The pilot of a Nok Air Boeing 737 that went off the runway at Chiang Rai International Airport (CEI) will be called to account, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT), to explain why passengers were kept on board for approximately an hour following the mishap in northern Thailand.
The pilot will have to defend his actions and give a justification for why the 164 passengers and six staff members were not evacuated right away during the incident.
“The rationale behind the decision is what the CAAT needs to hear from the captain,” CAAT director-general Suttipong Kongpool was cited as saying by the Bangkok Post on August 2, 2022. “The captain is the one who makes the decision on evacuation after assessing the situation, including external factors.”
On July 30, 2022, the event took place during the jet’s regularly scheduled daily flight DD-108 between Bangkok (DMK) and Chian Rai (CEI). The landing was difficult because of the heavy rain, but the flight crew was able to stop the aircraft once its wheels crossed the paved runway.
A #NokAir ✈️ plane skidded off a wet runway as it landed during heavy #rain ⛈️ at #Chiang Rai International #Airport, northern of #Thailand.
🛬#ChiangRai #heavyrain pic.twitter.com/6xYAXOBgK5— Shalini Singh (@shalinisengar23) July 31, 2022
Normally, in the event of such an occurrence, the evacuation of passengers should start right away, allowing everyone to escape the aircraft within 90 seconds. But the chief pilot made a different choice this time.
According to reports, the captain shut down both engines and instructed the passengers to stay on board until ground transportation to the airport terminal came.
The first 20 passengers to leave the plane via bus took around an hour. The remaining passengers, however, were instructed to remain seated even though the aircraft systems had been turned off and there was no fresh air in the cabin.
According to witnesses, according to a story by the Bangkok Post, the captain only allowed one of the eight emergency exits to be opened after the remaining passengers insisted on getting off the aircraft. This allowed passengers to get down the plane using an inflated slide.
The CAAT verified that the aircraft had sustained significant damage on July 31, 2022, the day following the event, and said that it had begun a thorough investigation.
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