By DPA
Bangkok : A Thai budget airline One-Two-Go flight, packed with foreigners, crashed on landing and burst into flames Sunday at Phuket Airport in southern Thailand, killing at least 88 of the 130 people on board, according to reports.
Airport officials initially said at least 75 of the people who had been on flight OG 269 were confirmed dead, with 42 injured and 13 still missing.
Subsequent news reports quoting Thai officials put the number of people confirmed to have been killed at 88.
One-Two-Go’s McDonalds Douglas-82 aircraft, operated by the Thai company Orient Thai Airlines, departed Bangkok’s Don Muang Airport Sunday afternoon with 123 passengers, including 78 foreigners and 45 Thai nationals, five crew and two pilots, said Airports of Thailand (AoF) officials in Bangkok.
The plane attempted to land in Phuket during a heavy rainstorm 3.40 p.m. (0840 GMT) and skidded off the runway into nearby trees and a wall.
The aircraft broke into two pieces and burst into flames after the collision. Fire and heavy rains hampered the rescue operation.
“The fire was throughout the aeroplane,” said Phuket Deputy Governor Worraphot Ratsrimaa, who rushed to the scene.
The survivors, mostly from the tail end of the plane, jumped from emergency exits to the ground below, many sustaining injuries in the process.
At least 41 survivors, including 11 Thais, six Irish nationals, six Britons, three Australians, three Iranians, two Swedes, one German and a Dutch national were admitted to various Phuket hospitals, news reports said.
The cause of the accident was not yet clear, although poor weather conditions were seen as an obvious factor.
“I’ve flown on many aeroplanes before and I can say there was something strange about our landing. We seemed to drop down too fast,” said a survivor, Thai national Nong Khaonuan, in an interview with The Nation TV.
The plane crashed on its second landing attempt in extremely heavy rain.
“It was coming down like a sideways waterfall,” said Alasdair Forbes, a British Phuket resident who was driving past the airport at the time of the crash.
Phuket Airport was temporarily closed to traffic after the accident, making it difficult for foreign embassy officials and Bangkok-based journalists to reach the scene.
Phuket, an island rimming the Andaman Sea situated about 640 km south of Bangkok, is a popular beach destination for Thai and foreign tourists.
Phuket was hard-hit by the Dec 26, 2004 tsunami disaster that killed 5,400 people in the six Thai provinces rimming the Andaman Sea.
One-Two-Go is one of several privately-run no-frills airlines operating domestic routes in Thailand. The airlines chairman vowed to fully compensate the victims of Sunday’s crash.