Air Bagan Crash at Heho

I was quite shocked to read the news when familiar words like Air Bagan and Heho airport jumped at me.

If I hadn't visited Myanmar earlier this year, Air Bagan would just be another domestic budget airline in a developing country to me, and Heho airport another tiny domestic terminal in a strange country.

But they are not quite so fremd to me.  Although within Myanmar, I flew via another domestic airline Yangon Airways, and also touched down at Heho airport to visit the Pindaya Caves and Inle Lake, strangely enough, there would always be Air Bagan and Air Mandalay flying to the same destination, at the same time, and none of the flights would be completely full.

As Myanmar had recently opened to the world, the domestic airports are rather down-to-earth.  There are no electronic signboards announcing boarding of the flights.  Instead, passengers are given a sticker of the respective airlines for the ground staff to identify them.  When the flight is ready for take-off, a ground staff would walk around with a whiteboard with the flight number announcing for boarding.  If one is not alert, it may be possible to miss the flight, but then, there are also 2 other airlines flying at the same time, so I suppose it would be impossible to miss the flight.  However, should more tourists be keen to visit Myanmar beyond Yangon, the existing infrastructure may not cope.  Then again, infrastructure in the second-tier cities in China have improved by leaps and bounds and now flushing toilets are almost a given in many cities there, so Myanmar, with the right investments, will always progress.

In the DW article, a government official was quoted on fire being a possible cause of the crash.  Another article I read cited fog as a reason for the pilot mistaking a rice field as the runway.  The plane broke into two and killed a motorcylist when it crashed.  Investigations are still ongoing on the crash. 

http://www.dw.de/air-bagan-plane-crash-kills-at-least-two-in-myanmar/a-16478055