Plane crashes in Thailand
In my working life I have taken a lot of air travel, both private and business, simply because it is fast, convenient and the only way to get there for many places in the world. Now I'm not afraid of flying, but I'm always happy when we've landed somewhere safe. Flying is for birds, I always say, not for humans!
The chance that I will be involved in a plane crash is extremely small according to the scientists and the statistics. The chance that I will not survive a serious car accident in Thailand is many times greater. But I don't do those calculations. For me, traveling by plane is simple, you arrive safely or you crash. Chances are always fifty/fifty.
And so it hurts me every time there is a plane crash somewhere. I want to know everything about that disaster and it haunts me for days: it could have happened to me! Wherever you go and which airline you fly with, plane accidents happen everywhere, including in Thailand
Thailand
As dangerous as it is on Thailand's roads where around 70 people lose their lives every day, the loss in terms of plane crashes in Thailand is almost insignificant. During the past 50 years, only 743 lives have been lost in commercial aviation accidents and incidents. Fortunately, that's very little, if you
considers the current volume of air traffic to and from Thailand's 11 international and 22 other airports. Only Bangkok International Airport. Suvarnabhumi already handles about 56 million passengers on an annual basis with more than 330.000 flights.
Airplane disasters
Since 1967, there have been 12 aviation accidents in Thailand in which people have lost their lives. The result of those disasters is the deaths of 657 passengers and 67 crew members and an additional 19 fatalities on the ground. An article was recently published on the website of Big Chilli Bangkok in which all air disasters in Thailand are described in detail. The biggest disaster was the crash of a Boeing 767 of Lada Air in 1991.
Flight NG004 of Lauda Air
On May 26, 1991, a Boeing 767-3Z9ER of the Austrian Lauda Air on its way from Hong Kong to Vienna made a stopover at Don Manga in Bangkok. Fifteen minutes after take-off, the plane crashed into the mountainous PH Tui National Park in Suphanburi due to a technical malfunction. All occupants, 213 passengers and 10 crew members from 18 different countries were killed. Among the passengers and crew members were 83 Austrians and 36 Thais, but no Belgians or Dutch.
Aviation incidents
Not every accident involving an aircraft leads to a disaster. There are quite a few incidents in which there are no fatalities, but in some cases injuries. Mechanical failures, bird strike, or pilot error in judgment are usually cited as the cause. The most recent example of a serious incident, which thankfully ended reasonably well, was the Aeroflot Boeing 777 flying from Moscow to Bangkok earlier this week. Shortly before landing, the aircraft entered a huge air pocket, resulting in tremendous turbulence. More than 20 passengers were more or less seriously injured. In the aforementioned article in The Big Chilli Bangkok you will find a detailed overview of the relatively few incidents that occurred in Thailand.
Military aircraft accidents
Military air traffic in Thailand has also been affected by disasters or incidents involving Thai military aircraft in non-combat situations. Since 1967, nearly 30 cases have been registered, which killed 58 aircrew and 4 ground crew. The American Air Force also had to deal with accidents in non-combat situations, especially in the period from 1961 to 1975 (Vietnam war). As far as is known, 30 aircrew and 4 ground crew were killed there. A specification of these military accidents cannot be found, many accidents and incidents involving combat aircraft have occurred.
Hijacks
In the early XNUMXs, Thailand suffered four plane hijackings. Three of them on domestic flights ended well; the hijacker(s) were arrested and there were no fatalities.
It was different with a DC-9 from the Indonesian Garuda, which was hijacked by Islamic extremists on May 28, 1982 during a flight from Palembang and Medan. The plane, which had 48 passengers and 4 crew members on board, landed at Don Muang in Bangkok after a stopover in Penang, Malaysia. There the plane was stormed after 3 days by Indonesian(!) commandos, who killed four hijackers. This ended the hijacking, which later killed an injured pilot and an American.
The leader of the hijackers was arrested and later sentenced to death in Indonesia.
Finally
The plane crashes, incidents and hijackings are specified in the aforementioned article by The Big Chilli Bangkok. If you are interested, I would like to refer you to the link: www.thebigchilli.com/features/thailands-worst-aviation-disasters
For those who want to know what goes wrong every day
.
http://avherald.com
.
a nice site.
Less suitable for people who already have a fear of flying. 🙂
Or good to see WHERE things go wrong and that is often in Africa and Indonesia.
Anyway, people believe what they want to believe (that flying is very dangerous, for example). Not long ago China Airlines was praised on this site; nice non-stop, nice flight attendants. The reality is that the CIA has been involved in incidents far more than average in the last 20 years and even hundreds of deaths on its conscience, due to poor maintenance, not carried out or not according to procedures. It's just what's more important to you.
I think it was Lauda air (from the F1 driver). I have flown several times with Lauda air from BKK to Vienna.
In my story, which I sent to the editors, it does say Lauda Air, so with a U in it.
I suspect that the editor has run a spell check on it, which did not recognize Lauda, but Lada (car).
I agree with a later reaction from Dennis: in a Lada Air plane, if it even existed, you will never find me, ha ha!
Corrected by editors!
belonged to Nicky Lauda. the F1 driver
You already write it yourself; 743 fatalities in 50 years. One week in Songkran and we count the same number of deaths. To be able to make a good comparison, you have to put the number of deaths per km next to each other and then you get on a plane with a smile and never again in a car or on a motorcycle.
The claim that it is 50/50 whether you crash is also incorrect, of course. Given the number of take-offs and landings and the number of crashed aircraft, that chance is very small. You have a better chance in the State Lottery!
Still a nice article though. By the way, it is LAUDA Air from the famous Formula 1 driver. Lada Air sounds like you crash in advance 😉
That 50/50 is an old joke from a professor in my first statistics class.
Put 99 white balls and 1 black ball in a jar. What are the chances that you catch the black one? Fifty/fifty, because you take the black or you don't take the black! Scientifically, of course, it's a 1 in 100 chance
This unscientific approach is also true for aircraft accidents. When I am involved, one can say: Well, he did not survive, but the chance was very small”. What's in it for me?
By the way, if I have the free choice, give me a good prize in the State Lottery!
Of course Gringo I hope you win the State Lottery and get me a Chang.
If you crash, statistics are of no use to you. Nor is the knowledge that there is (nowadays!) a 100% chance that the winning lottery ticket will be drawn. He is guaranteed to fall, but whether you are the lucky one is a completely different calculation.
It is the same with flying; the chances are very small that you will die. But it does happen and it will happen to you… Nevertheless, the chance is smaller than a car accident in the Netherlands and still much smaller than a car or motorcycle accident in TH. But indeed, if it happens to you, those statistics are of no use to you.
Yeah, stats huh? Flying is safe, that's for sure. But you fall for the statistical deception that the aviation industry likes to use, the number of deaths per km. In my opinion, that is not a good and fair comparison to compare it to driving a car.
Check it out; a flight is almost always much longer than a car ride. In addition, not every km is equally risky during a flight, which is more the case when driving. When flying, the greatest risk moments are around take-off and landing; a flight of 400 km therefore has, statistically speaking, almost the same risk of a crash as a flight of 10,000 km.
A better and fairer comparison would therefore be if you compared the number of deaths per trip; this has also been done and it turns out that driving a car and flying are not that far apart in terms of safety.
You are absolutely right. We have 8 million cars in the Netherlands, assume an average of 2 trips per day, that is 16 million trips per day. Number of motorist crashes per year about 180.
0.5 per day, so about 1 per 32 million journeys.
If aviation were just as safe per flight, 3.5 in 1 million travelers out of 32 billion would die = 109 per year. In reality, that number is almost 10 times higher.
Yes, thank you, but how you calculate it is not correct either…the 1:32 million is deaths per trip (trip)…and you apply that ratio later to the total number of travelers…but it doesn't work that way. You have to look at the total number of deaths per flight (trip). Then you have roughly 400 aviation deaths per year on roughly 40 million flights per year, which is 1 death per 100,000 flights.
But then you take a Dutch benchmark with that 1:32 million, where car traffic is very safe and where you have many short journeys than in most other countries, and compare it with a global statistic for aviation. If you also involve countries such as Thailand, etc., the 1 death per 32 million car trips will increase quickly, of course!
As some of you know on the blog, I worked as a flight attendant for Lufthansa for thirty years. The whole point is that any flight is dangerous and more dangerous than driving.
However, there is one big difference: first of all, aircraft are well maintained. Better than any car. In addition, the "pilots" of the planes are subject to annual tests, check flights, medical examinations and whatever else.
Pilots are much better trained than any car driver. The chance that a pilot himself dies in a car accident is also many times greater than with an airplane.
Are you going to compare it with Thailand, where at least 80% or more have a driver's license, which does not actually deserve the name, because they more or less bought it or passed the exam with luck, it is certainly not just a statistic showing that flying is less dangerous. It's just a fact.
The whole thing about flying: technicians who check the planes, pilots, everything, but also everything related to a flight, is many times bigger than with a car. You also don't fly at random up there in the air, but airways are arranged via radar control. In 99% or more of the cases, they know exactly where the plane is or if there are any obstacles, such as other planes, or UFOs for all I care.
The most dangerous moment is always landing and take-off. Not the flying itself.
Accidents can never be ruled out. In the thirty years that I flew all over the world, 4 times a month, nothing has ever happened to me. People always expected exciting stories, but unfortunately I couldn't give them.
I lived in Landgraaf, the Netherlands at the time, but drove to Frankfurt by car for a long time (about 275 km). Because I almost caused an accident a few times myself and I had to drive past more or less serious accidents on every, but also every trip, after a few years I stopped going by car and took the train… And even with that I've had more problems than with all the flights in my life.
Of course we also had problems on board. We have already started late a few times, because a warning light was on in the cockpit or a light was not on enough. Then we had to find out what was going on before we left.
For me, even the worst airline with the most accidents is safer in terms of travel than a car in any country.
When we come back to Thailand… what are you talking about?
The only thing that is really dangerous about flying, especially domestic flights in Thailand, is the food.
Watch out for sandwiches