Pilot dies after plane crashes

AN airliner crashed into the control tower after landing on the Thai holiday island of Samui yesterday, killing the pilot.

Seven people were injured when the Bangkok Airways flight skidded off the runway in bad weather and hit the disused tower, said the country’s civil aviation department. The ATR72 twin-turboprop carried 68 passengers, two pilots and two crew and was flying from Krabi, another popular resort area in southern Thailand. “The plane was damaged,” said an airport official. “The weather was bad and it was raining when the plane skidded off.”

Koh Samui is in the Gulf of Thailand 480 kilometres south of Bangkok. Bangkok Airways have set up a hotline for anyone concerned about family or friends. The number is 0066 (0) 22658777.

Meanwhile, a Continental Airlines plane made an emergency landing in Miami, Florida in the US, yesterday after turbulence injured at least 26 people flying to Houston from Rio de Janeiro. Fourteen passengers were taken to the hospital, four with serious injuries, and 12 more were treated at the scene, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department said. No injuries appeared to be life-threatening and most travellers who sought treatment were “just bumped and bruised”, he said. The Boeing 767-200 was about an hour from Miami when the injuries forced the pilots to divert at 5:35am local time, a spokesman for Hous ton-based Continental. Flight 128 had 168 passengers and 11 crew members.

“People were jolted up and down and sideways,” said the spokesman, adding some passengers “hadn’t buckled their seat belts. They hit the sides of the airplane, and each other”.

Several people had to be placed on stretchers and shave their necks or have their backs stabilised which is standard procedure with such injuries.