Three Irish women tonight told how they climbed through mangled wreckage suffering only cuts and bruises after the plane they were on crashed in Thailand.
The pilot of the Bangkok Airways’ ATR72 died in the crash on a rain-soaked runway in the holiday resort of Koh Samui. At least seven people where injured.
The friends, who had been travelling around south-east Asia, were in row 10 when the jet slid on landing and smashed into a disused control tower.
Aoife Creamer (25), a teacher, from Rush, Co Dublin told how panicked passengers ran from the jet amid fears of a fire.
“We were in the tenth row, about six rows back from where it came in through our side of the plane, the left-hand side,” she said. “The tower was basically inside the plane so I don’t know how anybody who was sitting in those front rows was alive. We don’t even know if they are.”
The teacher at St Brendan’s Primary School, Loughshinny, suffered bruising in the crash while her sister Orlagh, a 20-year-old student from Swords, hurt a knee and their friend Lesley Dowdall (23), also from Swords, sprained a wrist.
“The plane stopped and everyone started to panic and scream. We tried to calm people down,” Aoife Creamer said. “People started climbing over seats and grabbed their bags and we told them to leave them and get off. We were afraid it was going to go on fire. It was mental.
“Everyone was pushing then and we were just trying to get people off. We ran down the runway. They were telling us to run, run, run. I think they were afraid it was going to going to explode too.”
The fire brigade was on the scene in seconds.
The three women were among 68 passengers, two cabin crew and two pilots on board the plane which ended up embedded, nose down in the old control tower.
A fourth friend, Aine Deasy (21), from Swords, had been travelling with the group but she left Thailand two days ago after suffering a serious head injury in a fall.