I normaly do not like to post about such things but no doubt regulars 'will be asking' once you hear, so here it is:

4 pm Phuket ( 2 hrs ago ) One-2-Go Jet with 128 on board - strong wind and heavy rain - plane slide off runway when taxiing (?) Initial reports vague, going to watch on TV and let you know

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007...s_30049141.php

Main page for updates:
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/

Slightly different account in Bangkpost Post:

http://www.bangkokpost.com/topstorie....php?id=121720

MD-82 - strong wind and heavy rain, weather has been bad last few days ( reported by Bangkok Post )

66 bodies so far. Very sad!

43 survivors.

and all flights to Phuket have been cancelled.

SO sorry to read this. Condolences to all involved. Don't remember whether any posters were headed there this weekend.

11 pm local


http://www.nationmultimedia.com/
has all the updates, emergency numbers and list of those admitted to hospitals, which hospital, nationalities etc were online within hours.

Very sad. James and Hanuaman thanks for the info from Thailand.

This is heartbreaking. Condolences.

Terrible news.
Phuket Gazette here

http://www.phuketgazette.net/news/in...64&display

Registration of the plane may be HS-OMG. Delivered to TWA in 1984, and later transferred to AA.

The weather was horrible. Typically, aircrafts do not land in this weather in the US these days, following the lessons learned from crashes like DL's L1011 at DFW.

Wow, I'm so sorry to hear about this. My condolences go out to all involved. The story has even made it to Yahoo! now - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070916/...nd_plane_crash

They say the plane lost control trying to land during the 2nd landing attempt. I can't even imagne how horrifying this must have been.

Both pilots were killed and the chief pilot was Indonesian and the co-pilot was Thai. A lot of the local press are already mentioning a recent change that One 2 Go have change their pilots from mostly Thai and Western to other nationality to save money.

9.40 local

I quickly glanced at TV before off to work and it looks like Phuket Airport is still closed as looked heavy raining they trying to clear.

All news in such an event is sad but I will say that the relay of information about passengers, status, hospitalization, situation etc was 'fast' by all concerned.

I am sure Hanuman, Michaelbkk, Tangata etc and anyone else here at the moment would have seen how fast information was distributed.

Yes, info came out very quickly and efficiently. One of the better things that came out of the 2004 Tsunami.

James is right everything is coming out very fast.

Rkkwan, I think the Thai post-Tsunami response was very good(I have to credit the ex-primeminister on that one). In your opinion what was bad about it?

No, nothing bad or wrong about it. I'm just saying that they did learn a lot from that much worse tragedy in 2004. A good thing.

I was in Hong Kong during that time, and communication was so difficult that many people had to fly to Thailand (or Indonesia) just to find out if their family survived or not.