Air safety no trifling matter

EDITORIAL

Published: 17 Jul 2012 at 00.00
Newspaper section: News

The Transport Ministry's investigation of its own problems when airport radar went off the air on June 21 concluded it was unimportant _ just one of those things.

Permanent secretary for transport Silapachai Jarukasemrat resolved that no one was to blame. A one-hour system outage, the disruption, delay and diversion of 50 flights and the huge cost in time and money for dozens of companies and thousands of passengers are to be swept under the rug.

Airlines, airport workers and the government should make certain it is not.

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bern1005
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Discussion 5 : 17 Jul 2012 at 09.125
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The comment about Cambodian Col. Seng Phearin confirming that his troops fired on a Thai aircraft is somewhat misleading. The only non-Thai report I can find of this states that he insisted they fired on a military aircraft and not on a civilian aircraft.

This is still something to be condemned, but it is substantially different from the impression given here.
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bern1005
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Discussion 4 : 17 Jul 2012 at 09.064
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The failure to ensure backup systems are well designed and functioning (and periodically tested) is not anyone's responsibility? That would be truly astonishing, if it were true. If it were true, that would be a major flaw that needed to be urgently addressed.

Or is the truth that the person who is responsible is too well connected to be allowed to be blamed?
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rebel4ever
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Discussion 3 : 17 Jul 2012 at 08.153
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Thailand may hope that the Thai Army has proper backup systems for enemy radar detection... Otherwise the enemy is walking in Bangkok streets before they know it....
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robins
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Discussion 2 : 17 Jul 2012 at 06.282
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Any system can fail, assuming the back up system had been properly maintained and checked but failed anyway, it's quite possible no person or entity was really at fault. On the other hand, if the backup system had not been properly maintained and checked, that's completely different.
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Victor
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Discussion 1 : 17 Jul 2012 at 06.171
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Preventive maintenance, or the lack thereoff, must have been the real cause. Overhauling the entire engineering team should be in order if this agency were run by private entity.
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Air safety no trifling matter | Bangkok Post: opinion