Lao Airlines

Is Lao Airlines safe?

Mostly, but its record carries one heavy mark. On 16 October 2013, Lao Airlines flight QV301 crashed into the Mekong River on approach to Pakse in a storm, and all 49 people on board died. The aircraft was an ATR 72-600 only months old, and the investigation put the main cause on how the crew flew the approach. Lao Airlines has had no crash since, it is an IATA member with an IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit, and no Lao airline is on the EU Air Safety ListEU Air Safety ListThe European Commission's list of airlines banned or restricted from flying in EU airspace because they do not meet international safety standards.More in the glossary. We score it 63, below Bangkok Airways (76) and Vietnam Airlines (83), its neighbours on most of its foreign routes.

What happened on flight QV301?

QV301 left Vientiane for Pakse in southern Laos in the afternoon of 16 October 2013, with weather from a passing typhoon over the south of the country. Pakse had only a non-precision VOR-DME approach, which lets a crew descend to a minimum of 990 feet and go no lower unless they can see the ground.

According to the final report summarised by the Aviation Safety Network, the crew set 600 feet in the altitude selector, below that minimum. Without the ground in sight at 600 feet, they disconnected the autopilot and began a go-around. Because the selector still read 600 feet, the flight director at once guided them to hold that height, not to climb. The aircraft turned right instead of following the published missed approach and sank to about 60 feet above the ground. The captain then pulled up hard, to a 33-degree nose-up attitude, the aircraft climbed to about 1,750 feet and then descended again until it hit the river.

Laos's accident investigators gave the probable cause as a sudden change in the weather and the crew's failure to fly the published approach and missed approach. Contributing factors included the decision to continue below the minimum, possible disorientation of the pilot flying, poor monitoring during the go-around and weak coordination between the two pilots. Those are training and procedure findings, which is why we weigh the crash heavily, even 13 years on.

The older record

Lao Airlines earlier flew as Lao Aviation, and that airline's record was worse. A Harbin Y-12 crashed in mountains near Sam Neua in October 2000, killing 8 of 17, and another Y-12 was written offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary on take-off at Sam Neua in 2002. Both fall outside our 20-year window and do not lower the score, but they explain why Lao Airlines retired its Chinese and Soviet aircraft and moved to ATRs and Airbus jets.

Other Lao operators with accidents, such as Lao Air and Lao Skyway, are separate companies with their own certificates, so their accidents are not counted here.

What does Lao Airlines fly?

The A320s and the ATR 72-600s are current types. The four ATR 72-500s belong to the older version that ATR replaced with the 72-600. The C909 is the Chinese regional jet first sold as the ARJ21, and Lao Airlines is one of very few airlines outside China to fly it. Its record so far is clean but short. Lao Airlines does not publish the age of its aircraft.

How good is the oversight?

The strongest outside check is IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary. As an IATA member, Lao Airlines must pass the audit every two years. Beyond that, the picture is thin. Laos is not on the FAA's IASAFAA IASAThe US FAA's check of whether a country's aviation regulator meets ICAO standards. Category 1 means it does; Category 2 means it does not.More in the glossary list, because no Lao airline flies to the United States, and we could not see its ICAO audit score. Laos did publish a full final report on QV301, but we found almost nothing on smaller incidents in the last ten years: one A320 return to Vientiane in 2019 with a nose-gear steering fault, which ended with a normal landing. The only damage came on the ground at Seoul Incheon on 19 December 2022, when an Air Premia 787 being towed clipped the tail of a Lao A320 that was waiting to taxi for Vientiane; nobody was hurt, and the fault lay with the aircraft under tow. A short public list in a country that reports little is not proof of a clean record, so the incidents score stays at 60.

Flying Lao Airlines in practice

• Expect weather delays from about May to October. QV301 came down in storm weather on a non-precision approach. A delay or a diversion in heavy rain is a sign the crew is doing its job.
• On short domestic hops, check the aircraft type. Lao Airlines flies the same routes with its ATR 72-600s and its older ATR 72-500s, and the C909 on some regional flights. The booking or the flight tracker usually shows which one.
• Allow slack for connections in Vientiane. With 13 aircraft, one technical fault can cancel a rotation, as when the A320 bound for Shanghai returned in 2019 and a spare jet left four hours late. Avoid tight same-day onward bookings.

How we scored it

The accident record (62) carries the most weight and is the reason for the lower score: one fatal crash with 49 deaths, 13 years ago, on a small airline. Oversight (70) rests on IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary and the absence of any EU listing. The fleet (64) mixes current A320s and ATR 72-600s with older ATR 72-500s and a new Chinese type. Incidents (60) and the environment (55) reflect a country that publishes little and a domestic network of harder airports. Compare Air Cambodia, the flag carrier next door.