PMTair Flight 241

Progress Multi Trade Air Flight 241 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Siem Reap to Sihanoukville, Cambodia. The flight was operated by regional airliner PMTair using an Antonov An-24. On 25 June 2007, the Antonov An-24, registered as XU-U4A, disappeared over the Cambodian jungle near Bokor Mountain in Kampot while on approach to Sihanoukville. A massive search and rescue operation ensued with thousands of soldiers and police scoured the area. The aircraft was found to have crashed in southwestern Cambodia, northeast of Dâmrei Mountains. All 22 people on board, most of whom were South Korean tourists, were killed. It remains the deadliest air disaster in Cambodian history since 1997.

An investigation was completed in March 2008. The investigation concluded that the crash had been caused by several factors, including the pilots' decision to continue their flight beyond their designated flight route, their decision to continue the descent in inclement weather condition, and poor management from PMTAir. Director of Flight Directors for Cambodian State Secretariat of Civil Aviation, Kao Sivoeun, however, stated that investigators could not determine whether the airline or the pilots were the ones to blame.

Background

The aircraft was making a domestic passenger flight from Siem Reap International Airport in Siem Reap to Sihanoukville International Airport in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. Siem Reap was the main tourist hubs city to Sihanoukville in Cambodia. On the other hand, Sihanoukville was one of the most popular tourist destination in the country. Sihanoukville is famous for its beaches, while Siem Reap is site of the famed Angkor Wat temple complex.

Tourism industry in Cambodia has improved, and most of the tourists were from South Korea. According to Cambodia's Tourism Ministry, South Korea had the highest number of tourists visiting Cambodia in 2006. Around 221,000 South Koreans were among 2006's total of 1.7 million foreign visitors. The airline, PMTair, was a small Cambodian airline that began flying from Siem Reap to Sihanoukville in January 2007, a new route to spur the country's burgeoning tourism industry, which had been decimated due to the country's prolonged civil war. According to PMTAir's website, the airline has six roundtrip flights a week between Siem Reap and Incheon and Busan.

Flight

Flight 241 departed Siem Reap at 10:01 local time with 18 passengers and 4 crew members. Co-pilot Dara was the pilot flying while Captain Pavlenko was the pilot not flying. The crew had received weather information from air traffic controller earlier through phone. According to said information, there was cloud and rain north of Sihanoukville. The flight was later cleared to fly direct to Sihanoukville.

As the aircraft reached the mid-point of the route between Siem Reap and Sihanoukville, it started to deviate to the left of the track. The crew might have decided to deviate in response to the deteriorating weather condition along the route. Their decision to deviate, however, was not informed to the ATC. The controller in the ATC noticed that the aircraft had deviated to the left but decided not to question the crew on the matter.

At 10:36 local time, the crew requested the controllers in Sihanoukville about the general weather condition in the area. Afterwards, the crew requested the controllers from Phnom Penh Control Area to descend to 8,000 ft, which was later granted by the controller. The controller later handed over the contact of Flight 241 to Sihanoukville at 10:42 local time.

As they became nearer to their destination airport, the crew requested to descend to 3,000 ft. Sihanoukville cleared them to descend to 3,000 ft. At 10:46 local time, the aircraft descended below Phnom Penh's radar coverage and its blip disappeared from the screen. Radio communication with Sihanoukville was still normal.

At 10:47 local time, the crew requested to descend further to 2,000 ft. As Sihanoukville Airport was neither equipped with radar nor other navigational aids such as VOR, DME and ILS, the crew had to rely to visual ground observation. The controller asked the crew on whether they had established visual contact with the ground and the crew answered with "would see ground in a moment." They were then asked by the controller on whether they were facing difficulties during the descent, in which the crew answered with "That's ok, that's ok." The ATC then cleared the flight crew to descend to 2,000ft and the clearance was read back by the crew at 10:48. This was the last transmission from the crew.