At least thirteen drowned and several missing in boat accident in Chao Phraya river

[MaxYakov]

19 hours ago, jaltsc said:

"At least thirteen people drowned and several went missing ..."

 

Difficult to believe, since I am sure that the crew made sure everyone was wearing adequate life jackets and there was a safety demonstration before the boat left the shore. Most likely this tragedy will not be blamed on lack of safety requirements. Just bad luck.

 

 

 

[/sarc]

[djlest]

yes 95% of Thais cannot swim, and really dont want to learn...

The only good swimmers are those that grow up near the sea and or maybe rivers and lakes up North...

[sahibji]

3 hours ago, canuckamuck said:

I would say that anyone caught below decks with a life jacket on would have been in serious trouble when the lower deck flooded. Life jackets would have pinned them to the ceiling.

doubt the life jacket have that much buoyancy  to pin the wearers to the ceiling. people in the lower deck just would have problems getting out because of the numbers. it has been just reported that the ferry was loaded although it is not mentioned by how much.in the panic to escape many would have been stepped on leaving them little chance of survival.

[DM07]

5 hours ago, natway09 said:

Accidents like this can happen anywhere.

Most of the poor sods who lost their lives would have been down below, got disorientated  & forgot where the  the stairway(s)

are, panicked & drowned. terrible loss of life & a horrible way to go

Yeah...I call BS on that one, but I am not surprised, that at least one had to come up with the usual "it can happen everywhere" - excuse!

Yes...accidents can happen everywhere- they are less likely to happen, where safety- standards apply and are followed...not like...let's see...in THAILAND!

50 Pax capacity, loaded with over twice as many people and I would bet one of my balls, that the last safety- check on that boat was executed 15 years ago.

No...it can not happen everywhere!

[sahibji]

21 minutes ago, djlest said:

yes 95% of Thais cannot swim, and really dont want to learn...

The only good swimmers are those that grow up near the sea and or maybe rivers and lakes up North...

good sea faring practices by the boat operators and safety equipment  can still make the journey safe. apparently safe practices are not adopted.

[sahibji]

19 hours ago, z42 said:

Absolutely diabolical, how on earth should people be drowning in circumstances like this. Just awful, condolences to the families. Will be interesting to see what the crew / captain actually did and how this affected the outcome

the people in the lower deck got trapped in the flooded cabin. simple as that.

[sahibji]

19 hours ago, sharecropper said:

I don't think they were all wearing life vests.

they were possibly not. but even life jackets could not have saved those trapped in the lower cabin. overloading has been recently reported and it would compounded the escape process.

[sahibji]

19 hours ago, guzzi850m2 said:

Very sad, RIP.

you are right but unfortunately no safety procedures are adopted in the operations.

[sahibji]

19 hours ago, coma said:

Reading the Thai newspaper online. It doesn't say anything about nationalities of the deceased. But by looking at the photos there sure does appear to be foreigners amongst the passengers.

very likely they were locals going to the masjid for some sort of prayers.

[sahibji]

19 hours ago, otherstuff1957 said:

It is absolutely shocking how few people in Thailand know how to swim.  While I realize that the current might have been fairly  strong there, I'm fairly sure that any half-way trained swimmer could manage to paddle to within grabbing distance of the river bank.

 

A strong swimmer, like myself, could easily have swum out to the boat and towed people back to shore.  I didn't see any of the crowd on the shore trying to do that!

rural communities do not have access to swimming facilities nor the need for this skill.

[sahibji]

15 hours ago, Gulfsailor said:

 

 

That video showed it only took a couple seconds for the boat to go down and settle on the bottom after hitting the embankment. No one on the bottom level not sitting near an opening stood a chance. No matter how many lifevests would have been on board. I blame this accident most on the design of the boat. 

negligence of the crew is more in question here. in their haste, the lookout was neglected.

[sahibji]

19 hours ago, jaltsc said:

"At least thirteen people drowned and several went missing ..."

 

Difficult to believe, since I am sure that the crew made sure everyone was wearing adequate life jackets and there was a safety demonstration before the boat left the shore. Most likely this tragedy will not be blamed on lack of safety requirements. Just bad luck.

 

 

absolute negligence by the crew in ramming into the dyke or whatever they hit (several versions are floating). should not

have happened  in clear weather.

[sahibji]

18 hours ago, Xircal said:

 

Maybe they jumped into the river and were pulled under by the current or swept away. One of them was a child apparently.

 

that would account for the missing persons - the possibility of being swept away.

[sahibji]

13 hours ago, roo860 said:

Was reported boat maximum capacity was 50 people, were around a 100 on board.

just seen reports on the TV that the boat was over loaded.

[pookiki]

3 hours ago, CaptHaddock said:

 

It looks like the boat was going with the current, not against it.  If that is indeed the case then the boat has to go faster than the current itself to be able to steer.  So the speed of the boat would have been unavoidable.

First person in all the posts to mention this issue. Given the speed of the current, how would this affect the response in steering?  When I worked in Alaska, I heard many of the ferry skippers talk about how treacherous it was to be going the same way as an incoming tide as it would seriously impair steerage.

[impulse]

2 hours ago, nakhonandy said:

Incidentaly, life vests are more of a hazard than a help on the lower deck. 

 

When we use boats we always use the open decks for the above reason, plus we can all swim. 

 

In rare cases, that may be true.  But on the whole, wearing life jackets probably saves far more lives than they take.

 

It's like the guys who refuse to wear a seat belt because they may get trapped in a burning car.  But I doubt anyone would argue that seat belts don't save lives.

 

I'd hate to be that one guy in a thousand that burns up because the seat belt won't release, but I'd bet on being in the 999 saved.  Same with wearing life jackets.  10-15 pounds of buoyancy is enough to keep you afloat, but won't pin most fit people to a roof.

 

 

[CaptHaddock]

14 minutes ago, pookiki said:

First person in all the posts to mention this issue. Given the speed of the current, how would this affect the response in steering?  When I worked in Alaska, I heard many of the ferry skippers talk about how treacherous it was to be going the same way as an incoming tide as it would seriously impair steerage.

 

In order to steer at all in water you have to be going faster than the water itself, otherwise you are drifting with no control over your direction.  If the boat is going downstream on a fast-flowing river it will have to go pretty fast to be going faster than the water.  That will enable you to steer, but it means that an impact with a fixed object will be that much more destructive.

 

There is a kind of swimming pool, called infinity pool or something like that, which has a short length, but with propellers of some kind to create a water flow against which the swimmer can swim effectively while he is actually stationary relative to the land.  As long as he is opposing the flow stationary is faster (in that direction) than the water (which has negative flow in that direction.)

[katatonic]

4 hours ago, CaptHaddock said:

 

It looks like the boat was going with the current, not against it.  If that is indeed the case then the boat has to go faster than the current itself to be able to steer.  So the speed of the boat would have been unavoidable.

It was going several knots faster than the current before the bend so plenty of steerage way. Look a the bow wave on the video. Just should have slowed down for the traffic in midstream and would have made it around the bend, where the extra current on the right side it ended up at due to overtaking the sand barges then swerving round the tug would have reduced steerage as you say. Just trying to keep up with the other boats in the group without watching the conditions, IMHO.

Edited September 19, 2016 by katatonic
typos etc

[roo860]

rural communities do not have access to swimming facilities nor the need for this skill.

Course they do, ponds etc are everywhere.

[Nemesis7]

Tragic. RIP those who lost their lives.

[katatonic]

2 minutes ago, roo860 said:

 

 

Course they do, ponds etc are everywhere.

 

 

The problem is, of course, that Thais think learning to swim is too dangerous for their children. My wife couldn't swim when she was a child although her family had access to a pool, because her parents wouldn't let her learn, which is common logic here unfortunately.

[impulse]

Anybody that ever rides in a Thai boat should click on the video in post #38 (and others).

 

Those poor people had just a few seconds between floating and sinking.  

 

It isn't like the movies where you have all kinds of time to don the life jackets, gather the clan together for a safety moment and step off into the water together.   Anyone who wasn't wearing a life jacket did not have time to find one, much less put it on.  Anyone in the middle of the boat did not have time to find an edge to jump off until they were underwater.

 

It's a scary video.

[Johnniey]

1 hour ago, DM07 said:

Yeah...I call BS on that one, but I am not surprised, that at least one had to come up with the usual "it can happen everywhere" - excuse!

Yes...accidents can happen everywhere- they are less likely to happen, where safety- standards apply and are followed...not like...let's see...in THAILAND!

50 Pax capacity, loaded with over twice as many people and I would bet one of my balls, that the last safety- check on that boat was executed 15 years ago.

No...it can not happen everywhere!

What's your point apart from a it of "my country is superior to Thailand"?

Some of us like it here, the good and the bad. And believe me it isn't all good anywhere.

[Johnniey]

2 minutes ago, katatonic said:

The problem is, of course, that Thais think learning to swim is too dangerous for their children. My wife couldn't swim when she was a child although her family had access to a pool, because her parents wouldn't let her learn, which is common logic here unfortunately.

Don't go judging all Thai people based on your wife. I've never heard of parents thinking that learning to swim is dangerous. I suggest you stay well away from your outlaws!

[katatonic]

1 minute ago, Johnniey said:

Don't go judging all Thai people based on your wife. I've never heard of parents thinking that learning to swim is dangerous. I suggest you stay well away from your outlaws!

I'm not judging anyone: my wife's reasoning, not mine. Not sure why I should stay away from my wife's parents because they were overprotective when she was a child either.. She does assert it's a common idea here not to allow children in water. I imagine there is, though, a lack of properly trained instructors and facilities for swimming lessons.

 

[Johnniey]

1 minute ago, katatonic said:

I'm not judging anyone: my wife's reasoning, not mine. Not sure why I should stay away from my wife's parents because they were overprotective when she was a child either.. She does assert it's a common idea here not to allow children in water. I imagine there is, though, a lack of properly trained instructors and facilities for swimming lessons.

 

All of my children learned to swim by qualified instructors. Most decent hotels have instructors. Many Moo Baans have pools with instructors, including two of the ones I lived in. 

I can only guess that out are talking about outside decent sized towns.

[Crossy]

Looks like the 'driver' had an expired licence, what a surprise. Currently locked up without bail on assorted charges.

 

Heard on TNA/OANA - Met107 @ 5PM.

[katatonic]

10 minutes ago, Johnniey said:

All of my children learned to swim by qualified instructors. Most decent hotels have instructors. Many Moo Baans have pools with instructors, including two of the ones I lived in. 

I can only guess that out are talking about outside decent sized towns.

Are both of your children's parents Thai? If the parents never learned to swim, and a great majority of the people they know couldn't, then it's not a normal thing to do and quite likely perceived as dangerous. And we're talking about the 1970's, Thong Lor, Bangkok for my wife: maybe, generalising, Thai parents' attitudes to swimming lessons have changed since then but I very much doubt, since most children still can't swim, that they have.

Edited September 19, 2016 by katatonic
typo

[bark]

8 hours ago, geriatrickid said:

 

Yes. They bring money. Money matters more than human lives. Why else would the boat have been stuffed beyond its capacity?

Price is same for all people on these boats.

I hope you enjoy going to Hell !

[Johnniey]

3 minutes ago, katatonic said:

Are both of your children's parents Thai? If the parents never learned to swim, and a great majority of the people they know couldn't, then it's not a normal thing to do and quite likely perceived as dangerous. And we're talking about the 1970's, Thong Lor, Bangkok for my wife: maybe, generalising, Thai parents' attitudes to swimming lessons have changed since then but I very much doubt it, since most children still can't swim, that they have.

Well my kids started swimming in the late 80s near Thong Lor, soi 49, but I am not Thai. All through their schooling their friends could swim. I think attitudes have changed since then. I see kids learning every evening in my sports club and also my two previous fitness centres.

I just can't get how someone could think learning to swim is dangerous!