Sat Aug 18 23:11:00 200717

Fetching...
 
YOU ARE HERE: Homepage > Newsdesk > Article
Crashed plane found in Cambodia, no survivors
27 Jun 2007 10:07:44 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Updates with "black box" found, para 8)

By Ek Madra

PHNOM PENH, June 27 (Reuters) - Rescue teams found the wreckage of a plane carrying 22 people, including 13 Korean and three Czech tourists, high on a jungle-clad Cambodian mountain on Wednesday. There were no survivors.

"You can see from pictures of the crashed plane that it would have been impossible for anybody to survive," Prime Minister Hun Sen, who oversaw the search and rescue operation, told a news conference.

Rescuers who spent two days battling heavy rain and low clouds in the search in the Phnom Damrei, or Elephant Mountains, 150 km (90 miles) southwest of Phnom Penh, had recovered the bodies of three men and four women, he said.

They were now working to pull the other bodies out of the wreckage before taking them to Phnom Penh for identification and repatriation, he added.

"This is a large-scale operation. We are poor in wealth, but not in heart," Hun Sen said. "Our forces worked day and night looking for the plane."

After lengthy ground and air searches, helicopter crews spotted the wreckage of the Antonov AN-24 "sitting on the edge of the peak" on Wednesday morning, civil aviation safety chief Keo Sivorn said.

The crash had been caused by bad weather, not a technical fault, Hun Sen said, confirming speculation the 44-seat turboprop's Russian pilot had deviated from his flight path to avoid a monsoon storm cloud and flown into the mountain.

The "black box" flight data recorder had been found and sent to Phnom Penh for analysis, helicopter pilot Tep Sitha said.

The plane, operated by Phnom Penh-based carrier PMT Air, vanished from radar screens on Monday during a flight from Siem Reap, home to the famed 800-year-old Angkor Wat temple complex, to the coastal resort of Sihanoukville.

Also on board were two Cambodian co-pilots, a Cambodian engineer and two flight attendants.

Air services between Siem Reap and Sihanoukville resumed in January after a prolonged hiatus during the impoverished southeast Asian nation's civil war.

The reopening of the route was touted as another sign of the former French colony's accelerating recovery from the destruction wrought by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge during their four years in power from 1975 to 1979.

Cambodia attracted more than 1.7 million tourists last year, most of them drawn to Angkor Wat.
AlertNet news is provided by

Delicio.us  |   Digg  |   NewsVine  |   Reddit                                                                                  Permalink


Chart for Landmine casualties
Jamaica braces as fierce Hurricane Dean bears down
German woman abducted in Afghan capital
Hurricane destroys Martinique, Guadeloupe bananas
Koreas put off rare summit due to floods in North
Taliban say hostage talks fail, ponder Koreans' fate
Government efforts help only some IDPs rebuild their lives
Cluster Munitions Campaign Launch
Rapid response capacity in mine areas
Chechnya: Supporting the population's autonomy
Dengue fever sweeps through South-East Asia
Thumb for /thefacts/imagerepository/RTRPICT/2007-08-17T105020Z_01_PPH09_RTRIDSP_2_CAMBODIA-PIGS_mainimage.jpg|/thenews/pictures/PPH09.htm
Thumb for /thefacts/imagerepository/RTRPICT/2007-08-17T103154Z_01_PPH08_RTRIDSP_2_CAMBODIA-PIGS_mainimage.jpg|/thenews/pictures/PPH08.htm
Thumb for /thefacts/imagerepository/RTRPICT/2007-08-17T102514Z_01_PPH07_RTRIDSP_2_CAMBODIA-PIGS_mainimage.jpg|/thenews/pictures/PPH07.htm
Thumb for /thefacts/imagerepository/RTRPICT/2007-08-17T101618Z_01_PPH06_RTRIDSP_2_CAMBODIA-PIGS_mainimage.jpg|/thenews/pictures/PPH06.htm
Thumb for /thefacts/imagerepository/RTRPICT/2007-08-16T075612Z_01_SEO10_RTRIDSP_2_KOREA-NORTH-FLOODS_mainimage.jpg|/thenews/pictures/SEO10.htm

A vendor transports pigs on a motorcycle at a market in Phnom Penh August 17, 2007. Cambodia has banned the import of pigs and pork from neighbouring Vietnam, Laos and Thailand in fear of a porcine disease spreading from China, Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun said on Friday.



URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/BKK98400.htm

For our full disclaimer and copyright information please visit http://www.alertnet.org