Picture of the Thai Airways Airbus A330 (HS-TEF) involved in the incident. Image: Ken Fielding.
Late Sunday night, local time in Bangkok, Thailand, a Thai Airways Airbus A330-300 landed and experienced a failure of its front landing gear. Flight 679 departed from Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport (CAN) in China and landed at the Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK) at about 11:00pm. The aircraft was carrying 278 passengers and 14 crew members. The airline is reporting that eight passengers were ’œslightly injured.’ We reached to Airbus and they explained that they currently do not have a statement, but are monitoring the situation. The Airbus A330-300 involved in the incident is registered HS-TEF and was delivered to Thai Airways in March of 1995.
THAI AIRWAYS A330 UPDATES
(all in pacific time)
- 1:22p: According to the official Twitter account of Thai Airways (@thaiairways), the A333 crashed while landing, with 14 people taken to area hospitals. It appears the plane slid off the runway after landing.
- 1:30p: Thai Airways has issued the following statement via Twitter: ’œTG679 Guangzhou-Bangkok experienced incident while landing at Suvarnabhumi Airport. 14 passengers were slightly injured and sent to hospital.’
- 1:55p: Statement from Thai Airways on their Facebook:
’œThai Airways International Flight TG 679, Guangzhou ’“ Bangkok operated with Airbus 330-300 aircraft departing Guangzhou at 16:03 hrs. (local time) scheduled to arrive at Suvarnabhumi Airport at 23:00 hrs. (local time) experienced incident while landing at Suvarnabhumi Airport. As the aircraft was landing and the landing gear touched the runway, the nose gear has failed. As a result, the plane skidded off the runway. The captain took control of the aircraft until it stops and the passengers were evacuated using slides. The aircraft was carrying 287 passengers and 14 crew members. 8 passengers were slightly injured. Injured passengers were taken care and sent to hospital for medical treatments.”
- Sept 9th: Photos show that the Thai Airways’ logos have been painted over. This is common for airlines to hide brand-identifying parts of their livery after an incident like this. Even with the covering of the logos, the Thai Airways’ livery is quite unique and likely most passengers know it is their aircraft. Early in the morning Airbus Tweeted, “We are aware of an A330 incident with @ThaiAirways in Bangkok and stand ready to fully support investigations.” Thai Airways President, Sorajak Kasemsuvan, said the following in a statement:
“After touchdown at Suvarnabhumi Airport, the landing gear malfunctioned and caused the aircraft to skid off the runway. Sparks were noticed from the vicinity of the right landing gear near the engine; the matter is under investigation.”
PHOTOS OF THAI AIRWAYS FLIGHT 679
- Side shot of the Airbus A330 with evacuation slide deployed via Twitter
- Multiple photos of the Thai Airways A330 and people evacuating via Twitter
- Larger photo of the A330 with nose on the ground via Twitter
- Photo of the logos being painted over via The Australian
NOTE: Due to a glitch with our site, all the comments that were originally on the story have been lost. Our apologies.
I have documentary evidendence that the runways at that airport are disfunctional. Any airline that lands their should be held accountable.
What are you talking about you knobber ??
You only need to do a quick search on the internet for, “Suvarnabhumi Airport runway cracks” to find lots of information regarding the many cracks on runways reported on both runways at this airport. Having lived and worked in Thailand for the past 10 years I have lost count of the number of corruptions scandals that have been associated with this airport and would not be at all surprised if it turned out that the wheels of the aircraft hit a crack or some debris from a crack causing it to fail!
There already seem to be some inconsistencies in the reporting here (was it the front wheel or right wheel that failed?) and Thai Airways already seem to be blaming the manufacturer, Airbus, for “landing gear malfunction” before an official investigation has taken place. Shouldn’t they be saying that, “it appears that landing gear failure caused the accident” which would allow for either maintenance, manufacture or another external factor (e.g. debris on runway) to be the cause of the problem?
The fact that in 2005 two editors of a well known English language print Thai newspaper were relieved of their duties (because of political pressure) after reporting runway cracks at the very same airport leads me to believe that even the suggestion that runway cracks caused this crash will be massively suppressed by the Thai government. After all the same political party who claimed glory for completing the brand new airport (and were criticised for massive corruption in it’s building) are again in the seat of power and thanks to the previous political incumbents have many censor measures in place to monitor and remove web based content that they consider “undesirable”!
In the link shown below you can see high-so/famous Thais (one being an ex-governor of Bangkok) talking about their experience – notice that each one has personal luggage obviously retrieved from overhead lockers! That despite the fact that they exited the plane using the emergency inflatable shutes which can be damaged by items of luggage – leaving other passengers with the option of jumping from the plane!!
With an engine possibly on fire and the need to exit quickly in case the whole plane starts to catch fire it is EXTREMELY selfish to retrieve your personal luggage as you put not only your life but the life of other passengers at risk. I wonder if the cabin crew (most of whom should have been inside the aircraft directing and assisting passengers to the emergency exits) did not enforce this?………..well if you read the article it seems that they may have all been first to “bail-out” leaving passengers to fend for themselves – hardly behaviour becoming of Thailand’s National Carrier!
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/368877/injured-passengers-criticise-thai-airways-international-accident-response
Perhaps passengers who retrieve their personal items from overhead lockers in such circumstances should be denied any compensation!!!!
General Raster. I think anonymous did a fine job of explaining. Knobber!