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One dead, 7 hurt as Thai plane slides off runway

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-08-04 16:31

BANGKOK: One person was killed and seven injured when a commercial plane slid off a runway into a disused control tower on the Thai tourist island of Koh Samui on Tuesday, police said.

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The Bangkok Airways plane flying from the southern Thai resort of Krabi left the runway while landing in heavy rain.

"It hit an unmanned control tower," the island's police chief, Colonal Saharat Saksilpachai, told Reuters. "It's possible the dead person might be the pilot."

Samui, located 300 miles (480 kilometers) south of Bangkok, is a resort island in the Gulf of Thailand popular with foreign tourists.