No memorial service has ever been held by officials or Airports of Thailand (AoT) for the 89 people killed in the One-Two-Go Flight OG269 crash at Phuket International Airport in Sept 2007, but we all remember that one too.
Lest we forget, the total death toll for the Phoenix disaster is not 47, it is 48. Thai diver Niphat Kludnak, 37, a member of the Spitz Tech Co Ltd salvage dive team, died on Sept 29 last year at the site where the sunken Phoenix lay on the seabed 45 metres deep south of Koh Hei (Coral Island) after succumbing to complications from repeated dives.
People will also remember the dumbfounding confusion that followed in what must have been Thailand’s most embarrassing display of how not to conduct a disaster-response operation. Testament to Phuket’s safety standards in the marine mass tourism industry at the time, officials for days had no idea of even how many people were on the Phoenix when it sank, never mind what their names or ages were.
Also burned into people’s memories are the images of the bodies of children being recovered from the sea by the brave local boatmen who immediately arrived at the scene to provide assistance. No Governor, we don’t need a service to remember all that. It is just the decent thing to do.
Instead, Thai officials can focus on what they have unashamedly announced as their intention: to convince China’s government – not its people – that Phuket is a safe holiday destination. Trade talks loud, doesn’t it?
Yet it beggars belief that Thai officials believe their Chinese counterparts are so gullible to believe that real progress in boat safety has been made. They’re just too diplomatic to publicly say so.
Among the great leaps forward in Phuket’s boat tourism industry safety standards over the past year is the enforcement of passenger and crew manifests, so that in case of another disaster officials should be able to know fairly quickly exactly who has died.
Other than that, enforcement on any other marine safety standards is based on pure faith. At least Gen Surachate Hakparn, Tourist Police Deputy Commander at the time, had the guts to publicly announce that of more than 400 boats operating in Phuket waters, 200 had failed to meet basic safety standards in the aftermath of the Phoenix disaster.
That level of honesty is much better than the recently arrived Phuket Marine Chief, Wiwat Chitchertwong, blankly saying that no boats were unsafe as they had been ordered to comply with safety standards.
As for his predecessor, Surat Sirisaiyat, who was Phuket Marine Chief in the year leading up to and at the time of the Phoenix tragedy, he was transferred immediately after the disaster to the post of Acting Chief of the Ayutthaya Marine Office, where he remains.
At least local officials there have already had practice in handling boat disasters, after a tour boat capsized and sank on the Chao Phraya River there in 2016, killing 28 people on board.