Thai Crash Clues Sought

Police and volunteers combed the wreckage of a Thai Airways jet on Monday seeking clues to why it crashed, killing 101 of 146 people on board.

About 200 police, army search and rescue teams, and local volunteers waded through the flooded plantation where the Airbus A310-200 came down in driving rain on Friday.

"We are retrieving the wreckage and collecting the evidence as much as we can," Police Colonel Opas Sanasen, leading the operation, told Reuters.

Thousands of pieces would be collected and painstakingly reassembled in a nearby aircraft hangar so investigators could establish the cause of the accident, officials said.

The plane's cockpit voice and flight data recorders, recovered after the crash, would soon be sent to Canada or the Netherlands for decoding, officials said.

The 101 dead included the pilots. The 45 survivors were rescued after crawling or being pulled from the burning wreckage. Survivors said swift action by local volunteers saved many lives.

Many witnesses and some survivors blamed the crash on human error.

"It was a mistake to try and land a third time," said a sobbing Supakit Saejiew, whose friend Tawatchai Klaiwatanamath was one of 101 people killed in Friday's crash of Flight TG261.

"He [the pilot] tried to land two times and couldn't. I didn't think he would try again. Then I saw the crash and the fire," said Supakit, who had been waiting to pick up Tawatchai at the airport in Surat Thani, 330 miles southwest of Bangkok.

The plane plummeted into a flooded rubber plantation during a heavy rainstorm and burst into flames about 760 yards from the runway. It had been making a third attempt to land at Surat Thani, a port and fishing village, which serves as a gateway to several resort islands popular with foreign tourists.

At least 25 foreigners were on board the Airbus A310-200. Twelve survived: three Australians, three Japanese, three Germans, two Israelis and one Briton. Thai authorities have not released the nationalities of the foreigners killed.

However, the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok said two Americans -- Kenneth Houseman of Montana and Helen Gromme of Wyoming -- were among those who died. Houseman, 35, was a wildlife cinematographer from Great Falls, Mont., according to his brother, Roy Houseman. He resided with Gromme, his fiancee and technical assistant, in Jackson, Wyo., his brother said.

Rescue workers recovered remains of the last of the 101 victims on Sunday. They said they would scale back the size of their search team from 320 to 50 and continue sifting through the swamp for belongings of the passengers and crew.

"I prayed for the captain to take the plane back because I was really afraid. Why didn't he?" the Bangkok Post quoted survivor Vinai Uamnabtue as saying. Vinai's 7-year-old son died in the crash.

Such accounts indicate that the pilot's actions appeared to contradict airine policy. In June, when Thai Airways announced it was replacing its foreign pilots with Thais, Chamlong Poompuang, deputy vice president of flight operations, said the company instructed its pilots to take an even more conservative approach to safety than usual.

"Pilots have been told to divert to other airports if they have even the slightest hesitation over weather conditions at any airport, in Thailand or abroad. This means no landing in stormy weather. They've been told to be passive and conservative. It's better to be safe than sorry," Chamlong said.

Thai Transport and Communications Minister Suthep Thaugsuban, who lost his sister in the crash, told The Nation newspaper that he objected to anyone blaming the pilot, also killed in the crash, before the facts are known.

Thai Airways officials said that a foreign insurance company would participate in an autopsy on the pilot, Capt. Pinit Vechasilp, to determine if he might have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Thai Airways' last fatal accident occurred on July 31, 1992, when another Airbus slammed into a Nepal mountain, killing 113 people on board.

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