More countries join Japan, Korea in restricting Thai carriers.

[Norseman]

The prevailing mistrust of Thailand's aviation safety standards has been spreading internationally, clipping the wings of Thailand-registered carriers.
Thai carriers, possibly include Thai Airways International, are due to meet on Tuesday to formulate a strategic plan to solve the problems that prevent them from launching both new charter and scheduled...
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/transpo ... i-carriers

[usual suspect]

Nothing will get done to improve things..Tour-buses made out of plywood (95% of them destined for 'brake-failure' related accidents before they crash & crush passengers), speeding idiots driving minivans..killing passengers on a weekly basis, Speed-boats maiming tourists as they swim, All these countries need to do is trawl back thru' years of fatalities here, then investigate what has actually been done to combat the death-toll from public transport related 'accidents' & then imagine the mental picture it paints...making one think about the Thai's attitude to passenger safety on/in their aircraft at a time when they are implementing cost-cutting measures..?

[PeteC]

.....and now they only do something after threatened when they knew they've had problems for the past 10 years?! I guess they were waiting for a plane to crash to justify the expense. Bloody idiots. Pete

"....Transport Minister Prajin Juntong said Thailand must quickly improve airline safety.

"The ICAO has warned us since 2005 about our aviation management and asked us to improve our systems," he told reporters Monday. "I understand we have to improve urgently......."

http://bangkok.coconuts.co/2015/03/30/t ... ion-safety

[brianks]

Will be interesting to see if anything really happens now to correct this problem. The Thai's just cant ignore this one and make it go away as they do for most everything else. Don't think they will like the heat this will generate and will be pointing in all directions for responsibility instead of taking the Bull by the Horns and doing what is necessary to solve the problem. Will be fun to watch.

[JamesWest]

"Some of the key areas considered lacking are personnel licensing and training, airworthiness assessment and certification, accident investigation and airline operations oversight and licensing."

Oh that stuff.

i naively thought that all the maintenance and flying was done by personnel trained and certified outside of Thailand.

the airlines are going to have to spend hundreds of millions to get this fixed.

you ever stand on a street corner in Thailand and a expensive two year old Toyota pick up truck drives by, and you can hear what is left of the brake pads cutting into the brake rotors? that is all you need to know.

[PeteC]

Orient Thai plunges from sky after engine fails

http://bangkok.coconuts.co/2015/03/31/o ... gine-fails

http://flyorientthai.com/en/home/?Language=Eng

[Name Taken]

Nothing will get done to improve things..Tour-buses made out of plywood (95% of them destined for 'brake-failure' related accidents before they crash & crush passengers), speeding idiots driving minivans..killing passengers on a weekly basis, Speed-boats maiming tourists as they swim, All these countries need to do is trawl back thru' years of fatalities here, then investigate what has actually been done to combat the death-toll from public transport related 'accidents' & then imagine the mental picture it paints...making one think about the Thai's attitude to passenger safety on/in their aircraft at a time when they are implementing cost-cutting measures..?

[Frank Hovis]

Bangkok Coconuts

An engine on an Orient Thai Airlines flight failed on Saturday, causing the plane to fall from the sky so fast that panic erupted among the crew and passengers before it was able to safely make an emergency landing.
Flight OX682 was carrying Chinese tourists home from Phuket when the engine failed, and the rate of descent was so fast many passengers suffered from nosebleeds and fainted due to the sudden loss of altitude.

AVHerald.com

An Orient Thai Airlines Boeing 737-300, flight OX-682 (dep Mar 27th) from Phuket (Thailand) to Chengdu (China) with 119 people on board, was enroute near Kunming (China) when the cabin lost pressure due to an engine bleed air fault prompting the crew to initiate an emergency descent. The passenger oxygen masks were released. The aircraft diverted to Kunming for a safe landing.

So a controlled emergency descent to FL080 or thereabouts after loss of cabin pressure followed by a safe landing; doesn't sound like "panic erupted" amongst the crew that matter - the pilots.

It happens at least a couple of times every month and happens to all carriers and all sorts of planes; Qantas had one in a A380 in December.

The rate of descent is so fast as to cause nosebleeds and sinus problems due to the fact that if it were any slower people who don't get their oxygen masks on, or fail to operate them correctly, will die.
I'm not 100% sure but the rate of emergency descent is somewhere around 6-8000ft/min so to get from 32000ft to a breathable 8000ft will take at least 3 minutes from the pilots deciding to make the descent. (FL400 is another minute added on).

[caller]

The rate of descent is so fast as to cause nosebleeds and sinus problems due to the fact that if it were any slower people who don't get their oxygen masks on, or fail to operate them correctly, will die. I'm not 100% sure but the rate of emergency descent is somewhere around 6-8000ft/min so to get from 32000ft to a breathable 8000ft will take at least 3 minutes from the pilots deciding to make the descent. (FL400 is another minute added on).

Well that's okay then, next time I'm on a flight that drops like a stone at 35,000 feet and where the oxygen masks are released, I'll just sit back, chill out, and remember it's just routine. Glad you told me, otherwise I'd be screaming my head off louder than the rest of them, especially when the blood starts erupting from my nose!

[pharvey]

For some reason I cannot open the link, but what (asides from "Orient Thai plunges from sky after engine fails"... ahem ) has happened within the Thai airline industry? Over the years - and indeed recently, I have had some not-so-great experiences (especially in the boxer short region) with certain airlines. Ethiopian, Indian and Russian carriers to name a few... Have these also had restrictions put on them? Can't say I've noticed...

Ethiopian Airlines for example seemed to have zero control over what hand luggage went on (neither did the weight of half the women that boarded ) - I thought I was pushing it by carrying around 12 Kg hand luggage and 40 odd Kg luggage...... looking at some of the luggage going on I could have carried 5 x the weight without a care in the world. I don't know exactly what the phrase is, but something like "Safe lift-off weight" - how is this controlled with regards to hand luggage - obviously check-in luggage is weighed etc....

[Norseman]

Sorry about that link pharvey, but here's the full story (which is a pain in the a'** to copy and paste!

More countries join Japan, Korea in restricting Thai carriers.
The “dominoes” that Transport Minister Prajin Juntong worried would begin falling over a global safety warning about Thailand’s aviation industry have indeed begun to tumble, with China and South Korea now banning new Thai-registered flights and Singapore imposing strict inspections.

The moves by China and South Korea follow a ban by Japan on new flights and aircraft changes by Thai-registered airlines after the International Civil Aviation Organization expressed " significant safety concerns" about the operational standards of the Department of Civil Aviation.

At least three countries -- Japan, China and Singapore -- have now subjected aircraft operated by Thai airlines to exhaustive inspections at their airports, industry executives with knowledge of the matter told the Bangkok Post on Monday. ACM Prajin earlier today worried aloud that, after Japan, other countries would begin
to impose flight bans, likening them to "dominoes."

"Dominoes start to fall and we must think what to do to delay the interval between dominoes to cushion the impact," ACM Prajin said.

Sources said it is likely more countries will take similar or more-serious action against Thai airlines.

"It's not beyond imagination to think that the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and EU (European Union) will soon come out with some action, including a disastrous blacklisting," a veteran airline executive said on condition of anonymity.

Thai carriers could face a similar fate to that of Indonesia in 2007 when the European Union barred all 51 Indonesian airlines from landing on its runways, citing lax safety standards. The US and EU also banned Philippine carriers from 2010 to 2013.

If blacklisting actually took place, the US and EU carriers would also have to immediately end code shares with Thai carriers. ICAO, a UN agency, informed governments around the world about its designation of Thailand as a "significant safety concern" on March 20. ICAO's designation came after it determined that the "corrective action plan" submitted by the Department of Civil Aviation on March 2 to address the issues raised by ICAO were "needing revision', ACM Prajin said this weekend.
The designation is seen as a possible prelude to ICAO's downgrading of the kingdom from the so-called Category 1 to Category 2 as result of its January audit, which reportedly showed that the DCA was able to meet only 21 out of 100 ICAO requisites.
The audit covered a broad range of areas relevant to aviation safety and airline operations, but was intended to assess the performance and expertise of the civil aviation authority and not of individual airlines. The last similar audit was in 2005.
Some of the key areas considered lacking are personnel licensing and training, airworthiness assessment and certification, accident investigation and airline operations oversight and licensing.
DCA was given a 90-day grace period, which has yet to expire, to comply with the ICAO's standards.
Executives of affected Thai airlines on Monday expressed disappointment over the failure of the Thai team, led by DCA director-general Somchai Piputvat, to secure leniency from Japan Civil Aviation Bureau officials.
Mr Somchai met the Japanese officials in Tokyo on Friday.
Top executives of NokScoot, Thai AirAsia X, Nok Air and Thai AirAsia on Monday resolved to tackle restrictions by Japan and South Korea by themselves.

Patee Sarasin,
The carriers, possibly include Thai Airways International, are due to meet on Tuesday to formulate a strategic plan to solve the problems that prevent them from launching both new charter and scheduled and scheduled flights to Japan and South Korea.
As far as NokScoot, a joint venture between Thai budget airline Nok Air and Singapore's Scoot long-haul, low-cost carrier, their executives will be flying shortly to Tokyo and Seoul to seek relaxation of the restrictions. The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore has just issued an official notification that it will be performing inspections of Thai aircraft operating into Singapore starting on Apr 1.

CAAS gave a long list of inspections, not only the exterior and interior condition of the aircraft. It will check all certificates, crew licences and technical log books.

[pharvey]

^ Many thanks Norseman - I'm sure the problem is from my side rather than the link you posted!

Interesting with regards to China....China certainly have had major issues in the past and whilst the quality of the planes in various domestic/international fleets have come on leaps and bounds (quite frankly second to none these days), passengers and the control of is a different matter. I've witnessed fights, passengers opening emergency exits (on the tarmac) and attempting to in flight..... Pretty much a safety hazzard in my book!!

With regards to Thai Airlines, I've flown a couple of the domestic lines without problem and quite frankly still enjoy Thai Airlines.... although admittedly it's been a few years since I've taken a real long haul with them (for several years flying from Asia - China, HK, Malaysia etc....).

[Takiap]

Thai owned airliner suffers engine failure.........

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/transpo ... ne-failure


Edited to say: Ooops, I see this has already been posted.

[Khundon1975]

"As far as NokScoot, a joint venture between Thai budget airline Nok Air and Singapore's Scoot long-haul, low-cost carrier, their executives will be flying shortly to Tokyo and Seoul to seek relaxation of the restrictions".

Typical Thai thinking.
Don't address the problem, get the rules relaxed and go on as normal. Heads in sand or heads up arse.

As for Thai Airways, maybe if they sacked a few hundred staff, starting with the ass@@@@s that never answer the phone or e-mails, stopped giving away first class flights to the executives families or any one with a surname that looks even remotely Thai, then spend that money on

"Some of the key areas considered lacking are personnel licensing and training, airworthiness assessment and certification, accident investigation and airline operations oversight and licensing."

Of course it won't happen as long as there is a hole in my arse, and that will be 20 years after I'm buried.

This is after all, THAILAND.