Officials probe plane crash in Bangkok as pilot’s body claimed
THE head of a Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) committee investigating the crash of a plane in Bangkok on Monday said yesterday that the small aircraft did not have a black box to record flight data.
It was also reported that the people on board were employees of Rabbit Wings Airways, not charter customers.
The pilot was killed in the crash and three others – a co-pilot, machinist and company employee – were injured. A woman living in Nong Chok district was also slightly injured.
Metropolitan Police Area 3 deputy commander Pol Colonel Kitpat Pengrung, DCA committee head Veena Nusadin and Rabbit Wings personnel inspected the crash site in Lam Phak Chee sub-district yesterday.
Veena said the aircraft did not have a black box so the team had to measure features at the scene such as the height of tree branches that were hit by the plane’s wings. They also checked the 10-year-old Piper Chieftain HS-FGB aircraft’s engine to determine the cause of the crash.
Kitpat said the data would be analysed and police had not decided to press charges against anyone pending more interviews with the injured people.
The police investigation initially found that the pilot radioed to ask to make an emergency landing for an unknown reason, he said.
Rabbit Wings officials said the firm would join the DCA probe and assist relatives of the deceased pilot and the injured as provided for by their insurance policy.
Meanwhile, grief-stricken relatives yesterday collected the body of pilot Sirawuth Tiewprasert from the Police General Hospital morgue to take it to a religious ceremony in his hometown in Chiang Mai province. The head of the hospital’s Institute of Forensic Medicine, Pol Maj-General Dr Pornchai Sutheerakun, said Sirawuth died from the impact of the crash, which broke his ribs and ruptured organs in his chest.
Nong Chok resident Prapin Prempri, 49, who sustained a leg wound that required six stitches in a fall as the aircraft crashed metres away from her, said the company’s lawyer had contacted her on Monday night and offered to cover her medical bill. She said the lawyer told her the pilot sought to make an emergency landing because “the engine lost power”, but he did not elaborate.
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