One-Two-Go grounded in crash probe

BANGKOK – The budget airline that operated a jet which crashed in Thailand last year killing 90 people has been grounded and will face criminal charges, the head of Thailand’s Department of Civil Aviation said yesterday.

An investigation by the department found that Thai operator One-Two-Go had breached safety regulations by having sub-standard quality checks and submitting fake documents to the government regulator.

“The company’s lack of quality assurance systems could have affected the safety of its air transportation,” Chaisak Angkasuwan, director general of the Department of Civil Aviation, told reporters.

But Udom Tantiprasongchai, owner and CEO of both One-Two-Go and sister airlines Orient Thai, has vowed to continue in business despite the trouble.

He said One-Two-Go was negotiating with a consortium of investors from Hong Kong, the US and Singapore that operates aviation and other businesses in Asia.

One-Two-Go will increase capital and be upgraded to a full-service carrier, so as to compete with rivals, including Thai Airways International, he said.

Orient Thai will serve as a cargo and charter flight operator.

The Nation newspaper reported that One-Two-Go last week said it would suspend services for two months, because of financial losses. But the Civil Aviation Department yesterday announced it had suspended the two airlines’ certificates as low-cost carriers for 30 days.

They operate with eight MD-80 Series and seven Boeing 747s. All eight MD-80 Series aircraft must be grounded until all defects are corrected, while seven Boeing 747s can operate.

The department will also suspend the licences of One-Two-Go’s seven pilots – six Indonesians and one Venezuelan – due to false documentation. Two Thai pilots have also suspended for 30 days on a similar charge.

The Civil Aviation Department said One-Two-Go trained Orient Thai’s pilots with an unwarranted MD-80 series training programme.

One-Two-Go’s safety standards came into focus when its plane crashed in Phuket last year. Lawyers for the British and US families of the 90 victims are seeking compensation in US courts

A One-Two-Go MD-80 plane skidded off the runway into an embankment and broke up in flames, killing Thai citizens and foreign visitors.

Thailand’s transport ministry in October said a dangerous weather condition known as wind shear was a major cause of the crash, but said it was not ruling out human error as another factor.