1985 Thai Airways Boeing 737 accident near Phuket
Boeing 737-2P5 · The 1985 accident of a Thai Airways Boeing 737 near Phuket occurred on 15 April 1985
From Don Mueang International Airport (DMK) to Phuket International Airport (HKT)
Event
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- Event fatalities
- 11 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
Boeing 737-2P5
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- HS-TBB
- Operator
- Thai Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- 11
- Route
- From Don Mueang International Airport (DMK)To Phuket International Airport (HKT)
Cause areas
- Not determined › Not determined
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Not plotted · Not plotted: the Wikipedia article gives no coordinates, and its site names no town or airport that matches exactly.
From the Wikipedia article
The 1985 accident of a Thai Airways Boeing 737 near Phuket occurred on 15 April 1985. On that day a Boeing 737-2P5, which was operating a Thai domestic scheduled flight of Thai Airways from Bangkok-Don Mueang Airport to Phuket Airport, collided with a mountain, killing all 11 occupants of the aircraft.
Accident sequence
The aircraft's takeoff in Bangkok and the flight towards Phuket initially proceeded without any particular incidents. Four minutes after the pilots had received clearance to descend to 3,000 feet for the approach to Phuket, the captain reported that he could not receive a DME signal. At 23:24 air traffic control in Phuket asked the pilots whether they would prefer to carry out a VOR approach to runway 09 instead of a visual approach to runway 27. At the pilots' request the approach to runway 27 was continued, until a little later the captain reported that during the descent at an altitude of 3,400 feet both engines had failed and the aircraft had almost collided with a mountain. On final approach the aircraft finally collided with a mountain at 23:30 at a height of 800 feet. All eleven occupants were killed.
Investigation and cause
Cause
The cause of the engine failure could never be determined.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the German Wikipedia article “Flugunfall einer Boeing 737 der Thai Airways bei Phuket 1985” (revision 264706094, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
Sources
German Wikipedia article: Flugunfall einer Boeing 737 der Thai Airways bei Phuket 1985
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 264706094 · 2026-02-25 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q111044812
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- de Wikipedia article "Flugunfall einer Boeing 737 der Thai Airways bei Phuket 1985" (page 12150045, revision 264706094), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- none
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- operator named as an airline in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the German Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.