Laos Airlines Plane crash

[arjay]

An aircraft crashed into the Mekong river in Laos on Wednesday and 39 people were killed, local media reported.

A Lao Airlines plane on an internal flight from the capital, Vientiane, to the south of the country, crashed into the Mekong in the late afternoon, China's Xinhua state news agency said, citing the airline.

A television station in neighbouring Thailand said 39 people had been killed. Airline and government officials in Laos were not immediately available for comment.

Lao plane crashes into Mekong River
A Lao Airlines plane from Vientiane crashed just before landing at Pakse airport on Wednesday, an airline official said. No casualties were reported. The ART twin-turbo plane flight QV301 with about 40 passengers on board crashed into the Mekong River ... [Published Voice of Russia - 51 mins ago]

It was apparently one of the turbo prop types.

And I'm booked to fly with Lao Airlines tomorrow, albeit on an Airbus A320 to Luang Prabang!


http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/1016/480765 ... ane-crash/

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-16/a ... sh/5027442

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-paci ... 12979.html

[Svein66]

[arjay]

A couple more links:

http://news.sky.com/story/1155336/dozen ... kong-river

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24554128

[rjj04]

Tried to fly through the remnants of this typhoon system he had go through today? With all the accidents lately, there seems to be some serious pilot retraining required.

[FrazeeDK]

let's see if any warnings come out from western embassies about flying Lao Air... Back in 2002 Lao Aviation had a number of crashes and maintenance problems and the U.S. Embassy put out warnings on flying any of Lao Aviation's aircraft other than their ATR's.

[Bandung_Dero]

The photo above IS NOT the actual crash wreckage. If you want accurate info goto this site:

http://avherald.com/h?article=46a05359&opt=0

A ground witness described the aircraft appeared to have been hit by a strong gust, its nose rose, then the aircraft came down near Done Kho Island about 9km northwest of Pakse Airport and was completely submerged in the Mekong River (editorial note: a photo circulating on the Internet pretending to show the aircraft half way submerged in the water is actually of an Antonov 24, see our coverage at: Accident: Angara AN24 near Nizhnevartovsk on Jul 11th 2011, water landing after engine fire).

6 Australians amongst the dead. The ATR72 was delivered new in March 2013.

[bamboozle]

I flew with tht airline only one time. My seatbelt didn work an the seat back moved all over the placse. I would not use them again.

[Zidane]

According to Thai news,the Cambodian pilot was warned not to land at Pakse as conditions were too dangerous with the remnants of the tropical storm Nari.
He made a bad call and should have considered Savannakhet or Ubon Ratchathani as an alternative,maybe ?
A young Sydney family amongst the 49 dead.....parents,small child and baby.
RIP to all the victims.....very sad news.

I'm sure youll be fine,arjay !

[Sakhonnick]

Horrific way to go, I hated that prop plane Nok used for the DMK-Sakon flight, glad its a jet now, though a few months ago we came in through a severe thunderstorm and at one point the plane dropped a huge amount and the people started to scream, I was shittin my pants, this American guy up the back was shouting " Ride it Cowboy Ride it" Glad he found it funny, for me it was frightening

RIP to the victims, that young family from OZ had it all ahead of them it just shows you how quick life can be taken away, so sad

[Prenders88]

Shameful behavior from the Thai media, publishing the passenger list before family and loved ones were notified.

[rjj04]

I hated that prop plane Nok used for the DMK-Sakon flight, glad its a jet now, though a few months ago we came in through a severe thunderstorm and at one point the plane dropped a huge amount and the people started to scream, I was shittin my pants, this American guy up the back was shouting " Ride it Cowboy Ride it" Glad he found it funny, for me it was frightening

There is nothing inherently bad about TurboProp aircraft. Heck, the C-130 is a turbo-prop and if I had to fly through a hurricane, I'd opt to go through on a C-130

At this point it seems like pilot error is the most likely cause. Coming in on the back-end of the power curve in the midst of a thunderstorm is not something I'd relish doing. Missed approach is appropriate, go around and do it again when thunderstorm has cleared. It is not like he was flying into LAX and would have to wait a long time to be sequenced into the approach again. Anyway, time will tell what happened in this case.