Probe gets under way after blaze causes airport chaos
The cause of a blaze at Khon Kaen airport, which prompted more than 1,000 passengers to flee the terminal in a panic early yesterday morning, is being investigated by authorities.
The airport resumed operations yesterday afternoon after firefighters extinguished the blaze which broke out on the third floor of the terminal.
Department of Airports director-general Darun Saengchai, Khon Kaen governor Somsak Jangtrakul, Khon Kaen Airport’s director Athaya Lapmak, and other officials yesterday visited the airport about noon.
Mr Darun said the airport resumed operations with flight monitoring systems, the control tower and ground services back in sync.
For check-in, which were carried out in the car park in front of the airport’s Gate 3, airline staff issued boarding passes in written form, instead of relying on the computer-based system, he said.
After passing through security checkpoints, passengers had to wait until airline staff called them to board shuttle buses carrying them to the aircraft, he said.
For inbound passengers, buses were taking them from planes to the nearby Rachawadee Hotel, to reclaim their baggage.
These measures were carried out yesterday afternoon, Mr Darun said, insisting no plans had been made to continue switching flights to Udon Thani airport, which is already congested.
Mr Darun said the cause of the fire will be determined by police investigators.
However, he stressed the blaze started in the power control room on the terminal’s third floor and damage was confined to that room.
Work was under way to flush smoke and grime out of the facility while the airport was cleaned up, he said, adding that normal operations could resume today.
A total of eight inbound and outbound flights were affected by the incident, Mr Somsak said. He said the blaze only hit the building’s power system, not flight control operations.
Yesterday morning, arriving flights from Don Mueang, Suvarnabhumi and Chiang Mai airports were redirected to Udon Thani airport, which also handled departures from Khon Kaen airport to Phuket and the other three airports, he said.
Emergency services rushed to the airport located in Muang district when the fire was reported about 7am, said Pol Capt Passakorn Khamphu, deputy investigator of Ban Ped police station.
Firefighters took more than an hour to extinguish the blaze, using fire-retardant foam.
No casualties were reported as a result of the fire.