Safety checks have been carried out on all escalators and elevators at Phuket Airport, following last week’s shocking incident at Bangkok’s Don Mueang International Airport. On Thursday, June 29, a female passenger in the domestic terminal of the DMK airport had to have part of her leg amputated after falling on a moving walkway, which trapped her leg.
The Phuket News reports that the manager of Airports of Thailand’s Phuket branch has confirmed that inspections were carried out on Phuket Airport’s 31 escalators and 27 elevators. Monchai Tanode says the inspections, which were carried out by qualified technicians, found all escalators and elevators in safe working order.
Phuket Airport doesn’t have any of the horizontal moving walkways which featured as the cause of this incident.
According to Monchai, after the Don Mueang incident, AoT contacted the escalator and elevator manufacturer to request the inspection. He says the checks were in addition to routine checks last carried out in February. In a Thai PBS article he absolved the airport of any responsibility saying it was the responsibility of the manufacturer or the maintenance, despite the walkways/travelators being installed 27 years ago.
Meanwhile, the Phuket office of the Public Relations Department has issued a statement to confirm the safety of all escalators at Phuket Airport.
“Experts from a private company have confirmed that escalators inside Phuket Airport have been replaced with all new models. The safety of the systems fully complies with the requirements specified by the Council of Engineers of Thailand to ensure the safety of escalator users. If an object enters the mechanism, the safety system will immediately stop the operation of the escalator.”
In related news, the Bangkok Post reports that the Engineering Institute of Thailand says a broken suitcase when may have caused the Don Mueang incident, or that something ‘fell’ on the yellow safety plate at the end of the walkway.
“A broken suitcase wheel may have become stuck in the moving walkway, breaking the travellator’s comb, which created a gap in which the woman’s leg was caught.”
SOURCE: The Phuket News | Thai PBS World | Bangkok Post
