Ten Cheat Death in Pattaya Plane Crash
Plane Crash January 2003 Thailand.
Nine passengers and a pilot escaped with minor injuries when a Britten-Norman BNA2 Islander belonging to Skydive Thailand crashed in a cassava field shortly after take-off. At approximately 1 pm on Tuesday, January 14, the plane took off from Pattaya Airport and, after being airborne for two minutes and climbing to around six-hundred-feet, ran into difficulties. One of its two engines failed, the plane stalled, causing the pilot to lose control of the aircraft. The noise of the impact brought residents running to the scene and the field workers initially fled away.
Pol. Lt. Col. Somchai Yodsombat from the Banglamung police station stated that the plane appeared broken in half, and part of one engine had entered the cabin. The front of the aircraft got crushed, he said, and the force of the impact scattered pieces of wreckage over a wide area. The crash occurred in the Chatngaew area of Huay-Yai District.
The pilot and the passengers were taken to the Bangkok Pattaya Hospital by members of the local community. When Pattaya resident Patrick van den Berghe, aka Flying Frog, was wheeled out of the hospital on Tuesday he was all smiles having escaped with only minor injuries.
The aircraft had an eight-seat passenger capacity and belonged to Skydive Thailand. The list of injured includes the pilot, Asadawut Srirunsun, Patrick Van den Berghe (aka Flying Frog), Steve Bavington, Jukka Holtinen, Paul Moran, Paal S. Dinessen (aka Karamba), Ace Paru, Ms Lorna Martin, and two Russian free flyers. Some of the survivors were treated for cuts and abrasions and impact trauma before being released from the hospital. The initial report suggested engine failure; however, commercial aviation inspectors investigating the crash, found other causes. The wing flap controls had likely been defective, inspectors said.
Despite such incidents, flying is still much safer than driving on the road, particularly in Thailand.
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The airplanes final flight and crash.
See below the gallery for a short story about this incident penned by Patrick van den Berghe aka “Flying Frog”.
Photo Gallery
Click on the images for a larger view.
Plane Crash By Patrick Van den Berghe
On January 14, 2003, a birthday boy, Steve, and his girlfriend asked if they could do a tandem skydive jump and if I could film it. I was a camera/video operator for Siam Air Sports and said, of course you can. The only problem was the birthday boy was in a wheelchair, being paralysed from the waist down. I believed this jump could good be publicity to prove that disabled people can also enjoy skydiving. So, we taped his legs together and attached a rope to lift his legs on landing. The plane, a Britton-Norman Islander, could take nine passengers with the pilot.
During the first hour we did some ground training, position, aeroplane, etc. Time to put parachutes on and off we go!
I had just filmed a tandem jump half an hour before and the plane had been okay! As soon as we reached around 1,000 feet, the aircraft started to stall and make roaring noises. The aircraft lost height rapidly; the flaps stayed–down, shit! We’re going down. “Come forward, hurry,” said the tandem master. He grabbed me by my parachute belt and pulled us all close together. Some screamed, then a big tumbling noise for around ten seconds, and then bam, a big cloud of dust and we were on the ground. Complete silence followed before people began crying from pain.
I was near the jump door and jumped out with another cameraman, a colonel from the Thai Border Police. Luckily, we saw no fire. Okay, now to get those other people out. Most people escaped via the front hole, but my good friend Paal Dinessen was stuck with his hand entangled in the plane fuselage. Being ex-navy special forces, he had his knife out, ready to cut off his hand if a fire broke out. The tandem master was stuck with his feet under a piece of the plane.
Getting everybody out was my first thought. First, we got the birthday boy, Steve out. He couldn’t move on his own; strangely, he was the only guy who wasn’t hurt–not a scratch. With four Thai farmers, we lifted the plane, released the tandem master, and unhooked Steve from the tandem harness. Then we pulled Paal from the front of the aircraft; he was upside down under the starboard engine.
We were lucky the pilot turned the plane to the left before impact, so the aircraft’s propellers hit the ground first, causing the plane to turn sideways. If we had hit forwards, we were all dead! Everybody got out; there were a few broken bones, cuts, and bruises, but everybody survived. The tandem master broke his collarbone on my chest on impact. I had only bruised ribs and hand.
All were sent to the hospital to check for internal injuries. I realised what had happened to me later, at home, under the shower. I cried in my wife’s arms that night. I had survived an aeroplane crash and saved two lives that day.
Did I jump again? Of course, we did. Paal and I jumped two weeks later from a C-130 Hercules at 15,000 feet in Prachuab Kiri Khan, Thailand.
Jump Log – Day of the Crash
