Ocotober 16, Wednesday – A Lao Airlines plane from Vientiane crashed just before landing at Pakse airport on Wednesday, an airline official said. According to bangkokpost , no casualties were reported.



The ART twin-turbo plane flight QV301 with about 40 passengers on board crashed into the Mekong River as it was coming in to land at the airport in Champassak province in southern Laos due to bad weather.

The crash took place in Ponethong district of Champasak which is opposite Pakse district. The crash occurred in bad weather about 4pm local time.

Thailand’s foreign ministry says this flight crash has killed all 44 people aboard. Foreign ministry spokesman Sek Wannamethee says the Thai Embassy in the Lao capital of Vientiane reported that a Lao Airlines flight from Vientiane to Pakse in southern Laos crashed Wednesday at about 4 p.m. Lao time.

Sek says there were 39 passengers, including five Thais, and five crew members aboard.

Lao Airlines is the national carrier of the communist state and has operated since 1976. Its aircraft carried 658,000 passengers last year and it has a fleet of just 14 planes, mostly propeller-driven.

It operates on seven domestic routes and has international flights to China, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore.

Laos is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south, and Thailand to the west.

Updates:

State-owned Lao Airlines confirmed the crash in a statement on its official Facebook page, in which it expressed “our condolences to family, friends, colleagues and relatives” of the passengers.

It said the aircraft hit “extreme” bad weather and had crashed into the Mekong River.

“There were no news of survivors at this time,” it said, but did not confirm the number of deaths.

“Lao Airlines is taking all necessary steps to coordinate and dispatch all rescue units to the accident site in the hope of finding survivors and at the same time informing relative of the passengers,” the English language statement said.

Click on the above image to see the enlarged image for reading the full announcement.

6 Australian citizens, 7 French citizens and 3 South Koreans were on this plane .