Cathay Pacific Convair 880 registration VR-HFZ, with the rear right stabiliser that was struck and damaged, bringing down the plane, on the far left.

by Andrew MacGregor Marshall
May 7, 2020


On June 15, 1972, Cathay Pacific flight CX700Z tumbled out of the sky while flying over Vietnam, killing all 81 people on board. While the crash officially remains unsolved, there was one clear suspect – Thai police officer Somchai Chaiyasut. Did he get away with mass murder?


The rear section of the plane was impaled on a tree. Thirteen passengers and two crew were still inside. The force of the impact concertinaed the rear fuselage into a mangled stump of compressed metal and flesh just six feet long.

Because the plane had gone down in a war zone, South Vietnamese troops were drafted in to establish a secure cordon around the area and drive away encroaching Viet Cong forces with artillery strikes, while the U.S. military airlifted a Cathay Pacific investigation team to the site, led by the airline’s operations manager Bernie Smith.

Examining the central fuselage of the stricken plane, they found overwhelming evidence that a blast had punched a gaping hole in the aircraft beside seat 10F, over the wing.

Somchai, who was based at Don Muang, had behaved strangely on the day of the crash. He had accompanied his girlfriend and daughter to the Cathay Pacific check-in counter at the airport, wearing his full police uniform, and demanded that they were given seats 10E and 10F, over the plane’s right wing.

Cathay Pacific officials were unsettled by his behaviour in Saigon — he showed little interest in finding their corpses, but was insistent that he wanted Somwang’s cosmetics case returned to him. Instead of showing grief over the deaths of his girlfriend and daughter,..

“They are hostesses whose company can be hired,” he wrote in an investigation report. The women told him that Somchai had frequently visited the 24-Hour Cafe, and that Somwang had moved in with him about six weeks before the crash.

She initially agreed, but became suspicious and asked him for an advance of 5,000 to test his sincerity. When he refused, she backed out of the plan. It was a decision that saved her life.

full https://southeastasiaglobe.com/cathay-p ... ht-cx700z/

'Thailand at the time was ruled by a hated triumvirate of military dictators'

nothing changes, it seems

interesting story, thanks, kfhb