The premier was reportedly "very concerned" about the crisis at Suvarnabhumi and sent his own advisory team, led by General Wattanachai Chaimuenwong, to independently assess the growing number of problems being uncovered at Thailand's new airport.

A key member of the team, Dr Suraphol Chivarak, who is the country's leading expert in foundation engineering and airport surface design, showed his concern about the safety of Suvarnabhumi's airfield.

He told The Nation after investigating the ruts and cracks on the airport's taxi lanes yesterday that the condition looked "dangerous".

He expressed doubts that the AOT under the current leadership could solve the airport crisis by itself. He also questioned the independence of the AOT's investigation committee, headed by Tortrakul.

"You go back and watch TV [footage] of people [involved in the project] then and now, and you will probably see that the faces are all the same," Suraphol said.

While the spotlight of public attention is on the Tortrakul committee to produce its findings on the structural problems at the airport - originally promised for next Friday - Suraphol said he did not expect the Tortrakul committee to produce any significant findings that would lead to long-term solutions of the engineering problems at the airport.

Meanwhile, technical experts contacted by The Nation expressed similar views: to determine the root cause of the runway and taxi way ruts and cracks, it is perhaps better for the government to hire international experts to investigate the problems.

While they did not doubt the ability of Thai engineers, they seriously questioned their independence.

An aviation engineer told The Nation that it was hard to find any engineer in this country who did not have a history with the nearly five-decade project.

Krai Tangsa-nga, vice president of the Engineering Association of Thailand, agreed that a team of international experts should be contacted to assist with the investigation of the airport's problems.

"Perhaps we should ask the ICAO [International Civil Aviation Organisation] to send us somebody," Krai suggested. "They have the international credibility - and confidence in Suvarnabhumi is now an international issue."

Another member on the premier's advisory team, Dr Chalongphob Sussangkarn, president of the Thailand Development Research Institute and an adviser to Surayud, told The Nation that Government House had to step into the fact-finding process because the problem at Suvarnabhumi was a national crisis beyond the AOT.

"The solution may require a huge budget that has to be decided at the policy level," he said. "The prime minister is very concerned. We have to come here to assess the situation ourselves so that we can give him [Surayud] the right advice."

Tortrakul, who held a press conference at Suvarnabhumi yesterday, was not aware of the existence nor the visit by the Government House team.

But after being informed about Suraphol's remark to The Nation, Tortrakul appeared disturbed.

"You can report about what he said to you, but you should ask other people in engineering circles and see what they say about Suraphol," Tortrakul said.

The investigation team chaired by Tortrakul, who is also a board member of the AOT, reported to the press yesterday about the findings from the first week of its two-week mission.

Contrary to the original promise to produce the final report next Friday, Tortrakul postponed the deadline to the following week - February 16 - citing "complications" of the bureaucratic system.

"But we'll still come up with the most we can and report next Friday [February 9]," he said.

His first week's finding, Tortrakul said, was that lab results from one area of cracks did not find "anything wrong" with the sand. This was contrary to his initial suspicion that the sand used to fill the swamp might have been of sub-standard quality.

But he said his six-member committee would need to collect more samples, possibly from more than a hundred problem areas, to come up with a definite finding about the sand quality.

Nantiya Tangwisutijit

 The Nation