One Two go - Not for Mr.Borland

OG269 of One Two Go Airlines was not lucky for many except Robert Borland, an Australian. The MD 82 McDonnell Douglas carrier met with a fateful accident on this sunday, 16th September, of which close to 91 passengers were claimed to be dead among the 130 passengers on board.

For Robert Borland it was the second survival at Phuket in less than 3 years. Mr Borland's mother Muriel Robertson, 71, said her son, who also survived the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami in Phuket, did the same now as then - he reassured her.

"He did the same when the tsunami hit. All I got was: 'Hi mum, I'm all right.' And I said: 'Good, what's happened?' And he said: 'I'm in hospital, I was in a plane crash,' '' she said.
Mr Borland told his mother that he had escaped life-threatening injuries - his head and torso were OK, she said - but he had a broken right arm and burnt legs.
She expressed her gratitude to the person who reportedly pulled Mr Borland from the burning wreckage.
"I wouldn't know what to say to that person. I would probably embarrass him by falling all over him."

Mystery saviour
A witness said Mr Borland survived thanks to an unknown passenger dragging him from the inferno.
"There was a passenger sitting close to him who dragged him out of the aircraft," Mr Borland's Norwegian friend, Sten Jensen, said from a Phuket hospital last night.
"There is one man you have to thank for his life. We don't know who, we don't know his nationality - he [Mr Borland] broke one arm and has a little bit of burn … they are planning surgery tonight with his arm.
"He had fire all over his pants … he is alive and that's the important thing. We are glad he is alive and special when so many people died on this terrible accident."
Mr Borland was returning from Singapore, where he had gone to renew his visa for Thailand, where he has worked in property developing for the past 10 years.
He spoke briefly to the Herald from the Phuket hospital, and said only that he was "all right".

courtesy : AP and SMH