Paris court to hear case over 2007 Thai plane crash

The former head of a budget Thai airline goes on trial in Paris on Monday over a deadly 2007 plane crash that killed 90 people, nearly two-thirds of them foreigners.

Filed by the families of the nine French victims along with one survivor, the civil suit says the crash was an "accident waiting to happen".

It raises a string of allegations against the now-defunct airline, running from exhausted pilots to falsified flight logs.

The crash happened on the resort island of Phuket on September 16, 2007, when a One-Two-GO passenger jet carrying 123 passengers and seven crew skidded off the runway and burst into flames while trying to land in driving rain and heavy winds.

The victims' families have accused the airline of trying to cover up a series of failings which led to the crash, with Monday's case levelling a manslaughter charge against One-Two-GO president Udom Tantiprasongchai.

At the time, he admitted the airline had to accept partial responsibility for what was Thailand's worst air disaster in a decade.

But despite an international warrant for his arrest, he has never been detained and has never responded to a judicial summons, meaning he will likely be tried in absentia.

Among the dead were 33 Thai nationals and 57 foreigners, mainly tourists from Britain, Israel and France.

"It's not about money," said Gerard Bembaron, one of the French plaintiffs who lost his brother in the crash.

"We want to return to this forgotten accident so that the families can be recognised as victims. It was not inevitable, it was an accident waiting to happen given the way this company functioned."