Thai Jet Crashes in Storm; 43 of 146 Aboard Survive

SURAT THANI, Thailand (AP) —  A Thai Airways jet trying to land in a rainstorm plunged into a swamp Friday and burst into flames, but at least 43 of the 146 people aboard survived, officials said.

Police said 87 others died when Thai Airways Flight TG261 from Bangkok went down about 6:45 p.m. three miles from the airport in Surat Thani, a fishing port and travel hub for vacation resorts 330 miles southwest of Bangkok.

Slogging through a swamp, about 200 rescue workers and volunteers from nearby villagers struggled to pull bodies from the charred, twisted metal of the wrecked plane. Burned and bruised corpses were lined up today on the floor of the passenger terminal at Surat Thani airport, and police said they were having a difficult time identifying some of the dead.

The passengers were mostly Thais returning to the province for the weekend or heading to resort islands. Of 25 foreigners aboard, 11 survived, three were confirmed dead and the rest were missing, police said this morning.

“I pulled out about 20 dead bodies,” said Pornsak Jaratrae, who rushed to the scene from his village when he heard there was a crash.

“We had to dive into the freezing water to find bodies. It was so difficult. I never did anything like that before,” Pornsak said.

Thai television reported that the pilot survived, but the report could not be confirmed. Police said at least five children were among the hospitalized survivors.

A police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the plane made three turns around the airport in a heavy storm before attempting to land.

Flight attendant Akadek Pudemha described the crash to Thai television from his hospital bed.

“We figured that if we couldn’t land on the third try, we would return to Bangkok,” he said. “The plane was shaking the whole time, and we crashed on the third try. Then the plane was on fire, and I urged the passengers to jump out. They were reluctant.”

A gardener living nearby, Sophon Sapkong, 42, said he heard a loud noise, came out of his home and saw “the airplane try to go up high. The engines were really screaming. Then I saw a light, bright like the sunset, about four stories off the ground, then a fireball falling.”

A badly shaken passenger who identified himself as Dave, an Englishman, said by telephone from a hospital that he did not know how the plane had gone down and that he wanted to talk to his friends.

The airline released a passenger manifest that indicated most of the 132 passengers were Thais, but there also were several Western and Japanese names. Fourteen crew members were aboard. The manifest did not list nationalities.