Image from The Nation/ANN
THAILAND (The Nation Thailand/ANN): A section of a ceiling panel at the outbound passenger building of the Chiang Mai International Airport fell and injured two foreign passengers on Saturday morning, the airport authorities said.
The officials said a Dutch boy suffered a minor injury on the back of one of his hands while a Chinese girl suffered a 5-centimetre-long cut on her head that needed stitches.
Following the accident, Wing Cdr Ronnakorn Chalermsaenyakorn, director of the Chiang Mai airport, rushed to meet the two injured children and oversaw efforts to help them.
The Chinese girl was rushed to a private hospital in Chiang Mai province where she received stitches for her wound before she and her family returned to the airport to travel to Hat Yai International Airport.
The Dutch boy and his family insisted that they wanted to continue their trip to Don Mueang International Airport as scheduled, so Ronnakorn coordinated with Don Mueang airport officials to treat the boy’s injury when he arrived.
Ronnakorn said airport officials provided all the necessary help to the two children and their families in line with the protocol of the airport, including buying new clothes for them, providing new air tickets for the families, providing them lunch and having them wait for their next flights in a VIP lounge.
Ronnakorn also gave the families an undisclosed amount of money as initial compensation.
He said the airport would coordinate with the insurance firm of the airport to pay compensation to the two injured passengers.
The director also apologised for the accident and said he would try to prevent similar incidents in the future.
Ronnakorn explained that the ceiling panels fell, as the insulators of a cooling air tube of the air-conditioning system had accumulated too much humidity after many days of rains, resulting in excessive weight.
He added that the airport was in the process of changing the insulators of air-conditioner tubes above the ceiling in line with due maintenance time. - The Nation Thailand/ANN
