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Rescue workers surround the wreckage of One-Two-Go flight OG 269 a few hours after it crashed while landing at Phuket airport on September 16 last year, killing 90 passengers.
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ONE-TWO-GO PHUKET CRASH
New push for truth
Online petition urges Samak to set up 'independent and transparent' probe into culpability of airline and its chief. More than 1,200 people have signed a petition calling for a formal inquiry into allegations pilots at One-Two-Go were paid bribes to fly hours in excess of legal limits and whether such "illegal actions" contributed to the crash of its flight in Phuket last year.
Published on March 31, 2008
Most of the people who have put their names to the online petition are foreigners. The list includes family and friends of the 90 people who died in the crash on September 16.
The petition follows a documentary by an Australian TV team, which was shown Down Under late last year.
The programme aired claims by alleged former airline staff that One-Two-Go and Orient Thai pilots were paid cash bonuses to exceed legal maximum flying hours and that there were improper dealings with aviation authorities.
The claims were flatlydenied by Udom Tantiprasongchai, the boss of One-Two-Go and Orient Thai airlines, during production of the documentary.
However, many relatives of those killed in the Phuket crash say they are unimpressed by the Thai government's response to the crash and allegations raised in the Australian TV programme.
'Probe unsatisfactory'
"The families of the people killed and injured in the crash in Thailand fear Thai authorities are not properly investigating the crash. Former pilots of the airline publicly allege illegal actions ... contributed to the crash," Bonnie Rind, whose brother Stefan Woronoff died in the crash and who set up the website carrying the petition, said in a recent press statement.
"From everything we're hearing, this wasn't just an accident; this was a crash that didn't have to happen."
Tourists from Australia, France, Germany, Iran, Israel, Sweden, Thailand, Britain and the US, were killed when flight OG 269 crashed.
"The Thai Aviation authorities [the Department of Civil Aviation] claim no cause for the crash has yet been determined. Yet, DCA [deputy] director-general Wuthichai Singhama-nee said: 'No punishment will be imposed... because [it] was beyond control'," Rind said.
The DCA announced on March 10 that an inquiry had found the wind-shear sensor on the One-Two-Go plane would have been working normally before the tragedy.
Wuthichai said the US National Transport Safety Board (NTSB) had examined the plane's wind shear detector and concluded the equipment should have been functioning normally before flight OG 269 tried to land in heavy rain.
The NTSB had not reported on the McDonnell Douglas MD-82's automatic acceleration, plane control or crash alarm, according to a story in the Bangkok Post. Thai authorities said earlier that these parts were too burnt to examine.
The web-based petition asks for Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej "to order an independent and transparent investigation into the crash of OG 269". The site is available in English, French, and German, Hebrew, Farsi and Thai.
See: investigateudom.com
By Jim Pollard
Daily Xpress
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