Coroner attacks airline for fatal Thai jet crash

The aircraft skidded on the runway and burst into flames as it landed during terrible weather conditions at Phuket International Airport on September 16, 2007.

Coroner Stuart Fisher severely criticised the firm One-Two-Go, and its parent company Orient Thai Airlines, as he recorded a narrative verdict into the deaths of the eight British people.

Mr Fisher said pilot error was partly to blame for the crash but added this had to be understood in the context of a corporate culture which encouraged the crew to work well beyond their safe flying hours and failed to provide them with adequate training.

He said: “It is my understanding, given the evidence that I’ve heard, that the airline company One-Two-Go exhibited a flagrant disregard for passenger safety.

“The primary failure, as far as I’m concerned, relates to the corporate culture which prevailed both prior to and following the air crash.

“It seems to me that all airlines should place passenger safety as a matter of the highest priority. Clearly, this was not the case with One-Two-Go airlines.”

The court heard that the two pilots breached standard operating procedures in six areas as they attempted to land.

At the very last moment of the landing approach the co-pilot – who was flying the plane – decided to “go around” again and transferred the controls to the captain but he failed to engage the “Take Off Go Around” switch.

This meant that when he took his hand off the throttle the automatic system took over and returned the engines to their landing mode and the plane lost the power it needed to climb.

Mr Fisher said the failure to engage this switch was a critical factor.

Bethan Jones, 22, from South Wales, survived the crash but died in a Bangkok specialist burns unit 11 days later. Her boyfriend, 22-year-old Alex Collins, also from South Wales, died at the scene.

Susan Howell, 27, and her partner Stephen Saunby, 41, from Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, who were due to get married in Thailand, also died at the airport along with their friends Neil Slater, 43, and his 31-year-old wife Helen Slater, from Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire.

The other two British victims were married couple Anthony Weston, 68, and 64-year Judith, from Bristol, who were planning a move to Australia.

The inquest heard how both pilots had exceeded their flying hours and had not taken the regulation number of breaks before the flight.

It was also told how the company tried to falsify these records.

Speaking after the hearing, solicitor James Healy-Pratt, who represented a number of the families, said: “It was a preventable accident and, in many ways, it was an accident waiting to happen. So 90 people lost their lives needlessly.”

He said Orient Thai needed to be investigated further by the European Commission and urged the European Union to make its blacklist of airlines more accessible.