An 11-million-dollar airship recently purchased by the Royal Thai Army has been grounded for the past month because of leaks, news reports said Tuesday. The US-made Aeros 40D aircraft, which was delivered in May, has been sitting in a hangar because of several ruptures in the stitching on the aircraft's body that could not be repaired with glue, the Bangkok Post reported. "It's been left deflated in a hangar," an unnamed army source told the English-language daily.
The army purchased the helium-filled aircraft to conduct surveillance in Thailand's three troubled southernmost provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala, where a separatist struggle has claimed 4,000 lives over the past six years. The local press criticized the purchase because the aircraft, if it should ever fly, could be easily damaged by ground fire.
The military has gone on a buying spree since its last coup in 2006 when it ousted the populist but corrupt former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The military budget jumped 60 per cent in 2007 and 18 per cent each in 2008 and 2009. Several investments have been questionable.
The military faced a scandal this year when recently purchased British-made detectors were proven ineffective, having failed to detect explosives 16 times out of 20 in tests. The military has ordered about 1,000 of the GT-200 devices over the past four years for bomb detection, primarily in the three southern provinces. The military came under pressure to test the GT-200 after a similar bomb detector made by the same company was criticized for its ineffectiveness.