According to news reports the Royal Thai Army’s blimp crashed on December 13. Four crewmembers suffered minor injuries and the airship suffered major damage.
According to these reports the controversial blimp cost 350-million baht ($14 million USD) but has yet to complete a flight; it was purchased three years ago to provide surveillance in Muslim-dominated provinces in southern Thailand.
My thanks to Dan Nachbar for passing along this information.
When stationed in JUSMAG Thai around 1971, I wrote a staff study shooting down a DARPA study suggesting that it wasn’t a good idea. Looks like the more recent incident confirms this
There is more news out about the Thai blimp crash. According to the army, it was a weather-caused emergency landing(read: they abandoned ship, and it crashed). The damage to the airship was significant; covering up to 50% of it. The repairs are estimated to cost 20-30 million Baht for the gondola and engines, and about 15 million Baht for the envelope. The airship itself, not counting the surveillance equipment, cost around 70-80 million Baht.
For reference, one US dollar equals about thirty and a half Baht. So, ballparking it a bit, the airship costs in the neighborhood of 2.5 million dollars(medevac choppers can cost about $4 million), with the cameras, nearly $12 million. So, quite affordable, if they would actually use it for surveillance missions, instead of endlessly running test flights, fiddling with the cameras, and having to send it back to America for repairs due to them accidentally tearing holes in it and storing it improperly. Aria International takes most of the blame for that, in my opinion.