http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/16Oct2005_news03.php

Most army copters now out of action

By Wassana Nanuam

The army has suspended flights of all Bell 206 Jet Ranger helicopters following Thursday’s crash of a Jet Ranger that killed the Pha Muang task force chief, his aide and two pilots. A Jet Ranger crashed with Maj-Gen Pairat Thongjattu, the task force chief, his aide Maj Wisit Worawitwattana and pilots Capt Thonglor Nakphu and Capt Komin Thong-uthai on board near the Mae Kerng waterfall in the Wiang Kosai national park in Phrae’s Wang Chin district, while on its way from Phitsanulok to the Pha Muang task force headquarters in Chiang Mai’s Mae Rim district.

A source said the army had 30 Jet Ranger helicopters in commission but most were out of action due to budgetary constraints. A 2005 budget for helicopter repairs was slashed, resulting in nearly 70% of UH1H, Bell 212, Chinook and Jet Ranger helicopters being grounded.

The army’s aviation centre in Lop Buri and the Land Transport Department tried to repair the rest and they were put in operation only with permission.

The source said army chief Gen Sonthi Boonyaratglin had suspended flights of all Jet Ranger helicopters for checks.

He also wants checks on the airworthiness of helicopters of other makes to see if they also needed repairs so that a budget could be arranged for them.

Maj-Gen Manas Paorik, deputy Third Army commander and former chief of the Pha Muang task force, said the task force borrowed two Jet Ranger helicopters from the 2nd Cavalry Division in Bangkok. The task force had two helicopters of this type but they had been grounded for lack of a budget for maintenance. The task force used the helicopters for air patrols along the border. Maj-Gen Manas said he was once on a similar aircraft that had to make two emergency landings.

Col Thanathip Sawangsaeng, deputy army spokesman, said the army has given Maj-Gen Pairat a seven-step promotion to the rank of general for dying on duty. His family was also entitled to compensation. He said the army was also considering a special promotion and compensation for Maj Wisit and the two pilots.

http://etna.mcot.net/query.php?nid=3701

PHRAE, Oct 14 (TNA) - The bodies of Commander of the northern Pha Muang Force Maj. Gen. Pairatch Thongchattu and his close aide, Maj. Col. Wisit Worawitwatana, as well as two pilots were found Friday afternoon with a burned army helicopter crashing into a valley in the nothern Phrae Province’s Wangchin District after it had been missing since Thursday afternoon

The Jet Ranger 206 chopper carried the commander of the northern Pha Muang Force and his close aide before it tried to make an urgent landing in the Wiangkosai National Park in Wangchin District due to low visibility soon after taking off from the lower northern Phitsanulok Province at 3:40 p.m. Thursday.

The Pha Muang Force chief earlier attended an army meeting in Phitsanulok.

The army chopper’s last contact with the army ground control was reported at 4:05 p.m.

A survey helicopter found the charred wreckage of the chopper in the valley near a waterfall, adjacent to the Wiangkosai National Park, according to Phrae Deputy Governor Surong Prabrok and Commanding General of the Third Army Area Command Lt. Gen. Saprang Kalayanamitre.

Lt. Gen. Saprang has personally directed the search from Wangchin District and other areas as far as Lampang Province.

A Third Army Area Command rescue team has reached the scene and is taking the bodies out of the site for religious rites.

Lt. Gen. Saprang said all the four dead officers would be promoted to their highest ranks with state support for their families, as they died on duty. (TNA)-E002

http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/15Oct2005_news03.php

Phrae _ The commander of the Pha Muang task force, his close aide and two pilots were confirmed dead yesterday after the army helicopter carrying them disappeared over Wang Chin district in heavy rain on Thursday. It was found crashed in a national park yesterday. Third Army commander Lt-Gen Saphrang Kallayanamitr confirmed that the wreckage of the missing helicopter and the bodies of Maj-Gen Pairat Thongjattu, the task force chief, his aide Maj Wisit Worawitwattana and two pilots, Capt Thonglor Nakphu and Capt Komin Thong-uthai, were found at Mae Kerng waterfall in Wiang Kosai national park.

Lt-Gen Saphrang said the helicopter crashed into the cliff at Mae Kerng waterfall due to poor visibility.

An army search plane spotted parts of the helicopter scattered over a banana forest between Mae Kerng Noi and Mae Kerng Luang waterfalls, about 2km south of the national park office, at 1.30pm yesterday after 20 hours of searching.

The search team alerted the Third Army commander who then sent more rescuers to travel on foot to help retrieve the bodies of the victims.

It took more than two hours for the rescuers to reach the crash site, which was near the spot where the sound of the helicopter was last heard by villagers on Thursday.

The bodies of the four officers were later brought out of the deep forest by the rescuers on foot because the area was not large enough for a helicopter landing and the weather was bad.

The Jet Ranger helicopter with the four officers on board left Phitsanulok about 3pm on Thursday. It contacted the air traffic control unit in Lampang and was seen for the last time on the radar screen at 5.50pm.

It then went missing over the national park. Early communication errors led to the task force misunderstanding that the damaged helicopter was found in the park that night, and that the pilots were slightly injured and Maj-Gen Pairat was safe.

Published on Oct 16 , 2005

http://202.60.196.117/breaking/read.php?lang=en&newsid=88387

Two teenagers and a monk were killed early Sunday in a fire at a Buddhist temple in Thailand’s restive south that police believe was deliberately lit by Islamic separatists.

The teenage boys appeared to have been shot before the attacks, while the monk died after being slashed on the neck at the Promprasith temple in Pattani province’s Panarae district, police said.

“About 20 men invaded Wat Promprasith in the early morning around 2:15 am and set fire to the temple and the two monks’ dwellings,” district police captain Kittipat Sangwisuth told AFP.

“We found the bodies of two men who were burned in the fire, Harnnarong Kam-Ong, 17, and Sathaporn Suwannarat, 15, and assume that they were shot to death before the fire.

“We also found the body of a monk, Kaew Panjapetchkaew, who had cuts around his neck.”

The attack was believed to be the work of Islamic militants, Kittipat said.

No details about the damage caused by the fire were immediately available.

Nearly 1,000 people have been killed since January 2004 in unrest in Thailand’s Muslim-majority southern provinces bordering Malaysia.

Analysts and authorities say the almost daily shootings, bombings and arson attacks are a result of a mix of Islamic separatists, organised criminals and local corruption.

While Thailand is mainly Buddhist, most people in the south are ethnic Malay, who feel a close affinity to Malays in neighbouring Malaysia, and believe Bangkok discriminates against them because they are Muslim.

By Agence France-Presse

http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/06Oct2005_news03.php

The latest publication by Chirmsak Pinthong, a senator whose books have lambasted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, is a little more offbeat _ the pages are only about 5cm wide, and blank. Mr Chirmsak said Khwam Dee Khong Thaksin, or ‘’The Good Deeds of Mr Thaksin'’, is empty because he wanted the public to fill the pages by writing to his publishing house, Watch Dog Co Ltd, or to parliament, outlining the good deeds Mr Thaksin has done over the years.

He said he would hand out copies of the book to everyone who buys his regular-size paperback at the national book fair at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre, which starts today. The paperback talks about electoral fraud.

‘’I've been prevented from expressing my views through regular mass media channels, so I will do so through a smaller apparatus,'’ he said. ‘’Since I love public participation so much, I will only act as editor and let the public fill up the mini-book, as it is more creative that way. Don’t sue me, Mr Thaksin _ I’m afraid,'’ he joked. Mr Chirmsak promised to produce a larger book if enough people write in. However, he did not want genuine supporters of the prime minister sending in their praise without providing names and addresses.

‘’I am giving the public until Nov 5, and I will continue to do this every year until Mr Thaksin is no longer prime minister,'’ he said. Khwam Dee Khong Thaksin is the 13th book to be written or edited by Mr Chirmsak since the success of his 260-page Roo Than Thaksin or ‘’Seeing Through Thaksin'’.