When the front-page article appeared on August 9 last year, airport and transport authorities attacked it as groundless, prompting the  Post to retract its report and publish an apology on its front page the following day.

Despite its immediate response, airport authorities sued the English-language newspaper, demanding that it publish a full-page court ruling in the 15 most popular newspapers and magazines in the United States, Britain and Italy.

The resulting pressure also claimed the job of Sermsuk Kasitipradit, the Bangkok Post editor on duty at the time of publication.

Then on January 18 Deputy Transport Minister Chainant Charoensiri said he had been informed of six-millimetre-wide cracks over 800 square metres of the west runway, used for touch-and-go testing at the new airport.

In its statement, the Press Council said the information from Chainant proved that the August 9 report was not entirely unfactual, even though the cracks had been detected at a different location and at a different time.

The council urged the authorities to issue an apology or to drop the suit against the Post and suggested that the paper review its decision to dismiss Sermsuk.