The fate of five army officers whose helicopter went missing over Doi Inthanon, Thailand's highest peak in Chiang Mai, remains unknown as the 3rd Army called off a search earlier than planned on Sunday evening due to bad weather.
The ground search, which involved about 100 army officers, was to have ended at 9pm, but officers called it off at around 6pm after continuous rain and bad weather impeded ground and aerial operations, Lt Gen Somsak Nilbancherdkul, the 3rd Army commander, said.
The operation to locate the missing helicopter will resume early Monday and focus on three villages in an adjoining area between Mae Chaem district in Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son province.
Tossapol Puan-udom, chief of Mae Chaem district, denied media reports earlier on Sunday that the missing helicopter had made an emergency landing at Ban Parng Ka in Chiang Mai’s Samoeng district and all officers on board were safe. He said the chopper which landed there was sent by the Royal Thai Air Force to search for the missing officers but had to abort its mission because of weather conditions.
Lt Gen Somsak also confirmed there had been no reports of the chopper being sighted. Manpower would be doubled for the search and a centre to coordinate search and rescue operations had been set up at Mae Chaem district office, Lt Gen Somsak said. An aerial search could begin if the weather was good, he added.
A UH-72 Lakota helicopter of the 3rd Army with five officers on board, including Maj Gen Nopporn Ruanchan, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, lost contact with the flight control tower at 10.30am, about 30 minutes after taking off from Pang Ma Pha district of Mae Hong Son. It was returning to Phitsanulok after completing a flood relief operation.
The four officers on board the aircraft were Capt Suthan Onmuang and Lt Navapat Maneechote, the pilots, and Chief Warrant Officer Chaisakda Thaso and Sgt Maj Mongkolchai Roo-ngan, the flight engineers.