Monday, September 17, 2007

Budget plane crash in Phuket

As news of a Thai passenger plane crashing on the resort island of Phuket, the sad fact is that as ASEAN countries increased their budget airlines, more accidents will happened.

As Singapore tried to be an aviation hub, the temptation is always there to cut a few corners to lower costs and increase profit. I say that the Singapore goverment must keep an eye out on this and we must not lowered our safety standards just to match demand.

I'm not saying that the accident was due to this reason, early reports says that the plane crashed due to heavy rain and low visibility. The accident in Phuket killed 87 people including several foreigners. A senior civil aviation official said that the pilot had received permission to abort the landing at the last minute. However the plane smashed onto the runway, careered into an embankment and broke in two. There were 123 passengers on board.

Thai Health Minister Mongkol Na Songkhla said in a statement that 87 people had died and 43 survived, accounting for all those on board. The accident was so unexpected that bodies had been laid out at Phuket airport terminal due to a lack of hospital refrigerators.

Which was surprising to me. As I've said earlier, as more planes take to the skies in the region, more accidents will happened. Unfortunate but true.

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