The Myanmar army on Thursday said that 10 bodies had been fished out of the Andaman Sea after a military plane with 120 on board crashed on Wednesday, reported AFP. The corpses retrieved included five children, Myanmar’s Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hling’s office said.
However, a local police official who did not wish to be named told AFP the number of bodies recovered was 20. He said bodies were still being brought to the shores nearby. Luggage, safety jackets and a tyre presumed to be from the aircraft’s wheel were also found during operations on Thursday morning.
The Chinese-made plane had crashed on Wednesday in the waters off Launglon, near the city of Dawei in Myanmar. Navy ships and air force planes have been engaged in rescue operations since late Wednesday afternoon, when the plane disappeared during a routine flight from the southern city of Myeik to the commercial hub of Yangon, the former capital of Myanmar.
The plane was flying between the southern city of Myeik and Yangon at more than 18,000 feet when it went missing. More than half the passengers were from military families, including 15 children, 35 soldiers and 14 crew members, the army chief’s office said in a statement.
The military on Thursday said the pilot was Lieutenant Colonel Nyein Chan, who had more than 3,000 hours of flying experience.
The reason for the plane crash is not yet known.
Myanmar has had several plane crashes in the last few years, reported BBC. In February 2016, the crew of an air force plane died when the aircraft crashed in Nay Pyi Taw, the country’s capital. In June, three officers were killed when a military helicopter crashed in central Myanmar. An Air Bagan commercial aircraft made an emergency landing in 2012 and burst into flames, killing two people.
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