Plane carnage at Thai resort kills 87

THAILAND: A Thai passenger plane crashed and burst into flames as it landed in driving rain on the resort island of Phuket, killing 87 people including foreigners, officials said.

A senior civil aviation official said the pilot of the MD-82, operated by budget carrier One-Two-Go and carrying 123 passengers and seven crew, had received permission to abort the landing at the last minute.

Instead the plane smashed onto the runway, careered into an embankment and broke in two, witnesses and officials reported.

Marine Keisel, from Paris, was aboard a plane behind the one that crashed and saw the accident happen.

“When the plane landed it caught fire,” she told AFP at Phuket airport. “We could see the fire coming out of it. It was chaos inside my plane.”

Television images showed the blackened, smouldering jet lying on grass off the runway by a fence and close to trees. Officials and rescuers could be seen carrying bodies covered with blankets from the wreckage in the pouring rain.

Health Minister Mongkol Na Songkhla said in a statement that 87 people had died and 43 survived, accounting for all those on board. Initial reports had put the total on board at 128. Officials believe 15 survivors were Thai and 28 were foreign but were still verifying the identities of the dead and injured.

“Some victims died of fire, some were thrown out of the airplane,” deputy provincial governor Vorapot Ratsima told AFP. “There are bodies piled up inside the smouldering wreckage,” Vorapot told Channel 11 television earlier.

“What we have to do is to identify and return dead bodies to their relatives.”

Deputy transport minister Sansern Wongcha-um earlier said that there were at least 70 foreigners on board.

Officials at one of Phuket’s main hospitals told AFP that the 29 people they were treating included citizens from Australia, Austria, Britain, Iran, Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands. Other hospitals on Phuket, Thailand’s largest island and a popular resort destination, said they were treating people from the Netherlands, Sweden and Thailand.

The plane had flown in from the capital Bangkok in mid-afternoon in heavy rain and low visibility. “The pilot asked to go around,” Chaisak Angkasuwan, director general of the country’s air transport authority, told TiTV television.

“The control tower allowed it but the aircraft fell to the runway and the body broke.”

Another official said the aircraft had slid off the runway in the rain and slammed into the embankment.

Later, Chaisak told reporters: “The committee will investigate the cause of the crash from the black box and the record from the aviation tower.

“When it landed, the visibility was not good, with heavy rain and strong winds. But there is no report that the plane had engine problems.”

Authorities closed the airport, stranding hundreds of locals and tourists. Airline officials were visibly overwhelmed, and relatives were clamouring for information.

“We do not know yet when we can open the airport again but we will try to open it as soon as possible. All flights today are cancelled,” Sansern said.

At Bangkok’s Don Mueang airport, where the jet had started, an information centre was set up for anguished relatives.

“My relative was on the plane,” Yongchan Phasriwong said, his wife in tears beside him. “He worked with the customs department in Phuket. He flew back to work in Phuket every Sunday.

“The airline tells us nothing. They do not have information for us. I hope he will make it.”

Phanee Waiyaphreuk wanted to know if her son had survived.

“I came here to find information about my son who is a trainee cabin crew member and was on board. He just graduated,” she told AFP, her voice shaking.

“I don’t have any information yet from the airline.”

Bangkok, Sunday, AFP