38 bodies recovered from Mekong, 14 identified

[Lite Beer]

38 bodies recovered from Mekong, 14 identified
The Sunday Nation

A Lao woman, left, is comforted by a Thai woman yesterday at a Chinese temple in Pakse

LAOS: -- Some 38 bodies of victims from the Lao Airlines crash have been retrieved from the Mekong River, which the ill-fated Flight QV301 plunged into last Wednesday.

Fourteen of the bodies have been identified, including the Cambodian captain and three crew members, six Laotian passengers, one Vietnamese, two Australians and a Chinese passenger, according to a statement by Lao Airlines vice president Saleum Tayarath released yesterday.

He said a special team from the airline was working with national and local authorities as well as investigators from the plane manufacturer in France and rescue workers from Thailand.

It remained unclear yesterday whether any of the five Thai passengers of the turbo-prop ATR-72 plane was among the bodies found.

The plane crash occurred near Pakse airport in the southern Laotian province of Champasak.

According to an updated passenger list from the airline, there were 16 Laotians, seven French travellers, six Australians, five Thais, three South Koreans, three Vietnamese, and one national each from the United States, Malaysia, China and Taiwan.

Laotian Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong thanked Thailand yesterday for helping with the search efforts when he met his Thai counterpart Yingluck Shinawatra in Nong Khai. Yingluck also promised "full support" to the ongoing mission to recover bodies of the crash victims and salvage the aircraft. Thai officials would also help Laos in identifying the bodies.

Yingluck said she expressed regret over the incident and that the Laotian leader thanked Thailand for its assistance.

The Thai and Lao leaders were in the northeastern province, which has a bridge connecting to the Laotian capital Vientiane, for a merit-making ceremony at Wat Pho Chai to mark the end of Buddhist Lent.

Jong-Pil Park, from South Korea's national forensic department, said the crash was a huge challenge for impoverished Laos, with damage to the bodies creating further hurdles in identification. "They need to analyse DNA samples, finger prints and dental [records]. They need to solve by cooperating with many countries," he said, adding that it could take up to two weeks to finish conducting the autopsies.

In an updated statement late yesterday, Lao Airlines said some of the bodies had been returned to their families, including the Cambodian pilot, whose body was flown back to Phnom Penh. Teams of French and Thai experts plied the muddy Mekong River with high-tech sonar equipment yesterday, ramping up the search for the remnants of the plane and more than a dozen bodies still missing from the crash.

By yesterday afternoon, 38 bodies have been found and authorities were still trying to identify many of them, said Yakua Lopangkao, director-general of Laos' Department of Civil Aviation.

"We have not been able to locate the plane yet, but the teams from France and Thailand have arrived," Yakua said.

"We have split them into several teams to do simultaneous searches at two or three spots. We believe that one of these spots is where we will find the black box."

A Canadian engineer who specialises in underwater robotics said the strong current in the Mekong could make it almost impossible to lift the plane off the bottom of the river and recover any bodies still inside the wreck. The engineer, who preferred not be named, said the strong current meant as many as six barges and cranes might be needed to lift the plane, if it could be found, and they may need to build a wall at the top end to deflect the fast moving current around the wreck.

The French and Thai teams set out on small boats yesterday to scan the water's surface with sonar equipment. Thai navy divers conducted underwater searches for the flight data and voice recorders.

-- The Nation 2013-10-20

[JeremyBowskill]

R.I.P to all the dead. Been on Lao Airlines once and only once as it scared the sh!* out of me.

[jackandjim]

careful flying in asia fellow T.V members this coulda bin you .....

[TommyD]

living inLaos and did fly several times with Lao airlines never any issues

[Benmart]

I grieve in my own way for the victims and their families. Live life to the fullest and be kind to one another. It may be the last day before "Our flight".

[Frank James]

Best of luck to all involved in this salvage/recovery effort. The river may prove to be too powerful for a full recovery. I hope nobody gets hurt in this dangerous job. RIP to the victims, condolences to the families. Considering conditions at the time, this could happen to any airline. It is wrong and disrespectful to blame the Lao airline.

[flyingdoc]

A very tragic event. We must wait now for the Accident Report, and avoid speculation.

[indyuk]

Congratulations to the Thai search and rescue team for their valiant contribution so far. We pray for your safety while continuing the search.

Diving in a fast flowing river while trying to search the river bed in a grid pattern is extremely difficult and dangerous.

My heart goes out to the bereaved families of the victims.

[JeremyBowskill]

No one blamed Lao Airlines, I simply stated I had 1 trip and it scared the hell out of me. It started badly when I looked at the safety instructions on what to do in the event of a crash and it had a Cambodia Airlines or Cambodia Ankor Air heading instead of Lao Airlines. This got me thinking that Cambodia didn't want this rubbish and passed it on to whoever would take it, rightly or wrongly this was my conclusion. After that we take off, shake around a load, lose cabin pressure and have to make an emergency landing. I am by my own admission a poor flyer and this was enough to make me never wanna use them again.

[Cuban]

I'm surprised so many thus far, must be from the body of the plane - once in open water that is fast flowing and full of many big fish.

[Lite Beer]

Bodies of six more Laos air crash victims retrieved from river

BANGKOK, October 20, 2013 (AFP) - Search teams have pulled six more bodies of air crash victims from the Mekong River in Laos, the national carrier said Sunday, taking the number of corpses recovered to 38.

In the nation's worst known air disaster, all passengers and crew on the Lao Airlines turboprop ATR-72 died after the plane plunged into the river in bad weather on Wednesday near Pakse airport in Champasak province.

More than half of the 49 passengers and crew were foreigners from some 10 countries.

Search teams from neighbouring Thailand have been scouring the river for bodies along with experts from the airline and the French-Italian aircraft maker.

But they have been hampered by strong currents which have swept some bodies several kilometres away from the crash site.

"Now the total found bodies are 38," Sengpraseuth Mathouchan, the airline's vice-president, said in a statement Sunday, after six more bodies were found overnight.

"Lao forensic teams and experts from Thailand are continuing to identify" the bodies, he said, adding "our thoughts and prayers are with the families affected by this terrible tragedy".

On Saturday the airline said it had identified 14 of the 32 bodies hauled from the river by that point.

Two Australian passengers, the Cambodian captain and several members of the crew were among those named so far.

The airline has revised the passenger list to show that a Canadian citizen was also on board when the plane went down.
According to an updated passenger list released late Saturday by the airline, there were 16 Laotians, seven French travellers, six Australians, five

Thais, three South Koreans, two Vietnamese, and one national each from the United States, Canada, Malaysia, China and Taiwan.
There were also five crew, including the Cambodian captain.

Volunteers have fought strong currents in the painstaking search for bodies from the plane, most of which has sunk and is believed to have broken up.
In some cases, rescue teams have plucked the dead from turbulent waters many miles from the crash site.

Founded in 1976, Lao Airlines serves domestic airports and destinations in China, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Impoverished Laos, a one-party communist state, has seen 29 fatal air accidents since the 1950s, according to the Aviation Safety Network.

In 2010 the United Nations' air safety arm, the International Civil Aviation Organisation, found Laos was just above the world average for all factors except airworthiness and operations, which were recorded as marginally below global norms.

Previously the country's worst air disaster was in 1954 when 47 people died in an Air Vietnam crash near Pakse, the organisation said.

-- (c) Copyright AFP 2013-10-20

[Ajaan]

careful flying in asia fellow T.V members this coulda bin you .....

Implying what? That Lao Airlines planes crash frequently? Their last accident was in 2000. Commercial airlines only very rarely have accidents and Lao Airlines is no exception. Stop your baseless fear mongering.

[StaffsShot]

careful flying in asia fellow T.V members this coulda bin you .....

Implying what? That Lao Airlines planes crash frequently? Their last accident was in 2000. Commercial airlines only very rarely have accidents and Lao Airlines is no exception. Stop your baseless fear mongering.

Me and the wife are booked and flying in a couple of weeks from U-Tapao to Phuket, on a prop driven plane. Very happy to do so, statistically must be safest way of travel

[anotheruser]

Jong-Pil Park, from South Korea's national forensic department, said the crash was a huge challenge for impoverished Laos, with damage to the bodies creating further hurdles in identification. "They need to analyse DNA samples, finger prints and dental [records]. They need to solve by cooperating with many countries," he said, adding that it could take up to two weeks to finish conducting the autopsies.

I am going to guess that they died from a plane crash. None of that is needed their id was taken and the identities are already known.

[JeremyBowskill]

careful flying in asia fellow T.V members this coulda bin you .....

Implying what? That Lao Airlines planes crash frequently? Their last accident was in 2000. Commercial airlines only very rarely have accidents and Lao Airlines is no exception. Stop your baseless fear mongering.

Me and the wife are booked and flying in a couple of weeks from U-Tapao to Phuket, on a prop driven plane. Very happy to do so, statistically must be safest way of travel

Safest way to travel, hummmm not sure on that 1......... My 80 year old aunt has a mobility scooter that goes maybe 5-10 mph, fancy that might be slightly safer even if it would take a decade to get there.

[Spoonman]

Jong-Pil Park, from South Korea's national forensic department, said the crash was a huge challenge for impoverished Laos, with damage to the bodies creating further hurdles in identification. "They need to analyse DNA samples, finger prints and dental [records]. They need to solve by cooperating with many countries," he said, adding that it could take up to two weeks to finish conducting the autopsies.

I am going to guess that they died from a plane crash. None of that is needed their id was taken and the identities are already known.

Iam going to guess that the bodies are not in the most pristine of conditions hence making an individual visual identification difficult or are you suggesting they lay out the bodies and just assign them an ID based on skin colour ?

Edited October 20, 2013 by Spoonman

[davetrout]

resy there souls