Airport’s wind warning system was not working

THAI authorities probing a plane crash that killed 89 people in Phuket discovered yesterday that a system designed to check for dangerous winds was not fully working, an official said.

Attention had earlier focused on the pilot, with officials saying he had been warned of a dangerous wind shear by air traffic control but decided to land anyway.

But investigators believe the system to detect a sudden change in wind direction, which can throw a plane off course and then disappear, leaving pilots struggling to keep the jet under control, was not working properly.

“Initial assumption is that the wind shear detection system of Phuket airport was not fully operational at the time the accident occurred,” said Vutichai Singhamany, a safety director at the Department of Civil Aviation.

“We checked today and just found that the system didn’t respond to the control tower,” he said, adding that bad weather was also a possible cause of the accident.

Chaisak Angkasuwan, head of the Department of Civil Aviation, however, urged people not to draw any conclusions until the investigation was complete.

“In my opinion, even if half of the wind shear detectors did not work at the time, it did not necessarily cause the accident,” he said.

Air traffic controllers in Phuket told Indonesian pilot Arief Mulyadi, who was among the dead, that there had been reports of wind shear.

“There was a warning of wind shear from the pilot in the previous flight, which landed four minutes ahead,” said Kumtorn Sirikorn, vice president of Aeronautical Radio of Thailand, an air traffic control body.

“Air traffic control asked the pilot whether he knew about this wind shear or not, and he said he knew. Then the air traffic control official gave him additional information and asked him whether he still wanted to land or not. The pilot insisted he wanted to land.”

Sunday’s flight from Bangkok was approaching Phuket Airport in driving rain and wind when it slammed onto the runway before breaking up and skidding into a wooded embankment in flames.

The MD-82 jet was carrying 123 passengers and seven crew. Eighty-nine people were killed.

Chaisawasd Kittipornpaiboon, who is leading the transport ministry’s crash investigation, said officials were compiling evidence from the black boxes — which are due to be sent to the US for analysis this week — as well as aircraft instruments and the voice recording between the pilot and the control tower.

The pilot’s son, meanwhile, said senior officials at the airline told him that his father had asked for permission to return to Bangkok but was told to land, according to the Indonesian newspaper Tempo.

“Arief had the time to ask the authorisation to go back to Bangkok and abort landing in Phuket Airport because of unfriendly weather,” Agung Bayu Hanggono told the newspaper.