56:59 +0800, Chris Blunt
wrote:

On 17 Sep 2007 11:09:18 GMT, (Guenter Bellach)
wrote:

On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 05:17:59 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote:


I doubt that windshear was a factor here. Chances are the crew made a poor
decision to land in weather that was really too severe for a landing, and bad
things happened in consequence.

You are probably right. To go to Krabi instead would not have made
such a difference. A parallel here to the crash in Suratthani a few
years ago?

If the forecast weather at both the destination itself and any
possible diversion airports (Krabi?) were marginal then they shouldn't
have departed from Bangkok in the first place.

Note the MXS hindsight simulator that Mixi uses with such skill.

Who is Mixi?

Chris Blunt wrote in
:



Who is Mixi?


Mixi, aka MXS, aka Mxsmanic is an expatriate American who lives in
Paris on a claimed $650/month and handouts from his friends. Despite his
claimed superier education, he earns less that a burger flipping teenager
at McDonalds. He has deluded himself into believing he is a pilot because
he spends hours every day playing with MicroSoft Flight Simulator. He
knows absolutely nothing about the real world of aviation but tries to pass
himself off as an expert, even telling long time air show pilots how to
fly. If there is any resemblence of fact in somehing Mxsmoron posts, it
sheer random happenstance.

On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:52:40 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote:

Guenter Bellach writes:

You are probably right. To go to Krabi instead would not have made
such a difference. A parallel here to the crash in Suratthani a few
years ago?

It's probably an instance of "get-home-itis," which afflicts even airline
pilots. There may have been tremendous pressure to land at the scheduled
airport, too.

This time it may have been "go Soi Bangla-itis" There is no Soi Bangla
in Krabi.

Now we know the pilot was Indonesian. It was reported that One-Two-Go
recently replaced a number of European and Thai pilots with pilots
from Indonesia and the Philippines in order to reduce staff costs.
Well now we have seen the results of this. Indonesian airlines,
especially Garuda are very accident prone, seem to have the worst
record in the world. This particular pilot flew for a couple of very
minor Indonesian airlines which have since folded. I for one, will
avoid One-two-go in the future. I wonder if AirAsia employs the same
type of pilots? From a booking and organisational aspect they seem to
be more professional in my experience.

On Tue, 18 Sep 2007 07:05:20 +0200 'Mxsmanic'
posted stuff on rec.travel.air:

zonedout writes:

Afaik the weather was very changeable and subject to sudden heavy
storm conditions. Within an hour or so, it had stopped raining.

That doesn't change the fact that you don't try to land in in storm. There
are lots of places in the world with changeable weather. If the weather is
bad when you arrive, you wait or you divert, but you don't land.

Sure, I think ultimately the pilot will carry the can, depending on
the options open to him. Afaik the alternative was Krabi and that
too may have been subject to a sudden rainstorm. Going back to
Bangkok may not have been an option if he didn't have enough fuel.

On Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:30:44 GMT, (Guenter Bellach)
wrote:

On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:52:40 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote:

Guenter Bellach writes:

You are probably right. To go to Krabi instead would not have made
such a difference. A parallel here to the crash in Suratthani a few
years ago?

It's probably an instance of "get-home-itis," which afflicts even airline
pilots. There may have been tremendous pressure to land at the scheduled
airport, too.

This time it may have been "go Soi Bangla-itis" There is no Soi Bangla
in Krabi.

Now we know the pilot was Indonesian. It was reported that One-Two-Go
recently replaced a number of European and Thai pilots with pilots
from Indonesia and the Philippines in order to reduce staff costs.
Well now we have seen the results of this. Indonesian airlines,
especially Garuda are very accident prone, seem to have the worst
record in the world. This particular pilot flew for a couple of very
minor Indonesian airlines which have since folded. I for one, will
avoid One-two-go in the future. I wonder if AirAsia employs the same
type of pilots? From a booking and organisational aspect they seem to
be more professional in my experience.


I think at would be best to wait for the official accident report and
not to speculate on the qualification of the crew.

Helmut