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Honeymooner tells of Thai plane crash horror
Ben Bailey5 Aug 2009
A honeymooning tourist has described how passengers feared for their lives when their holiday plane crashed while landing at an airport on a Thai island.
Nick Harvey said he and his new wife Claire were terrified the plane would catch fire after it skidded off the runway at Koh Samui airport and crashed into a control tower, killing one of the pilots.
Mr Harvey was one of four Britons injured in the crash yesterday.
His leg was broken and he was pinned to his seat for nearly an hour by metal wreckage after the Bangkok Airways flight from Krabi in Thailand skidded on the runway in wet weather.
The newlywed urged his wife, who was less severely injured, to leave the plane in case it exploded or caught fire.
He told The Times: "You think of horrible things when plane problems happen, so I said 'Get out as soon as you can'."
The couple, from Portsmouth, were in the front row of the plane as they travelled from the coastal town of Krabi in the south west of Thailand to Samui for the second half of their honeymoon.
Speaking from hospital on Koh Samui, a popular Thai island destination, Mr Harvey added: "We landed as you would normally. You expect a bit of a bounce. Then the plane seemed to be going slightly sideways, and we hit something."
The couple were among 68 passengers, two cabin crew and two pilots on board the plane which ended up embedded, nose down, in the old control tower.
They were among seven people who needed hospital treatment. These included the co-pilot, who suffered leg injuries.
Another passenger, Aoife Creamer, 25, a teacher from Rush, Co Dublin, who suffered bruising, said passengers ran from the plane fearing there would be a fire.
"The plane stopped and everyone started to panic and scream. We tried to calm people down.
"People started climbing over seats and grabbed their bags and we told them to leave them and get off. Everyone was pushing and we were just trying to get people off.
"We ran down the runway. They were telling us to run, run, run. I think that they were afraid it was going to explode too."
The Britons taken to hospital were travelling with Preston-based tour operator Gold Medal, which is part of the Thomas Cook group.
A spokeswoman for Gold Medal said the injured couple were initially taken to separate hospitals but were now at the same hospital.
The spokeswoman said: "We have made contact with them and, while they have sustained some injuries, we understand they will make a full recovery.
"Our local representative has visited them and we will be offering all the help and support possible during this time."
Fran Denster, the co-ordinator at Bangkok Samui Hospital on the island, said doctors there treated several passengers, including two Britons, one French national, one Dane, one Swiss national and two Thais.
"Most of the badly injured have broken legs."
Puttipong Prasarttong-Osoth, managing director of Bangkok Airways, said the pilot, Chartchai Pansuwan, had 19 years experience.
"The cause of the accident isn't known yet, we are still investigating. We are not sure if it was caused by bad weather or if it was human error."
Koh Samui is second only to Phuket as a popular Thai island destination and offers long-haul package holidaymakers and backpackers beautiful beaches as well as coconut plantations and waterfalls.
Reader views (1)
That is not how I watched the episode develop. I was sheltering from the rain storm when the plane landed. It made a near perfect landing and it was only after around halfway down the runway it just turned left coming to a halt buried in the old control tower. The emergency services were there very quickly and there was no sign of mass panic from where I was or any sign of people running down the runway ?
I have flown in and out of Samui airport may times and never had any problems. It is a busy airport with a very good safety record. At the time of the landing the rain was heavy but the wind was moderate.
- Duncan Walker, Ex Peckham now Thailand, 05/08/2009 09:15
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