Vietnam Airliner Crash in Bangkok Kills 75; Pilot Says Lightning May Have Hit Jet

At least 75 people, including several top Asian diplomats, were killed Friday when a Vietnamese jetliner crashed in heavy monsoon rain as it attempted to land at Bangkok’s international airport, possibly after it was hit by lightning.

Six people, including the two pilots of Air Vietnam Flight 831, survived the crash of the twin-engine plane--an aging, Soviet-built Tupolev 134--and all were taken to Bhumibol Hospital with serious injuries. No Americans were reported aboard the craft, according to Ross Petzing, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok.

Officials at the Vietnamese Embassy here quoted pilot Phong Dinh Phuang, 41, as saying “it was raining heavily, and it felt like the plane was struck by lightning” as it attempted to land during a storm that hit Bangkok shortly before noon. Another pilot, Le Viet Dong, 39, also survived the crash.

Smashed Into Rice Field

A Thai villager near the crash site, 4 miles short of the runway at Don Muang International Airport, said the jet smashed into a rice field and exploded.

Rescue helicopters and a fire engine company responded to the first report of the accident but could not get near the wreckage because of the intense fire, officials said. The nose section of the aircraft separated from the fuselage, and this apparently accounted for the pilots’ survival.

Officials said Vietnamese Health Minister Dang Hoi Xuan was among those killed, along with India’s ambassador to Vietnam, Arun Patwardhan. A second secretary to the Japanese Embassy in Hanoi, Kiyokata Ida, also was believed dead, according to the Japanese Embassy in Bangkok.

Flight 831 is frequently taken by diplomats and relief workers. A team of four U.S. officials had been booked on the return flight to Hanoi to continue talks on the issue of American servicemen missing since the Vietnam War.

Lost Contact With Plane

Charon Peetong, head of the Thai Airports Authority, said the control tower in Bangkok lost radio contact with the plane a minute before it was to land. At that moment, he said, its image disappeared from the radar screen.

Maj. Gen. Sopol Savigamin, the regional police commander leading the rescue effort, said both the cockpit and flight recorders, which contain communications and flight data, were retrieved.

The last major air crash in Thailand was Aug. 31, 1987, when 83 people aboard a Thai Airways Boeing 737 were killed when the plane crashed into the sea off the resort of Phuket.