Accident: Thai A333 at Bangkok on Sep 8th 2013, runway excursion on landing

[JingKai Seah 0]

 

By Simon Hradecky, created Sunday, Sep 8th 2013 19:58Z, last updated Sunday, Sep 8th 2013 21:17Z

A Thai Airways Airbus A330-300, registration HS-TEF performing flight TG-679 from Guangzhou (China) to Bangkok (Thailand) with 287 passengers and 14 crew, landed on Bangkok's runway 19L at about 23:30L (16:30Z) but veered right off the runway and came to a stop with all gear on soft ground, a large plume of dust rose above the aircraft initially creating fears of a crash. The aircraft was evacuated via slides. 12 people received minor injuries in the evacuation, the aircraft received damage to both engines and the nose gear, the nose gear is bent but did not collapse.

 

Read more: http://avherald.com/h?article=4681fccd&opt=1

[Y. J. Foo 0]

More pics from A.net thread http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/5865524/

 

 

 

Considering the a/c is now 18 years old I wouldn't be surprised if this will never fly again. After all some of MH's older 330s were of the same age when they got sent to Tupelo for storage/scrap.

Edited September 8, 2013 by Y. J. Foo

[S V Choong 4]

Looks like a PW powdered older A333... quite possibly a write off

[KK Lee 5]

Only engine cowling is damaged and aircraft structure seen intact.

Edited September 9, 2013 by KK Lee

[flee 5]

Airframe Info for HS-TEF:

 

Airbus A330-321 MSN 066

Engines: Pratt and Whitney PW4164

First Flight: 02-03-1995

Delivered: 24-03-1995

Edited September 9, 2013 by flee

[alberttky 0]

I wish TG can donate the aircraft parts to flight schools.

[Mohd Idham 0]

Glad that nobody was hurt.

[JuliusWong 0]

http://news.yahoo.com/thai-airways-skids-off-runway-14-passengers-hurt-062411854.html

 

14 pax was injured mostly during evacuation.

 

"After the accident, workers on a crane blacked out the Thai Airways logo on the tail and body of the aircraft, as part of an effort to protect its image according to Star Alliance guidelines, an official said. It was the second mishap in less than two weeks for Thailand's national carrier.

 

The incident occurred less than two weeks after 20 passengers were injured when a Thai Airways Airbus A380 hit severe turbulence as it was descending to Hong Kong's airport."

[Cire 0]

Seriously? They covered the logo of the plane?

[JuliusWong 0]

Seriously? They covered the logo of the plane?

Quite a common practice by airline. China Airlines is a good example.

[Mohd Suhaimi Fariz 2]

Covering the logo & name only works if the airline has a Eurowhite livery!

[Y. J. Foo 0]

Covering the logo & name only works if the airline has a Eurowhite livery!

Also the painters will need to paint over the logos before someone takes a pic if they do not want anyone to know the identity - an impossibility nowadays!

 

And if *A actually has such requirements in the event of mishaps then what about OZ214? IIRC they didn't do anything about the titles or the *A logo.

[Mohd Suhaimi Fariz 2]

And if *A actually has such requirements in the event of mishaps then what about OZ214? IIRC they didn't do anything about the titles or the *A logo.

I think in that case because there are fatalities involved nobody's allowed to touch the wreckage lest they be accuses of tampering with the evidence.

[BC Tam 2]

Seriously? They covered the logo of the plane?

Very evident from what can be seen at BBC News

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24012344

[knasrul 0]

remind me of airasia incident in kch few years back

[Mulyadir Fitri 0]

Thai Airways has been criticised for blacking out the name of the

airline on a plane that skidded off the runway at Bangkok's main

airport.

 

However, the fact the airline had blacked out the Thai Airways logo –

apparently in accordance with Star Alliance network guidance on emergency

management – drew criticism on social media.

 

Thai Airways official Smud Poom-On said that "blurring the logo"

after an accident was a recommendation from Star Alliance known as the "crisis

communication rule," meant to protect the image of both the airline and

other members of Star Alliance.

 

However, Star Alliance later denied that this was company policy:

 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/thailand/10296428/Thai-Airways-blacks-out-logo-after-Bangkok-airport.html

 

They should've gone Alitalia's way, paint the whole damn thing!

 

Edited September 9, 2013 by Mulyadir Fitri

[Johan Z 0]

LOL. Is that even legal? That's tampering with evidence.

[Waiping 12]

So the standard SOP would be :-

 

1) Evacuate the passengers.

2) Paint over the tail logo.

[alberttky 0]

Airline backtracks on logo cover-up story

Authorities have blamed defective landing gear after a Thai Airways International (THAI) Airbus A330-300 plane skidded off the runway at Suvarnabhumi airport on Sunday.

Wiwit Deepradit, director of the Flight Standards Bureau at the Department of Civil Aviation, said Tuesday an initial investigation revealed the accident may have been caused by a faulty bogie beam, also known as a pivot, or truck beam, on the landing gear. The beam joins the two main axles of the actual gear.

Meanwhile, THAI clarified an earlier statement about the aircraft having its logo and serial number blacked out.

A THAI official had said the move was to protect the image of the airline and the Star Alliance network of carriers, which THAI belongs to.

The carrier has since issued a statement that while THAI generally practices "de-identifying" an aircraft after an accident, it is not a Star Alliance policy or procedure to de-identify planes.

The pilots had landed the plane smoothly and it had travelled along the runway for about one kilometre before the problem occurred.

Regarding the cause of the accident, Mr Wiwit said: "Everything was normal including the runway touchdown. The question is why the plane veered off the runway. So the focus is on a defect in the landing gear."

The right main landing gear of the plane, which was serving the Guangzhou-Bangkok route, reportedly collapsed.

Forty passengers were injured, with 14 taken to hospital - 12 of whom were discharged on Monday.

"An examination shows that the plane is severely damaged, especially on its right side and engine which scraped against the runway and caused sparks due to the friction," Mr Wiwit said.

He said if the investigation concludes a defective part of the plane is to bame, the department will send the part to France for further study as Airbus is based in Toulouse.

Woradet Hanprasert, director-general of the department, said Tuesday that authorities had to find out why the landing gear malfunctioned. Another question to be answered is why a fire broke out in one engine of the plane, he said.

Suvarnabhumi air traffic control reported the fire broke out before landing, but THAI said there were sparks only during the runway incident. Two engines and a pair of tyres on the Airbus plane were damaged.

THAI chairman Ampon Kittiampon Tuesday said the incident was unavoidable, but the pilots and the attendants of the flight TG679 made the right decisions to protect the lives and property of their passengers. The crew exceeded their duties and should be appreciated by passengers, he said. Mr Ampon denied accusations on social media that some crew members ran for their lives. THAI standards are very high and if the crew had not made the right decisions there could have been a tragedy, he said.

Apinan Wannangkun, vice-president of Aeronautical Radio of Thailand Co, reported that from 7am to 3pm Tuesday 42 visiting planes had to circle for about 10 minutes, and 130 departing planes were delayed by 20 minutes on average at Suvarnabhumi airport due to the partial closure of the eastern runway where the accident happened. Airport staff had already repaired the runway.

THAI president Sorajak Kasemsuvan said the removal of the plane from the runway was completed early Wednesday.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/369069/thai-admits-logo-cover-up-fingers-defective-landing-gear

Edited September 10, 2013 by alberttky

[xtemujin 0]

Social Media Highlights Thai Airways Logo Block

By Gaurav Raghuvanshi | 9 September 2013 Monday | 11:10 PM

 

A common practice by airlines trying to reduce negative publicity about accidents – masking their company logo on a plane involved in a mishap – is proving ineffective in the social-media age, when passengers and onlookers can snap photos and put out unflattering comments to a global audience within minutes of an incident.

 

The damage-control effort can actually backfire, as seen after a Thai Airways International PCLTHAI.TH +0.54% jet suffered a landing-gear failure and skidded off the runway late on Sunday night at Bangkok’s main air facility, Suvarnabhumi Airport.

 

Soon after evacuating the Airbus A330-300 jet, workers spray painted out the logo and registration number on the aircraft. By morning, black paint covered the Thai logo on the jet’s sides and tail. A Thai Airways spokeswoman said it was done as standard practice.

But social-media users had snapped pictures of the plane with the logo intact soon after the incident and then with the black markings taken on Monday morning. Then they posted them on social-media sites.

Seasoned airline followers could have figured out anyway that the doctored plane was a Thai Airways jet because of its trademark purple, gold and magenta livery.

 

“It is now not considered best practice in the airline community to do this,” said John Bailey, the managing director of Icon International, a communications firm that also advises airlines on crisis management.

 

He pointed out that passengers and airport visitors commonly have smartphones with cameras, marking quite a different world than two decades ago when airlines commonly masked their logos on damaged planes.

 

“The environment has changed, and the challenge for airlines is infinitely more complicated. If an accident happens in a visible and populated area, the airline can’t hope to match the speed of response of eyewitnesses and survivors,” said Mr. Bailey, who previously worked with the International Air Transport Association.

Markus Reudiger, a spokesman of Star Alliance, a group of 28 international carriers of which Thai Airways is a part, said it doesn’t recommend that its members mask their logos on planes involved in accidents.

Andrew Herdman, the director general of Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) said it was up to the airlines to make a decision.

“Historically, some airlines have had a policy of masking the airline logo following an accident rather than have the beleaguered aircraft advertise their corporate misfortune so graphically. However, in the modern era of social media and instantaneous sharing of images, this obviously is of limited effectiveness,” Mr. Herdman said in an emailed response to a query from The Wall Street Journal.

The International Air Transport Association, the industry’s trade group, released a document on best practices on crisis communication after a conference last year that discussed the role of social media such as Twitter and Facebook in the November 2010 engine failure of a Qantas Airways Ltd. Airbus A380 superjumbo jet over Batam island in Indonesia.

The IATA document advised airlines to be “proactive” in their communication and put out facts as quickly as possible because, with passengers and eyewitnesses firing posts on social media, they don’t have a lot of time to gather information before issuing a formal statement.

 

The communications chief of another airline, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said logo masking doesn’t go over well with today’s more savvy, Internet-empowered public. The public expects more transparency and responsibility, he said.

 

“It [logo masking] used to be standard practice to prevent damage to reputation, but the world’s a different place now and most crisis management people believe you’d be sending the wrong message to the public if you paint over,” the airline spokesperson said.

However, many airlines continue with such paint jobs. An Alitalia S.p.A. ATR-72 turboprop plane that veered off the runway in Rome in February was covered in white paint. Similarly, a Boeing 737 of China Airlines Ltd. was splashed with white paint after an accident in Okinawa in 2007 that gutted the plane.

Edited September 11, 2013 by xtemujin

[alberttky 0]

I think they're rather naive to think that by covering the logo can disguise the identity when there are so many other aircraft with identical livery at the same airport.