Today's crash involving a Bangkok Airways ATR 72-500 does not appear to be as serious as bad as it could have been, but the incident once again puts the spotlight on the Thai airline industry.
The civil aviation authorities have been trying their best to get the safety standards up in recent years, and this will only bring that into question once again. It will be interesting to see what the investigation brings up.
on August 5, 2009 9:56 AM | Reply
Sadly, with 1 fatality to date, and multiple injured. :-(
Condolences to them as they grieve their loss.
But on another note, I have hoped the flight was not one of their training runs with a novice co-pilot that included a landing stop at the foot of the control tower.
Simulators are the tool of choice. Alternative, a cargo carrying aircraft would serve as a better alternative than pax carrying aircraft on a revenue run.
on August 5, 2009 4:32 PM | Reply
Oh I'm sorry the crash was caused by a maintenance issue .... ??
Your presentience is amazing can you send me the lottery numbers for next week as well ?
Thank you
Mark - Chiang Mai
on August 6, 2009 8:59 AM | Reply
@mark
simulators can be modified to include the suspension of anti-skid features upon landing. Unlike vehicles, one need not use actual aircraft for chocking up experience in "defensive landings".
Lottery? best to use a weighted random number generator
on August 9, 2009 7:36 PM | Reply
I suggested that? Erm, I don't see it!
on December 15, 2009 11:15 PM | Reply
The crash is horrible. But I want to add that Bangkok Airways on-line booking site is very bad too. We booked to return trips to BKK-Chiang Mai-BKK and only nine minutes later realised that we had made a mistake with the dates, we immediately rang their office in Thailand (we are in New York and do not speak Thai) and said we would like to change our tickets--the person assured us that we had not been charged and we returned to the site to book the flights again. You can guess what happened: the first booking went through, the second didn't--even though I had talked to the airlines rep.--and now we are charged for the wrong flight. I wrote to them several times--saying they should give us the dates we requested int he second round and we would pay the penalty for it. They said that couldn't be done--the flight was fully booked. So we decided to see a refund, but booked without hassle on Asia airways (great site--very easy to work with on-line) only to be told by Bangkok airways that they had charged us the extra penalty and given us the flight on the days we could travel!!
Please, I warn you--do not travel by this airline. it has terribly safety and overcharges and muddles things up. there are better ways of getting to Chiang Mai or around Asia. AVOID BANGKOK AIRWAYS AT ALL COSTS.
on March 8, 2010 8:52 PM | Reply
The food on Koh Samui is yummy and cheap, the bays are lovely and all the locals we met were very nice and eager to help. We stayed at Lamai- a completely different place to the busy tourist trap at Chaweng Beach.