Nok Air plane nearly hits hospital building

[chickenslegs]

Flying with Nok next week. Are these grounds to cancel and get money back?

Take a bus or minivan instead. I heard they all have safe and reliable drivers.

[Hardy99]

During the "burning season" they already had troubles with starting/landing at big airports like Chiangmai! Mae Sot is a ricefield airport.. :-) and the ATR planes are same not the latest technological gems..

[Transporter]

This is just another notch in Thai aviation safety. This could have and should have been avoided. Visual confirmation is always a good thing to have but, without it, they should have been redirected. Also, wasn't the tower supposed to be watching that would have immediately showed was off course or too low for the runway? I am no aviation expert but have seen enough to know the pilot and the tower were in error here. Luckily, the pilot kept his wits and escaped crashing. But this story could have taken a turn for the worst and in turn, many dead. They should investigate this thoroughly

Not necessarily dead but certainly hospitalised.

[Transporter]

Flying with Nok next week. Are these grounds to cancel and get money back?

Take a bus or minivan instead. I heard they all have safe and reliable drivers.

Not so many now as some have become pilots! The ones that didn't cut it work in the control towers instead.

[elgordo38]

Well done the pilot, but I suppose if you are going to be in a crashing plane, best to hit a hospital.

Yes well done pilot but the spin doctors will pin the tail on you calling it pilot error. Human error is the result in 90% of these cases as a it saves a lot of face higher up.

[Transporter]

I suppose building a hospital so near a runway is like owning a glass shop and then throwing stones at greenhouses!

[Puccini]

^^^ My apologies. I've never heard of an airline being allowed to make scheduled flights under visual flight rules (VFR).

So at a minimum he was flying with visibility below what was legal for VFR, and didn't have or ignored the GPWS built into the plane.

I must learn to expect such "surprises" from Thailand. A scheduled airline flying VFR???

Cheers.

More likely, there was a GPWS alert and the pilot reacted by pulling the plane up.

What did he pilot say after the landing?

If the GPWS did malfunction, will the flight recorders be examined?

[Puccini]

Nothing on www.pprune.org yet, it seems.

[Cpkt8]

Imagine how the passengers on board felt at that moment. Definitely not something to joke about..

[thenewgoo]

In most countries, poor visibility would probably close an airport with flights diverted - can't do that here though - not during Chinese New Year with all those extra flights full of revenue.

[Tywais]

^^^ My apologies. I've never heard of an airline being allowed to make scheduled flights under visual flight rules (VFR).

So at a minimum he was flying with visibility below what was legal for VFR, and didn't have or ignored the GPWS built into the plane.

I must learn to expect such "surprises" from Thailand. A scheduled airline flying VFR???

Cheers.

More likely, there was a GPWS alert and the pilot reacted by pulling the plane up.

What did he pilot say after the landing?

If the GPWS did malfunction, will the flight recorders be examined?

The GPWS is a ground alert (radar) system not a small obstacle alert system, in this case a new building being built in the flight path. That should be on the NOTAM for the field I would think.

[Puccini]

Thanks.

[sandgroper2]

Of course the runways and planes have instrument landing equipment. They couldn't operate year around if they didn't. That doesn't mean the pilots were paying any attention or had a clue what they were doing. Obviously he was way off the glideslope and out of sync with the ILS (instrument landing system) but...

If the plane was working properly he would have had alarms going off such as the Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS).

"In the late 1960s, a series of controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) accidents took the lives of hundreds of people. A CFIT accident is one where a properly functioning airplane under the control of a fully qualified and certified crew is flown into terrain, water or obstacles with no apparent awareness on the part of the crew.

Beginning in the early 1970s, a number of studies examined the occurrence of CFIT accidents. Findings from these studies indicated that many such accidents could have been avoided if a warning device called a ground proximity warning system (GPWS) had been used."

Cheers.

if the plane was working properly he would have had alarms going off such as the Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS).

He was coming in to land, was he not.

[mike324]

Perhaps the pilot did the right thing and it wasn't his fault? No need to bash him, poor visibility happens all the time requiring pilots to ascend and redo the landing. I've been on a plane once where it seems like the plane speed was too fast when it was decending, the pilot ascended and redid the landing.

[balo]

What a great idea , build a hospital on the runway just in case.

[fxe1200]

Flying with Nok next week. Are these grounds to cancel and get money back?

Anticyclical behaviour is not the solution.

[VIPinthailand]

in Thailand you pay for 1 flight, 1 take off and 1 landing.

go around, missed approach and alternate landing are optional.

Edited February 11, 2016 by VIPinthailand

[kingalfred]

Pilot error. Half asleep, both of them!

[diehard60]

Dumb pilot. I guess thy have no avionics at all.

[The Deerhunter]

Well done the pilot, but I suppose if you are going to be in a crashing plane, best to hit a hospital.

Or as they say in Germany....Q.. How do you get 81 people (or whatever. I'm lazy) into a nine room hotel..... IA.. In a Concorde.... Oh sorry, that was a bit sick. Sorry P.

[A Skeptic]

Mae Sot Airport does not have an instrument landing system. See:

https://skyvector.com/airport/VTPM/Tak-Mae-Sot-Airport

Most probably it would be a VOR approach with an appropriately high Decision Height (DH) and visibility minimums. The DH is calculated on the proximity of nearby obstacles and should have included the hospital.

Unless, of course, there is a GPS approach which many airfields now have.

[nonresident]

Of course the runways and planes have instrument landing equipment. They couldn't operate year around if they didn't. That doesn't mean the pilots were paying any attention or had a clue what they were doing. Obviously he was way off the glideslope and out of sync with the ILS (instrument landing system) but...

If the plane was working properly he would have had alarms going off such as the Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS).

"In the late 1960s, a series of controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) accidents took the lives of hundreds of people. A CFIT accident is one where a properly functioning airplane under the control of a fully qualified and certified crew is flown into terrain, water or obstacles with no apparent awareness on the part of the crew.

Beginning in the early 1970s, a number of studies examined the occurrence of CFIT accidents. Findings from these studies indicated that many such accidents could have been avoided if a warning device called a ground proximity warning system (GPWS) had been used."

Cheers.

NeverSure, you seem to have some knowledge of aviation, but please be careful as you seem to be aspousing a greater knowledge than you possess. Please do your homework before casting aspersions. There is no ILS at Mae Sot but there is a VOR and a DME which allows for IFR operations there. There may also be GPS approaches but I can't confirm that. This crew (captain and copilot) were operating IFR. They had to be, due to the reduced visibility which precludes VFR. It is highly unlikely that their is an Air Traffic Controller in the tower as there is no radar and as stated no ILS and it surely has no means of getting info from the aircraft's transponder to ascertain its position, altitude etc.

I would expect that the airport attendant (might be called a Flight Service Officer) would have equipment to give him/her surface meteorological data to pass by radio to the flight crew.

VOR/DME approaches (NPAs) require a higher level of situational awareness than ILS and it would seem fair to say there was a lapse. You can bet Nok Air will be looking extremely hard at this incident.

Thank Buddha there was no crunch.

[SOTIRIOS]

...there you have it......

[Jdiddy]

Of course the runways and planes have instrument landing equipment. They couldn't operate year around if they didn't. That doesn't mean the pilots were paying any attention or had a clue what they were doing. Obviously he was way off the glideslope and out of sync with the ILS (instrument landing system) but...

If the plane was working properly he would have had alarms going off such as the Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS).

"In the late 1960s, a series of controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) accidents took the lives of hundreds of people. A CFIT accident is one where a properly functioning airplane under the control of a fully qualified and certified crew is flown into terrain, water or obstacles with no apparent awareness on the part of the crew.

Beginning in the early 1970s, a number of studies examined the occurrence of CFIT accidents. Findings from these studies indicated that many such accidents could have been avoided if a warning device called a ground proximity warning system (GPWS) had been used."

Cheers.

if the plane was working properly he would have had alarms going off such as the Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS).

He was coming in to land, was he not.

gpws can only look down and landing gear was lowered which turns off alarms (gpws alerting aircrew they forgot landing gear has happened) so was probably next to useless in this incident

Edited February 11, 2016 by Jdiddy

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

How about the question... why is there a hospital building now under construction anywhere near the immediate landing path of the airport? I mean, do you really want to locate a hospital building in that kind of location?

[swerver]

Ok guys relax and calm down. No one died. Chill out.

The problem as I see it is that they are burning the farms; a few hundred meters from the airport.

With answers like the above it is no wonder the human race is turning to s#@^.

[mancub]

Forget IFR, VFR, SVFR....I believe that the crew may have been operating under the same flight rules as DAN AIR used to......TLAR.

(That looks about right !)

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

You can bet Nok Air will be looking extremely hard at this incident.

Would than be more hard, or less hard, than they've done after all their other prior runway/landing/takeoff mishap incidents?

[Paul944]

I guess the pilot shitted his pants during the pull up. It took 15 minutes untill he had enough courage to try again.

[springheeled jack]

burning waste weeds or rubbish should not be allowed any where near an airport because of visibility problems and in my opinion this farmer should be prosecuted .