No one responsible for Service Hall collapse at Don Mueang Airport, confirms AOT

No one is responsible for the partial collapse of the newly-built Service Hall at Bangkok’s Don Mueang Airport in April last year, confirms Airports of Thailand (AOT). Excessive rainfall was blamed for the incident.

Tomorrow, February 8, the repaired Service Hall will open for use, some ten months after its collapse.

On April 17, 2022, parts of the roof and walls of the Service Hall collapsed during a thunderstorm. The hall was built one year prior, for over 102 million baht, but hadn’t been put into use due to low demand during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Luckily, no one was inside the building when the walls caved in. No injuries or deaths were reported.

The core structure of the building was not affected.

Pisak Jitwiriyawasin, deputy permanent secretary of the Ministry of Transport, chaired a fact-finding panel to investigate the true cause of the terrifying incident upon orders by Transport Minister Saksayam Chidchob.

The committee would be responsible for advising the AOT to carry out repairs according to engineering standards outlined in the construction contract.

Pisak said a committee consisting of officials from the Engineering Institute of Thailand, Council of Engineers and Architect Council found the cause to be, “excessive rainfall which caused the gutter to fall and hit the brick wall causing the building to collapse.”

To improve the building’s structure, pipes have been modified to ensure more efficient drainage of rainwater, said Pisak.

The new Service Hall has been examined in great detail and is stable, safe, and ready to take on the rainy season, assures Pisak.

Construction of Don Mueang Airport’s 207.1-million-baht service hall was completed in June 2020 to ease crowding in the then-desolate international passenger terminal.

Travellers have since returned to the airport, however, only 500 of the 2,500 taxis registered at Don Mueang Airport are actually in service, according to AOT president Nitinai Sirisatthakarn.

AOT entered into discussions with Grab about filling taxi shortages at the airport.