Flight TG669 skids off runway at Suvarnabhumi Airport

[jackr]

I don't fly in any model Airbus. Look up their record. They have to many "incidents".

There are French, British and other nationalities working on Airbus planes. The British make several

Models of the Rolls Royce engines which are very good engines.

I just don't want a plane that was made by people speaking different languages. There is to much

Technical date involved.Nothing negative about either nationality. One common language

On a product this complex it is much better.

My nephew worked at the Boeing at Everett, Washington, USA. the largest building in the world

Under one continous roof.

He also said he wouldn't fly in a Airbus plan.

I have flown to Thailand probably 8 times in recent year aboard 747's and 777's

I trust the General Electric engines and Boeing planes.

ChuLai 6768

No guesses where you hail from, and you're like 12 years old, right? Both are magnificent, exacting products (languages don't come into it), both have incidents, many of which have been through human error or lack of maintenance. Do you feel the same about European/Asian cars, which have parts made all around the world? But you carry on flying your yank tanks if it makes you feel better, I'll fly whichever is more convenient as I'm not so anally retentive as to worry about which party put the millions of foreign parts together to make the thing fly.

[JoeThePoster]

A maintenance crew attempts to cover up the national flag and logo of Thai Airways International...

Not gonna help their bottom line, even if they were to paint the Air Asia livery on it overnight.

[EyesWideOpen]

Again a lot of the early reports are hindered by Thai -> English translations but also by Aviation Technical to News Media non-technical translations.

From the images shown and my own speculation has the nose-wheel jammed in a particular direction on landing causing the plane to taxi off the runway into the rough, this has caused the nose-wheel assembly to fail, the front of the plane drops to the ground, debris from the ground/nose-wheel thrown up enter the engine causing compressor failure and smoke/fire.

I guess this is akin to the failure of the the nose-wheel on the A320 flight in the video below.

There are a LOT of A300 series planes in service - some will fail.

Be distrustful of media reports for they know not what they say.

Absolutely incredible landing in this video. With a sideways front nose wheel, the pilot kept the plane exactly on the center line of the runway. Wow...... Wonder if the same thing happened to the Thai airways plane..

[Robbie Dye]

Excuse me but the French built as much as we Brits...........and whoever referred to Hong Kong that was clear air turbulence pre storm and mmp all to do with Thai or the gorgeous A380

[webfact]

Thai Airways Airbus 330 skidded off Bangkok runway; 12 passengers injured

BANGKOK, 9 September 2013 (NNT) – Thai Airways International Airbus 330 from Guangzhou, China, skidded off the runway at Suvarnabhumi Airport as it was landing on Sunday night, causing damage to its propellers and putting a fire at the right landing gear near the engine. Rescue officials have put out the fire and evacuated all the passengers to safety.

Only 12 people among the 287 passengers on board the TG 679 flight were injured from shock and smoke choking. It is reported that the team of Mr. Charnchai Chairungruang, a former Industry Minister, as well as Channel 7 actor Veeraparp Suparbpaiboon, and Mr.Kosit Suvinijjit, Director of Spring News were among the passengers on the flight.

The Director of the Suvarnabhumi Airport revealed that the airbus reported a fire in its engine and took an emergency landing, before sliding off track. Most of the passengers were Chinese. Fortunately, only a small number of passengers were hurt, with only 3 being sent to the nearest hospital. The eastern runway is currently out of use and may cause slight delays to other flights as flight re-scheduling is necessary, the Director said.


-- NNT 2013-09-09

[MK1]

I have enjoyed reading all the comments, may I suggest we wait on the investigation results before deciding whether to fly Thai again.

I began my aircraft maintenance experience with the Georgia Air Guard in 1950 with C-47, P-47 and T-6's up to the B777 when I retired from United Air Lines in 1997. I have 32 years experience as Mechanic, Foreman, Manager and Regional Manager for various US airlines.

I also have 26 years USAF as Mechanic and then C-141 Flight/Examiner Engineer. I continue to do consulting as an Auditor/Inspector of aircraft for a major leasing company. I am a Gold Level Mileage Member with Thai and two other airlines. I find Thai aircraft to be clean and well maintained, by the way I like the service too !!

According to the Aviation Herald report, reading into it, one would suggest causation is perhaps linked to either brake seizure (a maintenance issue) or the pilot took the runway short and in turn perhaps the pilot may have applied extreme braking pressure to avoid the worst outcome( originating from human error).

What is your assumption?

[pilm]

I guess the UK is third world then,

Give it 2 or 3 more years.

[nonthaburial]

What's is happening with Thai Airways? Last time it was at Hong Kong.

I think the incident on approach to Honk Kong was probably not the fault of Thai. Sounds like they ran into some jet wake from another aircraft which happens often at this stage even though the tower tries to prevent it. Most likely the passengers were just not wearing their seat belts when they were supposed to and went flying about the cabin. When I was a flight attendant I found myself up off the floor on more than one occasion during approach due to jet wake. Luckily my passengers were all buckled in and only the crew was left hanging on for dear life.

The turbulence related incident was not an accident, the weather conditions were caused by a number of factors including x winds etc. These were all attributed to a passing typhoon. a Hong Kong Airlines A320 en route from Phuket flight had the same problem on the same day. Both aircraft were on final approach.

[orosee]

About the average fleet age, apply some logic please.

Good maintenance plus safe flying = higher average fleet age

Crash more planes, buy replacements = lower average fleet age

Same as with wives & girlfriends.

[ginjag]

causing damage to its propellers

Who writes this stuff?

So it was a Dakota dc4, and not an airbus. how did they get near 300 on board ??

[smccolley]

Does anyone know about flight delays right now? I have to leave for the airport soon and don't want to sit around for hours.

The airline says everything is normal...

[kjhbigv]

18 years old aircraft ....... thats quite a lot ....

Not really, as long as maintenance is carried out no problem.....

British Airways entire Boeing 747 fleet (52 of them) average age is 18.4 years old and entire Boeing 767 fleet (21 of them) average age is 20.2 years old!

http://www.airfleets.net/ageflotte/British%20Airways.htm

The average age of British Airways fleet is 13.4 years old, compared to Thailand's 11.8 years.

[Tomtomtom69]

What's is happening with Thai Airways? Last time it was at Hong Kong.

And that was just a week ago. About 2 weeks ago flying in on a THAI A330-300 from Kunming we experienced some bad weather upon descent and landing in Bangkok. The weather in Kunming was perfect for flying - mostly sunny skies but near Lopburi there was some bad turbulence probably due to rain and storm clouds which caused us to lose a few feet of altitude (nothing major, but caused a slight panic in the cabin) and then just above the runway the plane tilted slightly to the left, suggesting some significant crosswind. We landed on a very slick runway due to the rain but I almost thought we would have to attempt a go-around because the plane only touched down about half way down the runway and by the time we came to a stop almost the full remaining length of runway had been used. It was quite a rough landing and the last 15 minutes of flight were quite a bit more hair-raising than I have experienced for a number of years. Of course, bad visibility and weather was the culprit in the case of my landing so no parallels can be drawn to this latest incident except that it might have been the very same aircraft involved as both flights used A330s though I didn't check the registration of my flight so we might never know.

[MaxYakov]

Lucky the engine only caught-fire on-landing, rather than when taking-off or in-flight.

Yuh, it's always "lucky" when an aircraft engine catches fire, huh? Did you stop to think that the landing itself caused the engine fire? Could it have been a bird(s) ingestion or the use of reverse-thrust?

Update (from AProPilotsRumorNetwork.org): Could have been a nose gear failure causing nose-down, runway overrun and engine fire resulting from debris ingestion or other source. (but it is a "Professonal Pilot's Rumor Network" site)

[Emdog]

The truth behind all this is that Thai Air was feeling jealous of Thai Rail for getting all the media attention lately, so decided this would be a good chance to get some press coverage. You could look it up.

[Mampara]

Could be from using redundant tiers, or over/under inflated tiers, or generic brake-pads that do not brake equally, perhaps its a lack of maintenance on the runway. could be many things.

[Mampara]

Lucky the engine only caught-fire on-landing, rather than when taking-off or in-flight.

Yuh, it's always "lucky" when an aircraft engine catches fire, huh? Did you stop to think that the landing itself caused the engine fire? Could it have been a bird(s) ingestion or the use of reverse-thrust?

And I always thought that reverse thrust was used on all aviation engines to slow the plane down. silly me!

[kjhbigv]

About the painting over of the Logo, that is standard practice for evey airline I have worked for.

Really??

[Thait Spot]

Quite strange that the 2 'quality' English newspapers have hardly picked up on this , while foreign media have.

Cover up?

It;s a bit like painting out the Thai logo within an hour of "landing" like that is a priority.........

[shaurene]

Pilot was probably racing the Lufthansa flight due in at about the same time.

Don't be be silly the planes come in and land from instructions by the ground controllers

[Oxpilot]

Modern planes are designed to fly with one engine 'not functioning'. This is probably not a Thai Airways problem rather it may have been one of a variety of problems. Bird strike, faulty engine component. This type of incident is not unusual however the good news is that all survived. Remember the Qantas flight out of Singapore a few years ago. Engine malfunctioned yet the crew did a magnificent job of landing a fully loaded 380 boeing safely.

I am a retired Captain from a major international airline. Let me say that I agree that this could hardly be considered a "Safe Landing". Also, All airliners are certified to fly on one engine. Even if they have 4 (Exceptions being some Russian and military planes with many engines. Losing an engine is basically not an emergency in the aircraft manual, but only an abnormality procedure.

What happened this morning is unknown. There are many possibilities that I could list, but speculation is worthless. Wait for the facts to come out and keep the

comments on the accident to those of sympathy for the injured.

[JoeThePoster]

Fortunately, only a small number of passengers were hurt

At what number does it become unfortunate?

[pilm]

One thing's for sure.

Would never had happened had some of the posters on here been piloting it.

[Thai at Heart]

Catching fire includes landing safely?

[DGIE]

It's good the accident happened on land. How about if it was above the clouds or in the mid

of its flight?

The captain will say, evacuate the plane and use the exit door!

[kjhbigv]

Never heard this explanation before; "there was a glitch in the tyre system"

I wonder if Airbus investigators will be allowed to investigate the incident to find out the exact cause ie. was there a 'tyre glitch'? Did the landing gear fail after running off the runway or before? Will they be given access to all the black box data to review? Will they be given access to all weather data at the time?

Easy for them to figure out as long as they have the information.

[shaurene]

Lucky the engine only caught-fire on-landing, rather than when taking-off or in-flight.

Yuh, it's always "lucky" when an aircraft engine catches fire, huh? Did you stop to think that the landing itself caused the engine fire? Could it have been a bird(s) ingestion or the use of reverse-thrust?

And I always thought that reverse thrust was used on all aviation engines to slow the plane down. silly me!

You armchair guys talk so much bull wait for the investigation result, airbus people will be in on the investigation

[MaxYakov]

Lucky the engine only caught-fire on-landing, rather than when taking-off or in-flight.

Yuh, it's always "lucky" when an aircraft engine catches fire, huh? Did you stop to think that the landing itself caused the engine fire? Could it have been a bird(s) ingestion or the use of reverse-thrust?

And I always thought that reverse thrust was used on all aviation engines to slow the plane down. silly me!

Agree with both of your statements. Here's what can happen if reverse thrust fails:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_859

[Thait Spot]

I don't fly in any model Airbus. Look up their record. They have to many "incidents".

There are French, British and other nationalities working on Airbus planes. The British make several

Models of the Rolls Royce engines which are very good engines.

I just don't want a plane that was made by people speaking different languages. There is to much

Technical date involved.Nothing negative about either nationality. One common language

On a product this complex it is much better.

My nephew worked at the Boeing at Everett, Washington, USA. the largest building in the world

Under one continous roof.

He also said he wouldn't fly in a Airbus plan.

I have flown to Thailand probably 8 times in recent year aboard 747's and 777's

I trust the General Electric engines and Boeing planes.

ChuLai 6768

You're entitled to an opinion - however this one makes you look like a complete turnip.

I can only hope you are always booked onto a Dreamliner

[Banzai99]

About the painting over of the Logo, that is standard practice for evey airline I have worked for.

Don't state facts like that on ThaiVisa,

Let the ignorant miserable masses here believe it's all a conspiracy, a unique Thai thing, most of all, it's something for them to Bash the whole country for.

If this had happened in Switzerland, it would have been just another Aviation incident, these things happen etc etc, in Thailand it's lack of education, Thaksins fault, nobody cares, bad pilots, poor maintenance etc etc.

The painting over the Logo ( Common Practice ) will be put down to 'Face', and provide more Thai bashing opportunities.