Flights between Phuket and Samui are to resume from 7pm Wednesday, which is when the scheduled 4.30pm flight will take off.


A daily wrap of Thailand news, with a Phuket perspective.

INVESTIGATORS are on their way to Samui to uncover why a tourist holiday flight from Krabi crashed yesterday into an obsolete control tower, killing a pilot and injuring passengers. ATR, French-Italian makers of the twin-engined turboprop aircraft, declined to speculate on a cause.

A British man on his honeymoon told timesonline.co.uk how he and his wife feared for their lives after the aircraft skidded off the runway. Nick Harvey's leg was broken and he was pinned to his seat for nearly an hour by wreckage after Bangkok Airways PG 266 slid over a grass verge as it landed in heavy rain.

Although he was in severe pain he urged his wife, Claire, who was less seriously injured, to leave the aircraft in case it exploded or caught fire. ''You think of horrible things when plane problems happen so I said, 'Get out as soon as you can,'' Mr Harvey, 32, said from hospital on the island.

Three Irish women told the Press Association how they climbed through mangled wreckage, suffering only cuts and bruises. The friends, who had been travelling around south-east Asia, were in row ten, just four seats away from a crushing impact.

Aoife Creamer, 25, a teacher, from Rush, north Co Dublin told how panicked passengers ran from the jet amid fears of a fire. Her sister Orlagh, a 20-year-old student, hurt a knee and their friend Lesley Dowdall, 23, sprained a wrist

AFP reported that Bangkok Airways said the company had owned the ATR-72-500 aircraft since July 2001 and it was insured for 250 million dollars. Bangkok Airways' president Puttipong Prasattong Osot told reporters that pilot Chatchai Pansuwan had worked with the airline for 19 years and had flown that model of aircraft for the past 14 years.

The Daily Express reported that the left-hand side of the cockpit and the left wing of the plane struck the old control tower, which is now being used as the airport fire station. A small fire broke out near the cockpit but was extinguished quickly. The co-pilot suffered leg injuries and was stuck in the aircraft for more than two hours. Britons taken to hospital were travelling with Preston-based tour operator Gold Medal, part of the Thomas Cook group.

telegraph.co.uk added that in 2007 90 people were killed when a flight to the Thai resort island of Phuket burst into flames after it slid off the runway when landing in bad weather. Torrential rain is common during the summer monsoon season.

A Thai airport official has been quoted by local press as saying, ''During the landing there was a strong wind. What happened is similar to the crash of the One-Two-Go plane in Phuket.'' The full official report into the Phuket crash has yet to be released, even though the second anniversary is coming on September 16.


news.com.au There are fears foreign powers such as China are hunting a laptop taken from the hotel room of a Australian naval intelligence officer in Bangkok. Peter de Maskens, a lieutenant commander and signals specialist in the Royal Australian Navy, was attending a week-long seminar, starting on July 4 and overseen by the Thai armed forces, on regional security issues. A Thai police report said de Maskens had left his five-star Banyan Tree Hotel at 2am, travelling to the red light entertainment district of Nana Plaza in Sukhumvit Road. He returned to the hotel accompanied by a Thai person just before 3am. The report said de Maskens appeared drunk and disoriented when he arrived, awakening at 7am to find his Toshiba notebook computer, a mobile telephone, an iPod Nano, his Australian passport as well as Visa and Diners Club credit cards missing.

foxnews.com Securing his status as an international handshake-for-hire, former President Bill Clinton flew to North Korea Tuesday on a high-stakes diplomatic mission to negotiate the release of two jailed American journalists. It's unclear how involved the White House was in Clinton's trip, which state media say resulted in a pardon from Kim Jong Il. But one thing was certain: Clinton's wife - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has been the face of the administration's efforts to bring North Korea back to the table over its nuclear program - was not there. The secretary was in Africa on a seven-nation tour.

smh.com.au American non-proliferation experts have called on the international nuclear watchdog to seek clarification from the Burmese Government over its nuclear program after a report that quoted defectors claiming there was a secret military nuclear program. The report has prompted intense interest among US security experts, particularly in the light of comments by the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, in Thailand.She said there had been ''co-operation between North Korea and Burma in the past'' and that North Korea had provided Burma with high-technology materials barred by the UN Security Council.

The Nation Public Health Minister Witthaya Kaewparadai ssays the number of infections and deaths caused by the H1N1 virus in Thailand has dropped over the past week, mostly because people were not panicking and were seeking treatment immediately. New statistics on the spread of the virus are expected to be released today.

Reuters Formula One's only night race is expected to be louder and more melodic this year with the appearance of Beyonce and other global music stars at the first ''F1 Rocks'' concert, organizers say. Beyonce will be joined by the Black Eyed Peas, ZZ Top, Simple Minds, N*E*R*D and Chinese pop legend Jacky Cheung as entertainment over three days in Singapore from September 24, adding to Formula One's night-time grand prix weekend.

DPA One of Phuket's most magnificent historic mansions, the house of Phra Pitak Chinpracha (whose Chinese name was Tan Ma-siang), has been rented out to the Blue Elephant restaurant chain on a 30-year-lease basis and will be open to the public by November, if reconstruction goes as planned. The century-old 20-room mansion, built in Phuket's old Chinatown, has been vacant for decades and was in considerable disrepair. Gentrification has come piecemeal to Phuket town. "We would like to see authorities close the streets to traffic and maybe bring back the rickshaws," one designer said. One major obstacle to luring more tourists to Chinatown is Phuket's taxi fleet, a cartel of sorts that is charging the most expensive fares in Thailand.

Associated Press The US National Transportation Safety Board has issued its final report in the case of a go! airlines flight from Honolulu that overflew Hilo International Airport by 50 kilometres last year because the pilots fell asleep. The board confirmed an initial finding that the captain and first officer inadvertently fell asleep while the plane was on autopilot. The board said a contributing factor was the captain's previously undiagnosed severe obstructive sleep apnoea. The aircraft later landed safely.

Bernama Up to 48 percent of all new hotel developments in Phuket are experiencing major construction delays, says the Phuket Hotel Market Update mid-year report by the hospitality consulting firm, C9 Hotelworks. C9's managing director Bill Barnett said that despite the delays, new developments continued to enter the stream, with 38 properties offering 6231 rooms at various stages of advancement in the construction cycle. ''Non-traditional products such as hotel managed villas and condos now represent 34 percent of the upcoming inventory,'' he added. The report also noted that branded hotels outperformed non-branded properties rate wise by 33.7 percent.The non-brand sector however outperformed the brands on occupancy by 12.4 percent.

indianexpress.com A special court at Muzaffar Nagar has sentenced a Thai national to eight years imprisonment for carrying a forged passport. Meesal Yong, 35, has been in jail since 2004. The sentence included two years imprisonment for cheating by impersonation, eight years each for forgery and using forged documents, and five years for violation of the Foreigners Act. A fine of Rs 45,000 was also imposed on her.

eturbonews.com Pullman hotels, designed for the modern business and leisure traveler, has announced the addition of five hotels to its ever-growing network in Asia. The Pullman Phuket Arcadia Naithon Beach will be a newly-built, beachfront hotel situated on the white, sandy, and quiet Naithon Beach, ''one of Phuket's newest and most promising bays'' and is only 15 minutes by car from the Phuket International Airport. With 260 guest rooms and 20 villas, the hotel has comprehensive facilities including three restaurants, a lobby bar, two pools with pool bars, a fitness center, and day spa, as well as meeting facilities. The hotel will open in late 2011.

asiatraveltips.com Langham Hotels International has doubled its footprint in Thailand to four properties following the signing of a deal with Bangkok Mass Transit System to manage two new five-star properties. The Langham and Langham Place brand will be introduced simultaneously in the city when they open in 2012. The Langham, Sukhumvit, will will feature 230 spacious guestrooms and suites as well as 80 Langham Residences. The 400-room Langham Place, Phayathai, close to Siam Centre will feature a DJ in the lobby.

telepgraph.co.uk The Taj Mahal is to be surrounded by ropewalks, a suspension bridge, cable cars and a Ferris wheel under a plan critics have branded insensitive. Conservationists described the projects as the ''most insensitive imaginable.'' O. P. Jain, of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, said he hoped the project would be stopped. ''Tourism is not everything. The people who come to see the Taj are not the kind of people who like to go by ropeway or see it in front of a Ferris wheel.''


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Photo Album Is there room for 16 more people prepared to make sacrifices on Phuket during the annual Vegetarian festival? Visiting at that time are the leaders of the Asean Plus Six nations.
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MediaWATCH: Terror Cell's 'Aussie Attack' Foiled
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MediaWATCH: Protest Crushing Alarms Malaysia
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