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Published on September 30, 2007

In the wake of the tragic plane crash that killed 90 people in Phuket two weeks ago, Thailand has finally decided to set up a national committee to improve its air-safety standards. While this may help somewhat to restore travellers' confidence in using the services of Thai budget airlines, what will determine the panel's merit rests on how effectively it can work rather than its existence. This remains to be seen as the panel has yet to be officially formed.

According to the plan, as revealed by Deputy Transport Minister Sansern Wongcha-um, the committee will be chaired by the director-general of the Civil Aviation Department and comprise 25 to 30 members representing Airports of Thailand, Aeronautical Radio of Thailand, the Civil Aviation Training Centre and the Thai Pilots' Association, among other aviation-related organisations.

While insisting that Thailand's air-safety standards are up to international requirements, or even better in some aspects, Sansern admitted that operations are sometimes not well synchronised. The planned committee will reportedly be tasked with gathering details of the overall work involved and putting them into concrete and practical operational plans. After its first meeting, which is to take place later this month, the panel will hold monthly meetings to exchange views and propose necessary improvements to existing regulations. Sansern said it was hoped that the committee would enable airlines, airports and all responsible personnel to work more closely towards the collective improvement of aviation safety.

Had the plane crash in Phuket on September 16 not happened, it is hard to tell how and when responsible parties would take serious action to improve air-safety standards in Thailand although they may have already noticed certain problems during everyday operations. It is sad that it took a big human tragedy to sound the safety alarm, but at least let a painful lesson come from the incident and thus lead to effective precautions against a possible similar catastrophe in the future.

As the investigation of the Phuket plane crash is underway, questions linger in the minds of many about what really happened at the very moment when One-Two-Go Airlines Flight OG269 went down while trying to land in stormy weather at Phuket International Airport on the afternoon of September 16. While the role of the pilot during the landing process has become a big point of public interest, the airport's safety standards in handling aircraft landing in bad weather have inevitably come under public scrutiny as well.

The latest plane crash resulted in the deaths of 90 out of 130 people on board the One-Two-Go flight from Bangkok, while the 40 who survived were left with injuries of varying degrees. Fifty-five of those who died were foreigners, including Iranians, Britons, Australians, Israelis, Americans, French and Germans. The Indonesian pilot and his Thai co-pilot were among the dead.

The MD-20 aircraft was carrying 123 passengers and a crew of seven when it veered off the runway and hit an embankment, broke into two parts and caught fire. There was a rainstorm at Phuket International Airport when the plane was trying to land and visibility was reportedly limited at the time. Survivors said they felt that the aircraft was descending in preparation for a landing but that it suddenly surged again before crashing.

The stormy weather was seen as the major factor behind the accident. Investigators, however, said they were waiting for the information provided by the plane's black boxes, which were retrieved, before concluding their probe. The One-Two-Go crash is the first to have involved a domestic budget airline since budget air travel was introduced in Thailand a few years ago.

The September 16 plane crash bore some resemblance to a previous air mishap in Surat Thani province nine years ago in terms of weather conditions. On December 11, 1998, a Thai Airways Airbus carrying 146 people crashed in a rainstorm while attempting to land at Surat Thani Airport. A total of 101 people were killed and 45 others survived. The disaster raised an alert over air-safety standards in Thailand and prompted efforts for improvement. Nine years later a similar tragedy happened in Phuket. Further improvements are planned this time with the formation of the air-safety committee, but its effectiveness has yet to be proven.